Page 102 of Easy
By Donna Alam
Copyright © 2017 Donna Alam
Published By: Donna Alam
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The moral right of this author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the express permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover by Book Cover by Design
Photograph by Wander Aguiar
Editing by Editing 4 Indies
© Donna Alam 2017
ISBN: 978-1977501189
ISBN: 1977501184
The Morning After
One
LOUISE
I’m going to wrap my fingers in your hair, and like a good little girl, you’re going to open your legsand let me see what’s mine...
‘Oh, God.’
I press my head deeper into the pillow as my dream fades, replaced by an annoying buzzing that takes me a moment to comprehend.My phone. My hand shoots out from under the covers in a desperate attempt toMake. The. Noise.Stop! It can’t be morning—not yet. I can’t have been asleep for very long. But the sun piercing my eyelids seems to contradict my theory.
‘Oh, Lord.’ Okay, so I’m not entirely comfortable. I lick my parched lips, still groping for my phone as it dances just out of reach. ‘Curse you, Flo,’ I grumble as several thoughts wash through my wool-filled head.
Tequila is the Devil’s water, and I’m never drinking again. Ifthis is what it feels like to be twenty-six, fast forward me straight to middle-age.
The sheets rustle as I shuffle closer to the edge, muttering and heaping blame on the woman who’d forced me from my comfort zone and onto the dance floor last night. My roommate and friend, Flo. The woman who’s right at the top of my shit list today.
‘You’re old before your time,’she’d taunted, a flash of light from the dance floor making her smile look malicious.‘Darling, you know what they say; people who don’t dance are terrible in bed.’
I’d rolled my eyes, but her ridiculous gauntlet had roused my competitive side. So, of course, I’d headed for the dance floor... just by way of the bar. Never let it be said I’m not up for a challenge, but dancing required the loss of inhibitions, and the removal of those required tequila. And by the way I feel this morning, it seems to have taken a bucket of the stuff.
My eyes are uncooperative as I continue the search for my phone, patting blurry items with my hand when the thing suddenly stills.
‘There is a God,’ I mumble, though the declaration is more a groan than words. I flop back against the pillows with a sigh, not caring who called.
I pull the duvet over my head to ward off the light, wondering how I’d left the drapes open last night.Typical, the one day I’d welcome a grey London morning is the day spring decides to arrive.As the duvet settles on my body, I note I’m naked under it. I wonder if I flashed the neighbours last night?
Oh, well. Maybe if I was less tired, I might care. But as my brain is currently preserved in tequila, it seems like a matter for some other time.
I’m not usually such a morning grouch, still waking with the excitement of someone who has only been living in London for three months—someone who’d transplanted their life over four thousand miles. The city is still strange and so new, I find I don’t mind waking to the muted sounds from the café next door. It’s almost comforting; a sort of acoustic urban backdrop. And nothing remotely like back home.
It strikes me then how unusually quiet it is this morning. Is it a long weekend? And if it is, how come I don’t know? A singular car trundles along the road outside, the sound of children’s voices drifting up from below. They’re familiar sounds but not quite right.
