Joaquin felt panic grip her aching, nauseated, hungover body. She could remember kissing Ben — she didn’t want to remember, but she did. After that it all seemed very blurry, and the reality was she hadn’t a single clue as to how she’d ended up in his bed. Gingerly, she pulled back the covers and was relieved to find she was at the very least still fully dressed.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, Joaquin managed to pull herself to her feet. She felt the room spin, and plonked back down onto the mattress. Thankfully Ben merely grunted and turned over. Joaquin’s second attempt was more successful and she staggered out of the room. She stopped and leaned against the couch, her tortured mind trying to make sense of the situation. She needed to rationalise and did so Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? -style.

Fifty-fifty would indicate that she’d either, god willing, passed out or committed some lewd clothed act with Ben. There was no way in hell she was phoning a friend as Adele would just mock her and tell the entire neighbourhood. So what was left? Asking the audience! Joaquin staggered into the bathroom where Leo was shaving. She put the toilet seat down and sat heavily.

“You know, you really should take your pants off to do that,” he remarked as he washed off the last of the shaving foam.

“What did I do last night, Leo?” Joaquin groaned and dropped her head into her hands. “Tell me you know what happened.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember bits.”

“Which bits?”

“None of your business.”

“Would they be the ‘trying to taste my friend’s colon with your tongue’ bits?”

“Possibly,” she blushed. “I didn’t do anything else, did I?”

He gave a light chuckle as he leaned against the sink and crossed his arms. “I can safely say you didn’t.” She let out an audible relived groan. “However, had I not returned home when I did, there’s a possibility you might have.”

“Oh my god, what did you see?”

“I can’t repeat it as the memory is still burnt into my retinas and I really want it to go away.” She whined and buried her face further into her hands. “But when I got home, Ben followed me into the kitchen to try and convince me you weren’t sucking face and when he returned you were asleep.”

“I’m such an idiot,” she whimpered and looked bashfully at Leo. “Can you take me home?”

Adele spat the last of the toothpaste from her mouth and glanced around the bathroom. The near empty bottle of vodka was still lying on the floor, and the dog shampoo was perched on the side of the bath. She picked up both and carried them out of the room and into the kitchen. She placed the bottle on the table and then sighed at the dog shampoo. Ok, it was silly to sigh at dog shampoo, but it made her think of Aidan and that was ultimately better than the pulsating headache that was threatening to cripple her no matter how many aspirin she downed.

Thinking over the half-tanked events of the previous night brought a fuzzy happy feeling to Adele. Not something she was used to, but something she was learning to accept. In fact, at that moment the idea of being wrapped up in Aidan’s arms while they slept off hangovers seemed like a very nice idea. The front door suddenly slammed, jolting her out of her reverie and forcing her to quickly shove the dog shampoo into her bag.

“Jo,” she announced, scurrying into the living room. “Oh my god, what happened to you?”

“What do you mean?” Joaquin winced.

“I mean you look like shit!” Adele said, cocking her head to the side. “Leo didn’t force that revolting cheap pizza on you again, did he?”

“No,” Joaquin pouted. “I drank too much wine.”

“Oh really?” Adele smirked as Joaquin headed toward the kitchen.

“Nothing happened,” Joaquin countered. “I see you had a productive night.”

“Huh?” Adele said blankly, then noticed the vodka bottle. “Oh yeah, needed lots of consoling.”

“I’ll say,” Joaquin mused. “I’m surprised you’re not hugging the toilet bowl or in intensive care.”

“You didn’t see me earlier,” Adele lied and grabbed her bag. “Anyway, I’m popping out for a bit.”

“Oh, anywhere fun?”

“No,” Adele said blankly and quickly changed the subject. “Have yourself a nice hot shower and then crawl into bed and I’ll bring us back something greasy.”

“You’re a good friend,” Joaquin smiled as she grabbed the aspirin.

Adele put down a green, reusable shopping bag and knocked on the door before picking the bag up again. She glanced around at Aidan’s immediate neighbours, all of whom seemed to have cardigans and y-fronts hanging on tiny little string washing lines. Unlike last time she’d stood there, the inkling to flee was much less intense. The butterflies, lump in her throat and erratic heartbeat, however, were still there when she heard the door unlock.

“Good morning,” Aidan smiled through barely opened eyes, mussed hair and morning stubble.

“Hi,” Adele smiled, trying very hard not to become flustered. “How you feeling?”

“Hungover,” he yawned, and it became apparent he was still in last night’s clothes. “Why aren’t you?”

“Oh I am,” she nodded. “Can I come in?”

He moved aside to let her in. “You’re looking mightily impressive for someone who’s hungover.”

“I hide it well,” she chided as she deliberately brushed past him into the flat. She walked over to the small kitchenette and plonked her bags on the table.

“So is there a reason you’re here, or can I go back to bed and die?” Aidan asked, looking confused.

“I brought you and Degs food,” she said gingerly, and began unpacking one of the bags.

“Del,” he said, thoroughly surprised. “You didn’t have to do that, I don’t want charity.”

