Red Hot ~Nikki Sixx

Part 45: Hungover

Nikki woke up with an insane hangover. His head was pounding with the worst headache of his life and he felt the intense dehydrated swell of his skull before he even dared crack open an eye. Blindly, he reached over to the nightstand in an unsuccessful attempt to disable the alarm on his phone which had blasted him out of his revelry.

Once he took the plunge and peeled an eyelid open he noticed he was sprawled out on his stomach diagonally across the king size bed of his hotel room. His cheek was planted to the pillow, a small puddle of drool wet and cold on the pillowcase. His mouth felt sticky and dry with the taste of a cross between a dirty ashtray and stale Jack Daniels.

He rolled over slowly onto his back and realized he was still fully dressed, shoes and all.  His stomach was gurgling from the odd combination of hunger and nausea that only comes with drinking way too much on an empty stomach. 

And he couldn't shake the weird feeling he had in his gut.  Like something terrible was going to happen. Or had happened. That gut wrenching feeling of impending doom.

He let out a sleepy yawn and with a herculean effort he pushed himself up and swung his legs off the bed.  Regretting it, he immediately dropped his head in his hands as nausea washed over him in a sickening wave.

How much did I fucking drink?

Nikki couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten so hammered. Well, except that one time on Ashten's birthday when they killed a bottle of Jack and he woke up naked in her bed.

Ashten. He looked around the room confused as he gingerly stood up and stretched. She must have already gotten up and gone for coffee. Or maybe she stayed in her own room. He remembered she hadn't been feeling well earlier in the day. He thought he remembered it, anyway. Everything seemed to be a big blur.

He reached over to the night table by his bed and grabbed his phone. The screen lit up with several missed calls and multiple unread text messages. All from his girlfriend.

Call me after the show's over.

Where are you?

I'm leaving the hospital. On my way to the hotel.

Hospital? Nikki furrowed his brow and rubbed the back of his neck as he walked towards the bathroom in bemusement. What does she mean hosp—

"Ow, fuck!" Nikki hissed when he felt something sharp drive into the ball of his foot. He leaned against the wall and examined the shard of glass implanted in his rough skin. Wincing as he pulled out the sharp intruder, he hobbled to the bathroom noting the shattered remnants of an empty liquor bottle by door.

Puzzled as to how the bottle got broken, he shook his head at what he could only presume was his own stupidity and made his way across the bathroom to the glass shower stall. He already smelled and felt like bourbon marinated garbage and now he was bleeding. He couldn't think of a better time for a shower.

He eyeballed the trail of tiny blood splotches he'd left behind like a trail of breadcrumbs as he peeled off his clothes and stepped under the hot water. Something about the blood made the synapses in his brain fire up but he couldn't figure out why. And for some strange reason, it was bugging him. The same feeling of dread he woke up with washed over him just like the hot water flowed over this shoulders.

Had someone gotten hurt last night?  Were they bleeding?

He shook his head as if that would somehow jog his memory. 

Something had to have happened, otherwise why would Ashten text him about being at the hospital? Did something happen to Tommy?

Half convinced the previous evening's events would remain cloaked in mystery, Nikki pressed his hands flat against the shower wall and hung his head. The pressure from the hot water hitting the back of his neck provided a slight relief to the throbbing in his brain. As steam filled the room he took in a few deep breaths to pull himself together. As he inhaled he caught a whiff of a fruity, citrusy scent he immediately recognized as Ashten's shampoo.  It was one of his very favorite scents and his lips curved up slightly when it made him think of her. How he could smell her shampoo the night before when he put his mouth to her ear and....