that made her stomach lurch. She stilled, eyes closed, and prayed that she was in fact in her own bed.
“Ellery?”
She cracked open one eye. “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Far from it. Who is that . . . Gage?”
He appeared in front of her, looking concerned and not at all hungover. “Yes, Gage.”
Even though she was certain she was in fact in her own bed and could possibly be suffering from alcohol poisoning, her heart leaped against her chest. Gage was standing, looking right as rain, in her bedroom. “What are you doing here? How did . . . who brought me home?”
“I think you said an Uber.”
She squinted as if she could see back in time. She vaguely recalled the tequila shots, Clay Caldwell, and no purse. Something landed on her bed and brushed against her. Ellery screamed and shot upright, swatting at whatever it was. “Oh my God!”
“Relax,” Gage said, catching her arm and preventing her from falling out of the bed . . . which would have been totally embarrassing considering she was wearing—she looked down at herself—an old high school T-shirt and a pair of ragged gym shorts that she did not remember putting on.
“What was that thing?” she cried as the blur of fur bolted underneath her bed.
“It’s your cat, Elmo,” Gage said.
“Cat?” Ellery was now sitting up in her bed, her sheet tangled around her legs. “I don’t have a cat.”
Gage ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you had one last night. I could have sworn you said his name was Elmo.”
“That was the name of the bar I went to. I don’t know where that cat came from.”
Gage bit down on his gorgeous lip as if trying not to laugh. “I mean, I thought he looked a bit thin and ragged, but he was friendly and seemed to know his way around. He slept at the end of your bed all night.”
Ellery pulled the sheet up to her chin. “How did I get into these clothes and . . . did I take a shower? I think I remember washing my hair.” She picked up a sticky chunk of hair stuck to her shoulder. It was obvious her hair had been shampooed but not rinsed.
“You passed out in the shower.” Gage bent and looked under her bed. “Here, kitty.”
The cat yowled.
“I passed out in the shower,” Ellery repeated, her voice rising with each syllable. “Naked?”
“That’s usually how one takes a shower,” he said, lifting his head and looking at her.
Ellery was certain her entire body was the color of ripe raspberries. Gage had seen her naked. Naked, drunk, and . . . oh God, she’d vomited in the downstairs bathroom. “Oh my God.”
Gage sat back and looked at her. “Hey, it’s cool.”
“It. Is. Not. Cool.” She covered her face with her hands. The sheet fell, revealing the tight T-shirt that accentuated the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra, but did that really matter? The man had pulled her passed out from the shower and dressed her for bed.
“Elle, it’s okay. I couldn’t leave you in there, and you insisted that you never slept in the nude, so I tried to help you put those clothes on. I mostly kept my eyes closed.”
She dropped her hands and made a face. “You did not.”
He grinned, and it was so adorable coming from such a grumpy, stick-in-the-mud guy that she couldn’t be as angry as she wanted. Hell, she couldn’t be angry at all. She’d drunk enough tequila to be a spokesperson for Jose Cuervo, vomited in the azaleas, and passed out in the shower. If anyone should be angry, it was the man she’d obviously drunk texted.
“Okay, I may have peeked, but in my defense, I’ve been wondering how you’d look naked for weeks now. I’m no saint.”
He’d wondered how she’d look without clothes for weeks? So she wasn’t the only one fantasizing about someone she shouldn’t. Or maybe he hadn’t set stupid rules for himself. Maybe he’d given himself permission to imagine every square inch of her body. That thought made her stomach warm . . . or perhaps that was the nausea making a reappearance. “I’m so sorry about this. I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s okay.”
“Why did you come?” she asked, suddenly desperate for water. Her voice sounded thick and cottony.
Gage reached over to the bedside table and handed her a chilled glass of water. He’d even placed it on one of the stone coasters from downstairs. “Here. You need to rehydrate.”
Ellery greedily gulped