“I decided that because I’m not your girlfriend in this relationship we’re not having, I could buy you food,” she shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed. Aidan, who was leaning against the fridge, broke into a smile. Not a flirty, sexy smile but a warm, appreciative, ‘I’d do anything for you’ kind of smile, and Adele felt her knees go a little week.

“Thanks,” he said, continuing to smile as he walked over, stopping so he was slightly behind her. “So what did you get?” he added, peeking over her shoulder.

“Just essentials.”

“TimTams aren’t essential.”

“You take that back!” she chided, poking his cheek with a carrot. Aidan raised an eyebrow then bit the end off the carrot, which cracked Adele up. “You’ve done that before.”

“How did you know about that party?” He feigned shock as he let his hand creep onto her waist. He was surprised that she didn’t smack it away.

“I got plenty of Pal and bickies for Degs,” she mused, motioning to the tins of dog meat and large bag of dry food as she leaned into Aidan.

“I feel bad, like I guilted you into buying me stuff,” he sighed, moving his hand from her hip to her back which he gently rubbed, sending little shivers up her spine. “You shouldn’t take much notice of me when I’m on the piss.”

“It was true though, wasn’t it?” she said softly, her brain being temporarily distracted by Aidan’s hand on her back. “You’re broke this week?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly in a tone that was as much sincere as it was ashamed.

“Then it’s all good,” she smiled, unpacking the last tin of beans and looking over her shoulder at him.

“It’s perfect,” Aidan winked and took her only partly by surprise by kissing her very slowly on the cheek.

“I should probably go now and let you get back to bed,” she blushed as she pushed past him to put the milk in the fridge.

“I’m in no rush, Degs is a flatulent sleeper,” he mused and she winced. “Don’t leave, I’ll take a shower and then we’ll get breakfast or something.” He threw her a smile as he wandered off into what must have been his bedroom, reappeared with a bundle of clothes and then closed the door on the bathroom.

Despite all she believed in, Adele had no intention of leaving, and put away the rest of the groceries that needed to be kept cold. With the shower still clearly running, Adele ignored the idea the Aidan was naked in the next room and hesitantly decided to look at his bedroom.

There was only a trickle of sunlight that permeated the heavy curtains. The bed was unmade, sheets strewn about. Degas raised his head from his position at the bottom of the bed, saw that it was Adele and promptly lowered it again. Like the rest of Aidan’s flat, it appeared cluttered and disorganised with art books, sketchpads, discarded clothes and shoes, and his bike was leaning against the closet.

“So have you really been farting or is it your owner?” she asked, flopping down next to Degas who licked her hand lazily. “Oh no…it is you…”

“Why, good morning, sunshine,” Leo chided as Ben appeared from his bedroom just before noon. Leo had to repress a giggle as his friend stood in rumpled clothing, his hair sticking up at only one side and his eyes very red. “I see you survived your trip into the depths of the lovely Jo’s oesophagus.”

“Why do you have to make it sound so…perverted?” Ben groused as he set about tiredly making a pot of coffee.

“I never insinuated that it was perverted,” Leo remarked. “It merely was a disgusting show to walk in on.”

“It didn’t feel disgusting,” Ben countered, raising an eyebrow as he grabbed a jar of expensive ground coffee.

“You’d been drinking,” Leo rebuked. “Nothing is disgusting when you’ve been drinking.”

“Jackass,” Ben frowned and lobbed an unopened packet of peanuts at Leo. They smacked him in the face.

“Hey!” Leo shrieked. “Watch the glasses, asshole.”

“Well, learn to be a more encouraging friend!”

“Stop flinging bar snacks at me and I might.”

Ben sneered at his friend before finally managing to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Did you see her leave?” he asked more subdued.

“See her? I took her home.”

“Oh, and how was she?”

“Hungover.”

“And?”

“Her hair was a mess.”

“Leo!”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Leo sighed, abandoning the paper he was reading.

“Did she say anything about last night?” Ben winced and Leo could tell his friend was hoping that the answer was going to be all hearts and flowers.

“She said ‘Oh god’ and ‘I’m an idiot’ and something about fleeing to Siberia.”

“Oh,” Ben frowned, suddenly becoming interested in his mug of coffee.

“But dude, this is Jo, and once she’s calmed down and sobered up she’ll probably change her mind,” Leo enthused, getting to his feet and slapping Ben on the back as he helped himself to the freshly made coffee.

“I hope so,” Ben said quietly. “I might have drunk a bit but that kiss was still sensational.”

Joaquin lay in bed with the covers pulled up to her face. October had settled himself behind her knees as was purring strong enough to make her kneecaps vibrate. She’d downed some aspirin, which had thankfully eased the pounding in her head, and had a hot shower to wash away the pizza/wine/Ben’s aftershave/sweat smell that had been clinging to her earlier. She was vaguely puzzled by the smell of wet dog and vodka in the bathroom but decided Adele had probably got drunk and cleaned the bathroom with something she shouldn’t have.

She tried to close her eyes, but this resulted in her mind going straight back to the previous night and replaying the whole scene but with a strangely added soapie voiceover that went. “And last night in Joaquin’s fucked up life…she got tipsy and kissed good -looking jock from out of town, Ben Saxon.” For some reason the voice over sounded like Jimmy Kimmel, and she had no idea why.

