Murphy's Law Read Free

from under his so she could at least breathe and with one last sniff of his luscious skin, she fell smiling into a deep, luscious sleep.
     
     
    The telephone rang.
    Nick Rossi wanted to groan and roll over in bed but didn’t. The noise of the bell had nearly taken the top of his head off. Moving might break bones.
    Through the greasily nauseous roiling going on inside, he tried to take stock, but it wasn’t pretty.
    His hair hurt. His eyelashes hurt. His fucking toenails hurt.
    The telephone rang again and hammered sharply pointed spikes into his skull. He tried to bring a hand up to his head, but there was something on his arm. Nick moved his hand—even that small movement caused pain—and touched a soft, springy mass. Hair. Human hair. He hoped.
    He opened one eye. Cautiously.
    Yeah. A human. The way he felt maybe he’d had sex with an orc. But no, it was a girl. He lifted his head slightly, grimacing at the pain, to see if he knew her.
    She was sleeping slightly turned away from him. All he could see was a finely-drawn pale profile surrounded by a cloud of brandy-colored hair.
    Ok. He knew her. He knew he knew her. If only his brain could shoot him some info through the thick fog that fucked with his head he’d figure out who she was. As it was, merely trying to conjure up the memory of the face—and of last night—taxed his pain threshold.
    The phone rang again, the bell echoing shrilly in his head for long seconds. Each second seemed like a lifetime. Everything was happening in an unsteady, sickening slow motion, as if he were on a boat at sea. The girl turned over in bed, the rustling noise of the sheets sounding like thunder. She looked at him, wide-eyed, all fresh and innocent and not at all as if she was in the bed of a hundred-year-old man, which is what he felt like.
    He took in her features one by one, his brain too blasted to put the parts together. Pale skin, with a spattering of freckles across her nose. High cheekbones. He knew—without knowing how he knew—that she blushed easily.
    Her eyes were large, the same brandy color as her hair and the whites were milky-white, like a child’s. Small straight nose, arching sandy eyebrows, lips which he knew were full, but were now compressed in a thin line.
    It was an unusual face, not conventionally pretty but…arresting. He knew her, a friend of Lou’s, fuck…her name was going to break through the cobwebs. Any second now…
    A loud noise made him start in pain. It was his answering machine kicking in in the next room. The answering machine Lou bought him and installed because he never answered his cell and never ever checked his voicemail. His recorded voice sounded preternaturally loud in the room. “Hi, this is Nick Rossi. Sorry I can’t come to the phone, but if you leave a message and a phone number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    There was a hum, and then a high, breathy, impossibly sexy female voice came on, making loud kissy kissy noises. “Nick, love, sorry I couldn’t make it last night, but I was held up. I hope you didn’t go looking somewhere else for fun and excitement because, believe me, I’m going to make it up to you tonight and I want you fresh.” Another spectacular phone kiss ended the message. Nick winced.
    The girl bolted up in bed like a startled fawn. Nick tried to think of something to say. Something, anything. But nothing was happening up there.
    “Y-You—” she stammered softly. “You…and I…last night, we…and all the time—you were supposed to be with someone else ?”
    “Huh,” he replied, trying to jumpstart his head. Who is she? It wason the tip of his furred tongue. He would remember in just a minute…
    But he wasn’t going to have that minute. She was pulling on clothes in a hurry, her movements jerky and awkward, as if she weren’t used to dressing in front of someone. Whoa.
    He should be saying something, but what? He sat up in bed, regretting the movement instantly. The contents