I don’t know what I’ve done, or why, and I’m suddenly consumed with warring reactions. I want him to touch me—God I want him to touch me—but I’m mortified, too. I’ve been with two other guys since Luke, but there was always more lead-up: kissing, and the usual progression of top-to-bottom groping. Having Ansel near me has reduced me to a puddle of want.

“I’m not sure who is more surprised you just did that,” he says before kissing my neck. “You or I.”

He pulls his finger away but almost immediately returns at a better angle, this time sliding his entire hand down the front of my underwear. My breath catches as he strokes me gently with two fingers. He’s careful, but confident.

“Toutes les choses que j’ai envie de te faire . . .”

I swallow back a moan, whispering, “What did you say?”

“Just thinking of all the things I want to do to you.” He kisses my jaw. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” I say, and then panic chokes me. “Yes.” He freezes and I immediately miss the rhythm of his broad fingertips. “No. Don’t stop.”

With a raspy laugh, he bends to kiss my neck, and my eyes roll closed as he starts to move again.

IT TAKES FOREVER for me to open my eyes; my head is pounding. My whole body hurts. I press my hands firmly to my temples, palms flat as if, by doing so, I can hold my head together. It must be in pieces. It’s the only thing that could explain the pain.

The room is dark, but I know somehow that behind the heavy hotel curtains the Nevada summer sun is blinding.

Even if I slept for a week, I think I’d need two more.

The night comes back to me in tiny, chaotic bursts. Drinking. Ansel. Pulling him down the hall and feeling his tongue on mine. And then, talking. So much talking. Flashes of naked skin, movement, and the loose-limbed aftereffects of a night of orgasms, one after another.

I wince, nausea sweeping through me.

Moving is torture. I feel bruised and exhausted, and it’s distracting enough for me to not initially realize that I’m completely naked. And alone. I have delicate points of pain on my ribs, my neck, my upper arms. When I manage to sit up, I see that most of the bedding is on the floor, but I’m on the bare mattress, as if I’ve been plucked from the chaos and intentionally laid here.

Near my bare hip is a piece of paper, folded carefully in half. The handwriting is neat, and somehow easily recognizable as foreign. My hand shakes as I quickly read the note.

Mia,

I tried to wake you, but after failing decided to let you sleep. I think we only got about two hours at any rate. I’m going to shower and then will be downstairs having breakfast in the restaurant across from the elevator. Please find me.

Ansel

I start shaking and can’t stop. It’s not just the raging hangover or the realization that I spent a night with a stranger and can’t remember a lot of it. It’s not just the state of the room: a lamp is broken, the mirror is smudged with hundreds of handprints, the floor is littered with clothing and pillows and—thank God—condom wrappers. It isn’t the mortification over the dark stain from a soda bottle on the rug across the room. It’s not the delicate bruises I see on my ribs or the persistent ache between my legs.

I’m shaking because of the slim gold band on my left ring finger.

Chapter THREE

I’M SHAKING BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN THAT I HAVE A RING THAT LOOKS LIKE A WEDDING RING AND WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER WHAT WE DID? The only thing I remember after pulling Ansel down the hall last night is more alcohol—a lot more—and flirting.

Flashes of a weaving limo ride.

Harlow shouting out the window and Ansel’s goofy smile.

I think I remember seeing Lola kiss Oliver. The pop of a camera flash. Dragging Ansel down the hall and sex. Lots


of sex.

I sprint to the bathroom and lose the contents of my stomach. The alcohol coming back up is sour, tastes like shame and a hundred bad ideas poured down my throat.

I brush my teeth with a weak arm and shaking hand while giving my reflection the dirtiest look I can manage. I look like shit, have about seventeen hickeys on my neck and chest and, I’ll be honest, from the looks of my mouth, I sucked dick for a long time last night.

I gulp water from the faucet and stumble back out into the bedroom, pulling on a shirt from the first suitcase I trip over. I can barely walk, collapsing on the floor after only about thirty seconds of hunting for my phone. When I spot it across the room, I stumble-crawl over, only to realize it’s completely dead and I have no idea where I put my charger. Cheek pressed to the floor, I give up. Eventually someone will find my body. Right?

I really hope this story is funny in a few years.

“Harlow?” I call out, wincing at the gravelly sound of my own voice, at the scent of detergent and stale water emanating from the carpet so close to my face. “Lola?”

But the enormous suite is completely silent. Where the hell did they end up last night? Are they okay? The image of Lola kissing Oliver returns with more detail: the two of them standing in front of us, bathed in cheap fluorescent lighting. Holy fuck, are they married, too?

I’m almost positive I’m going to throw up again.

I take a moment to breathe in through my nose, breathe out through my mouth, and my head clears slightly, just enough to stand, get a glass of water from the tap. To not vomit all over the expensive place Harlow’s dad is paying for.

I devour an energy bar and banana I find in the mini-bar, and then drink an entire can of ginger ale in almost two gulps. I will never get enough liquid back into my body, I can feel it.

In the shower, I scrub at my aching skin, shaving and washing everything with trembling hungover hands.

Mia, you’re a disaster. This is why you’re a sucky drinker.

The worst part isn’t how horrible I feel or what a mess I’ve made.

The worst part is I want to find him as much as I want to find Harlow and Lola.

The worst part is the tiny curl of anxiety I feel knowing that it’s Monday and we’re leaving today.

No, the worst part is that I’m an idiot.

As I dry off in the bedroom and pull on some jeans and a tank top, I look over to where I’ve left his note on the mattress. His tidy, slanted handwriting faces the ceiling, and a slim thread of a memory pushes into my thoughts, of my hand on Ansel’s clothed chest, pushing him out of the bathroom and sitting down on the toilet seat with a stack of paper and ballpoint pen. To write a letter? I think . . . to . . . me?

But I can’t find it anywhere; not under the enormous pile of blankets on the floor, not in the dismantled couch cushions in the living room, not in the bathroom or in any of the chaos of the suite. It has to be here. The only other time I wrote myself a letter, it was the one thing that guided me through the hardest point in my life.

If a letter from last night exists, I need to find it.

AFTER THE MOST nauseating and anxious elevator ride in history, I’m finally downstairs. I see the guys in a booth across the restaurant, but Harlow and Lola aren’t with them. They’re arguing in that way they seem to constantly argue, where it’s really all just the man version of cuddling on a couch. They yell and gesticulate and look exasperated and then laugh. None of them looks like they’re recovering from some sort of massive crime spree and I feel my shoulders relax the tiniest bit, fairly confident that wherever Harlow and Lorelei are, they’re safe.