The Sympathy Screw | 18+

Chapter 29 - All's Well That Ends ... Well?

Author's Notes:

The theme song of this chapter is:

Goodbye     by  Kristinia DeBarge

~:~

"Shut up!" I yelled as I inwardly cursed my beeping alarm clock and smacked my hand aimlessly at it without opening my eyes. It wasn't a weekday, but I had it set to go off at the same time every morning so that I could go to the gym.

With the pounding of my head, the gym was not happening today. It never took much to get me drunk, so I hadn't had a lot of hangovers in my life, but I sure had one now.

I slowly cracked open one eyelid. The sun was beating in through the window and near-blinding. My forehead screamed at me with the brightness of the light and I pondered squeezing my eye shut again, but I knew that I had to get up and drink some water or the hangover would just get worse. This morning was going to suck, but I still had stuff to do.

I cracked my other eye open, more prepared this time, and then slowly began to sit up. Cas was sitting in his dog bed at the side of the bed, tail wagging and looking up at me, waiting to go outside.. Housebreaking him had been remarkably easy for a puppy and he was often unbelievably patient about going outside in the morning. But not today. He barked gleefully when he saw my face and I cringed at the sharp noise.

"Cass, please be quiet. Just give me a few minutes," I pleaded with him. He wagged and jumped, so excited. "Clearly, you're not one to be reasoned with."

Cass barked again and I winced at the throbbing pain.

It's going to be a long, long day.

~:~

The pounding in my head had started to go away by noon, which I was especially grateful for when the phone rang. I had always opted for a classic ring-ring sound and the shrillness of it grated my sore head, so I answered it right away. Since I was in the middle of putting away clean laundry, I grabbed the phone and pressed the answer button sloppily one-handed, bringing it to my ear.

"Hello?" I asked, into the phone, without looking to see who it was, as I held it sandwiched between my shoulder and ear to fold another shirt.

"Vi? It's Nick."

"Oh," I replied.

"I had an amazing time last night. I was hoping we could go out again. This time, a real date. Like a normal couple. Maybe we need to be more."

"Oh," I said again. My monosyllabic response was all I could think to say at that moment. There were a thousand and one reasons why I should say no, and only two reasons I should say yes, but a part of me still wanted to say it.

"So how does next weekend sound?" he asked.

I thought for a moment. I didn't want to hurt Nick, but even more than that, I desperately wanted in that moment not to be alone.

"It's probably not a great idea, Nick. I like you a lot and I'm extremely attracted to you, but I made a promise to ... him ... before he ... was gone."

I hated that I still had trouble saying Andrew's name or getting the words that he had died out, but it still happened. Even with the time to prepare, I should have known it wasn't going to be easy to accept his death.

"A promise?"

"I told him that I wouldn't start a relationship with someone I was having sex with after he was gone."

"Oh. Well in that case, what if we just meet up to fuck? I have to get another try at your amazing cunt. Please. We could even take turns being in charge, as long as you would call me Daddy once in a while."