“Yeah. I couldn’t believe it. You’re a pain in the ass, not annoying.”

I snorted. “Well, she was a slut, I remember that.”

He elbowed me with a snicker. “I know. That’s why I dated her.”

Oh God.

Then he kept on going, as if I wanted to hear all the shitty things his past girlfriends had said about me. Which I didn’t. “You remember Crystal Hernandez? Senior year? She called you a bitch. I let her give me a blow job and never called her again.”

My hands went over my face as I repressed the urge to laugh. When I finally had myself under control, I cupped my cheeks and shook my head. “What a noble, noble gesture. Seriously. Thank you.”

Mason grinned. “Right?”

Dropping my hands, I nodded up at him. There were tears in my eyes, and I didn’t even bother blinking them away. “I wouldn’t trade you for a million dollars, Mase.”

His reply was to beam at me.

“But for ten million, I’d work out some kind of visitation schedule.”

* * *

It was the pain in my neck that woke me up.

There was also the fact that one of my legs was hot, my arm was numb, and I had a headache.

I’d barely opened an eye to figure out what the hell was going on when I realized I wasn’t in my bunk. The cushion beneath me was harder than it should have been and there was way too much light. What the hell?

I tried to think back on my last clear memory, and that was Mase and I on the couch watching infomercials and arguing over whether this bonding glue they were presenting would really work or not. After that I couldn’t remember anything. The only answer I had was that it didn’t take a genius to figure out that my head hurt from the entire bottle we’d polished off between the two of us.

Once I managed to pry another eyelid open, it was confirmed that I was still on the couch. My skull was using my inner bicep as a pillow and luckily I was facing the back of the cushion instead of outward where everyone could see my face while I was sleeping. It wasn’t until I tried to get to my knees that I realized why my leg was so hot. Mase was passed out halfway on top of me, half on his side. He was using my lower back as a pillow, and I think he might have been cupping a butt cheek.

I groaned as I started shaking one of Mason’s shoulders blindly, trying not to savor the weird taste in my mouth. “I need to get up,” I mumbled, shoving at him until he grumbled and squirmed around. As soon as he shifted, I rolled off the couch and just barely landed softly on my hands and knees before settling onto my butt. I groaned, vowing never to drink so much wine again. That was when I looked up.

Sitting on the opposite couch, staring straight at me with a bowl against his chest, was Sacha.

Of course it was.

I smiled weakly at him and got to my feet with a mumbled, “Morning.”

I looked away before Sacha replied back with a “Morning, Gaby,” as I bent over and shook Mason’s shoulder some more.

“Go back to your bunk, crackhead,” I told my lifelong friend.

Mase groaned and rolled onto his back, opening up one sleepy eye. He waved me off, and I figured I’d done my best. If he ended up with Sharpie on his face, it was his fault.

I staggered to bed, pulled the curtain across and went back to sleep.

* * *

“Gaby? Are you awake?”

Yeah, I was awake. No, I still didn’t really want to talk to him.

I’d been lying down in my bunk for the last hour, head aching, the curtain blocking everything and everyone out while I traded on and off between thinking and reading. I thought about my family that I’d just seen and how they loved me, about Eli who was my partner in crime for life, Laila, Mason and Gordo. I even thought about Brandon briefly. Mainly, I thought about Sacha, how I felt about him and how I needed to get over it. Or at least deal with my crush more effectively.