The problem was, Joaquin wasn’t really horrified by the kiss, well, kisses, or the fact that it had felt very nice to have his muscular arms wrapped tightly around her. It had actually been a rather pleasant experience and that was what made it worse. She shouldn’t like Ben — she couldn’t like Ben. They had nothing in common. Ok, so they had things in common, but still. He was a boofhead jock, and she was going to fall in love with a sweet art boy and live in a trendy loft apartment and watch Woody Allen films and drink pink champagne.

Joaquin let out a heavy sigh; of course she only knew one cute art boy and despite all her feelings, the only one she wanted to act on right now was to explore the naked flesh of Ben’s toned physique. No matter how much she wanted it to, however, the thought of such an act couldn’t repulse her.

Adele blinked her eyes open, pleased to discover that the hangover symptoms from earlier had eased significantly. A soft ‘pfft’ noise jolted her slowly waking brain to medium capacity and she realised Degas had let fluffy off the chain again. “Stupid dog,” she muttered before all her working processes were restored and she realised that the dimly lit room she was in wasn’t hers.

Gingerly, Adele turned over and found Aidan curled up asleep beside her. She must have nodded off before he’d finished in the shower and he’d sweetly let her sleep. She lay there watching him, his face so close that his warm breath touched her nose. He really was a handsome man, dark eyes, unruly raven hair, and pale skin. She thought he was as beautiful a creature as she’d ever seen.

She realised quite suddenly that the affection barrier she’d put up after being hurt so badly by “That Bastard” had been broken by Aidan, and only Aidan. She wanted so badly to be kissed, and held, and do all those things that you do when you’re stupidly besotted with someone. With a shaking hand and much trepidation Adele reached her hand out to touch his cheek.

“Feeling better?” he said so suddenly that it made Adele jump and pull her hand back.

“Much,” she said softly. “Thanks for letting me sleep.”

“It was the least I could do,” he smiled, lifted his hand, hesitated and then gently ran his forefinger down her cheek.

“If only you could plug Degs’ arse,” she chided, her cheek burning where he touched it, her fingers desperately wanting to creep forward and touch the warm skin under his t-shirt.

“Next time,” he grinned. “I promise he gets corked.”

Adele giggled and with much reluctance sat up; she noted the look of disappointment of Aidan’s face as she did. “I should go, I promised Jo greasy food.”

“Ok,” he sighed as he sat up and fingered the sheets a moment before softly stroking her knee. She looked at his hand on her knee, then glanced up and they shared a saddened look before naturally resting their foreheads together and sitting in silence.

“Jo, you alive in there?”

Joaquin opened her eyes and automatically yawned. She grabbed her glasses and saw Adele standing at her bedroom door with a couple of McDonalds paper bags. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Joel wanted advice on buying a birthday present for his sister,” Adele shrugged. “He wasn’t happy when I told him that a signed Ricky Ponting cricket bat would not go down well.”

“That man is obsessed,” Joaquin mused as Adele kicked off her shoes and climbed into bed with her.

“Large McChickens, fries and chocolate thickshakes,” Adele grinned, passing Joaquin one of the bags and handing her a plastic cup.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” Joaquin laughed as she fished her sandwich out of the bag.

“So what happened with you and Leo last night?” Adele asked, shoving some fries into her mouth.

“Huh, but I was with…Leo, yeah, he got some wine through some wine appreciation club he joined and wanted to try it out,” Joaquin lied and was pleased with her tall tale telling effort.

“He’s really got to stop joining random things over the Internet,” Adele smirked and took note of her friend’s near Freudian slip.

“How was Patrick Swayze and the vodka?”

“Sensational, clearly.”

“Thanks for cleaning the bathroom.”

“What?”

“The bathroom, although whatever it was you used, throw it out. Smells like wet dog in there.”

“How do you know I didn’t use some random pooch to clean it?”

“True,” Joaquin nodded and took a drink of her thickshake. “Got much planned for the coming week?”

“Work,” Adele chided. “And probably retail therapy.”

“I’ve got an apostle to finish for Aidan,” Joaquin frowned. “I was going ok until Occy walked all over it and now the poor old git has charcoal paw prints trailing over him.”

Adele tried very hard not to flinch at the mention of Aidan. “You could lie and say the cat is artistic.” She mused. “And non-flatulent.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Adele said lightly but was internally kicking herself for even saying it. Joaquin didn’t know about Degas and it would look quite suspicious should it be known that she did.

They both fell silent as they tucked into their greasy meals. Joaquin looked sideways at Adele and leaned back into her pillows. They were friends, great friends really, and of all the people in the world she wanted to tell Adele that she’s kissed Ben. Actually she wanted to wail about it out loud, burst into tears and drown herself in her thickshake, but if she did say it out loud then it would be admitting not only to Adele, but also to herself that she did have feelings for Ben.

Adele wiped some mayonnaise from her burger onto her finger and sucked it off as she felt her heart pounding; it was there, on the tip on her tongue, the words she needed to tell Joaquin. She glanced at her friend and then shamefully back at her burger. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t tell her that she was falling very much in love with Aidan.