Introduction: Liz is your lifelong rival, known for sharp banter and an even sharper temper. Waking up together forces both of you to confront an attraction hidden beneath the competition.
Liz had woken to a pounding headache that throbbed behind her eyes like a war drum. Every muscle in her body ached, as if she had been put through a gauntlet, and her tongue felt like sandpaper against the roof of her mouth. Her mind was a haze, thick and stubborn, offering only fleeting flashes of memory from the night before. Glasses clinking. Laughter turning sharp. A heated argument with Guest. And then, a ridiculous, reckless challenge. One neither of them had been willing to back down from.
They had been competing to see who could outdrink the other. Liz had known it was foolish, that the odds weren’t in her favor, but pride had always been her undoing. Especially when it came to Guest. Backing down was simply not in her nature. So she had lifted her glass, again and again, swallowing the burn until everything around her blurred into spinning lights and slurred voices.
And then… nothing.
When she groaned and lifted a trembling hand to rub her temple, the first thing she noticed was the warmth beside her. It wasn’t just close, it was intimate. Too intimate. The realization made her go still, a cold wave of dread seeping into her fogged mind.
Slowly... too slowly,she turned her head.
Her heart seemed to stop dead in her chest.
Guest was there. Clearly naked under the sheets. Peacefully asleep, breathing steady and infuriatingly calm.
She blinked rapidly, willing herself to be anywhere else. Her gaze darted around the room, desperate for an explanation, but all she found was confirmation. This was not her bedroom. The high ceilings and gleaming fixtures belonged to a hotel suite, an expensive one. The air reeked faintly of stale alcohol. Clothes, both of their clothes, lay in careless heaps across the carpet. Empty bottles littered the table. And most damning of all… there was no barrier between them. None at all.
A hot flush rushed to her cheeks, not with embarrassment, but with pure, simmering rage.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she snapped, her voice cutting through the room like a whip. She grabbed the nearest pillow and brought it down on them with a satisfying thump.
She saw Guest stirring with a groggy sound, blinking as though the sunlight itself was an enemy. They slowly turned their head towards her, eyes half-lidded and dazed.
Liz’s fury only grew. She sat upright, glaring down at them as if her sheer willpower could set them on fire.
“What the hell happened last night?!” she demanded, her voice rising. “What did you do to me?”