Page 51 of Unlikely to Stay
Chapter 13
“Up and at ’em, sleepy head!”
CC groaned.That voice was coming from over her head.Her head that was still resting on her comfortable pillow.The comfortable pillow on which she had been sleeping soundly and dreaming about Brant’s hand on her face until the annoying ass voice yelled at her to get up.She opened one eye and groaned even louder when she read the numbers on her alarm clock.7:58.What.The.Hell?
“What do you want?”she yelled, throwing her hand in the direction of the face looming above her.“I’m sleeping!”
“Man, she really is a grumpy pants in the morning.Has she always been this grumpy?”
CC flipped over and sat up in bed, glaring at her two best friends.“I’m going to change the locks on my door!Why are you here thisearly?And what iswrongwith you two?You used to hate mornings as much as I do!
“Now look at you,” CC said, wrinkling her nose and waving her hands in front of her put-together friends.“You’ve got makeup on, your hair is fixed and you’re wearing cute clothes.On the weekend.Beforeeight!”
Annie held a steaming to-go cup of Sadie’s hazelnut cappuccino in front of her.“You don’t lock your door.”
“Well, I’m gonna starttoday!”
“You know all we have to do is ask Max for a copy and he’ll give us one,” Breckin said.
“Maybe I’ll go to the Wal-Mart in Lakeview instead of Nailed It to have the key made instead!”
Annie shook her head.“Nope.Too inconvenient.”
CC put her pillow over her face and screamed.To her exasperation, her friends were still standing in front of her, looking pretty and put together, when she finished her tantrum.
“Be nice or you don’t get coffee,” Annie said.
CC rolled her eyes and plastered a fake smile on her face.“This better?”she asked through her teeth, not wiping the smile off her face.
Breckin shuddered.“Ew.Give her the coffee, Ann, before her face freezes like that.”
CC snatched the cup out of her friend’s hand before Annie could argue with Breckin and took a long drink.She almost moaned the coffee was so good.Starbucks had nothing on Sadie.After two more drinks and lots of aggravated looks from her friends, CC finally pulled the cup away from her mouth.
“Seriously, guys.Why are you here at the butt crack of dawn on the weekend, dressed like you’re about to go out on the town?”
Her friends looked down at themselves.
“I’m in jeans and an OU t-shirt,” Breckin said.
“I’m in leggings and a hoodie,” Annie added.“What’s so special about how we’re dressed?
CC glanced at herself in the tall mirror hanging on the wall across from her bed.The strap of her favorite hot pink sleeping tank top was hanging over her shoulder and the hole that had been above her boob last time she washed it had grown, almost to the point of giving new definition to the termnipping.Her hair was in a disheveled, bright red rat’s nest on top of her head, smudges of dark mascara under her eyes.She looked like she should have a backwards number from a nightclub stamp pasted on her forehead.
After Brant had stitched up her finger, he had walked her home and made sure she had his number in her phone in case she needed anything or her finger started to bleed in the middle of the night.She wondered if he did that with all his patients.When he left, CC had changed into her favorite tank and boy shorts and settled into bed with the intention of catching up onStranger Thingson Netflix.The stress of the night and excitement of the day, however, must have left her more tired than she realized.She assumed she conked out right after starting the episode since she didn’t remember anything that happened.
“Well, you’redressed,” she muttered.“You used to hate mornings, too.Now you both fall in love and become morning people?Is that how this works?”
Her friends laughed.
“We got up early to come see how your date went with the hottie nurse,” Annie said.
“Iwanted to make sure you didn’t back out,” Breckin added.“Brant came and got the picnic basket from my house but I wasn’t sure you’d actually go through with going.”
CC stuck her tongue out at her friends.“You two are annoying,” she muttered.
“So?How did it go?”Annie asked.
Instead of answering, CC tried to detangle her ponytail holder out of her hair.She quickly realized her mistake, however, when both of her friends gasped when they got a look at the large bandage wrapped around CC’s left middle finger.