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The morning sun peaking its way through the window causes a very hungover Hope to let out a disdainful groan as she rolls over and pulls the covers up over her head, welcoming the embrace of the darkness it offers her currently sensitive eyes. God, just how much did she drink last night? This wasn't her first hangover, but this was definitely one of her worst.
As her eyes slowly adjust, Hope notices something a bit off; the sheets surrounding her are dark blue in color. Her sheets are white. And that's when the realization hits her. Who the hell's bed is she in?
She sits up in a jolted panic, but immediately regrets it, hands going up the clutch her throbbing head. When the surge of pain passes, her eyes only confirm her worst fears, this isn't her place. A brief scan of the room and she's quickly able to deduce she's in a guy's bedroom. There's a familiar looking text book that she recognizes sitting on the desk, so clearly this is someone who also goes to her college. Hope takes a deep breath trying to calm herself, attempting to not to jump to the worst conclusion here.
As she throws off the covers to get out of the bed, she discovers she's wearing a baggy dark grey, long sleeved shirt that’s not hers, and a pair of boxers, which are also definitely not hers. Her earlier panic comes back with a vengeance. 'Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.' She repeats over and over in her mind, trying to keep it together. Did she really get that blackout drunk that she slept with some random dude and can't even remember any of it?
Scrambling out of the bed, her bare feet touch the cool wooden floor and she reaches a hand out towards the desk to steady herself. Once stable, she carefully wanders down the hall in search of information.
"Morning, sunshine." A warm voice greets from the kitchen. Hope turns to see that the voice belongs to an attractive young man with intense gray-green eyes and perfectly dark curly hair, standing behind the counter. She blinks owlishly, feeling he seems vaguely familiar, but she can't place him.
"Where am I and who the hell are you?" Her tone comes out a bit harsher than she plans, causing the boy to recoil slightly, but her anger temporarily overrides her worry, because she's honestly pissed that this guy took advantage of her in her inebriated state.
"Clearly not a morning person, got it." He notes.
"Just answer the question." She shoots back impatiently, folding her arms over her chest, and she stares him down. He doesn't seem to give off a skeezy vibe, but she's not taking her chances. She's been duped before.
"Right. Sorry. Uh well, I'm Landon and you're in the apartment complex just off campus."
Hope glances around a moment, trying to put off the next question, but knows it's inevitable. She fidgets nervously, fingers playing with the cuffs of the long sleeved shirt she has on as she summons her nerve.
"Did we, um..." She bites awkwardly at her lip, not quite wanting to finish the sentence.
The boy cocks his head slightly as she trails off. It takes him a moment to catch on to what she's referring to, but when he does put two and two together, he quickly gets flustered.
"What? No. No. No. Nothing happened. I swear. I offered to give you a ride home from the party, but you weren't exactly very helpful on where that was, so I brought you back here."
Hope's hand goes up to her chest and she lets out a relived breath she didn't realize she had been holding in, before exclaiming, "Oh thank, god!"
The young man in front of her makes a face. "I'll try not to take that personally."
"Sorry, I didn't-"
He waves his wand in dismissal to cut her off apology. "I'm just kidding. Don't apologize. I can only imagine what you were thinking when you woke up here."
Hope quietly nods, but is happy to feel the weight of worry finally off her shoulders. But she definitely still had a couple more questions about what transpired last night. She only remembers little fragments of things here and there, so there's still a lot of blanks in need of filling in.
"So... where are my clothes then?"
"Well, you kinda..." Landon makes a elaborate hand gesture that Hope takes as meaning she threw up on herself at some point last night. "So I left some of my clothes out for you to wear, for after you got cleaned up, and let you get changed. But you were in there for awhile, and when I came in to check on you, I found that you had passed out on my bed."
"Oh."
"But don't worry," Landon quickly added. "I slept on the couch out here."
Hope stands there a moment, taking everything in and struggling to find what to say. Last night could have gone way different if it wasn't for him. She's spent so many years being a loner and pushing people away, she had forgotten what is was like to have someone have your back. Though she excelled at taking care of herself, as much as she hated to admit it, sometimes being alone wasn't always such a good thing.
"Um, thank you. For looking after me last night. You're a good guy."
Landon nods, and attempts to make light of situation, trying to deflect from the way her kind words are currently making his insides feel.
When a momentary silence passes between them, Landon finds he can't help but notice how cute she looks wearing his clothes. But when he realizes he's been staring, he awkwardly clears his throat to pull himself out of it and cover up the blush threatening to stain his cheeks rose colored.
"So anyway... Your clothes are in the dryer right now. They should be dry in about..." He glances over his shoulder at the clock on the wall behind him, "twenty five minutes? I'm making breakfast if you want some."
Hope shakes her head, feeling like she's already overstayed her welcome. She'd already embarrassed herself enough for one evening and she should probably be getting back.
"I appreciate the offer, but I'm not really hungry, so I'm just gonna-" Hope is cut off by the sound of her own stomach betraying her, by letting out a noisy growl in protest of her turning down the offer. She mentally scolds her disloyal body, and Landon tries to suppress his amused grin, but effectively fails.
"Is that so?" He teases playfully, raising a single eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes at him.
"Shut up." She mutters, and Landon lets out a warm chuckle as she walks over toward the kitchen area.
"Well, there's fresh coffee over there, and a bottle of aspirin in the cabinet if you need it." Landon informs her, pointing her in the right direction for both items as he continues preparing the eggs he's working on for breakfast. Hope lets out an appreciative noise at the thought of caffeine, and something to help with her nagging hangover symptoms. When she goes to open the bottle however, she notices her hand is extremely sore.
"My hand is killing me."
"I'm not surprised." He comments, and Hope stares at him, slightly bewildered by the vague statement, and she implores him with a look to further explain himself.
"You really don't remember, do you?" He muses momentarily, as she shakes her head and he continues on with the story.
"You sucker punched that jerk Connor from the football team in the stomach." Landon can't help but grin as he recalls the memory from last night. Conner had been tormenting Landon since high school, so to see him get what he deserved was mighty satisfying. "It was awesome."
Hope grimaces at this news, and fears what other antics she got into last night. She pops an aspirin in her mouth and takes a swig of her coffee, trying not to think about it as she sits atop one of the stools at the counter. She shifts her attention to something else to get her mind off it, and peers around at her surroundings.
"This place is pretty nice."
"You can thank my roommate for that, I could never afford a place like this. His dad's a Mayor up Maryland. He's up there visiting them for the break."
"Yeah, break." Hope mumbles, a gloomy expression taking over her features. The holiday break was the reason for her overindulgence in libations last night. She aimlessly fiddles with the napkin in front of her, unfolding it and refolding it again.
"Not going home for break?"
"No. It's... complicated." She replies vaguely, not wanting to discuss it further, and Landon doesn't press her on it.
"Well I'm not going anywhere either. I don't exactly have anywhere to go home to. Foster kid. So, yeah. If you ever want to hang out though, I'm around."
Her head pops up from her self made distraction to look at him. Did he just ask her out? It seems Landon also just realized how that sounded, and he scrambles to change the subject, rambling nonsensically in search of a new topic.
Hope's about to say something when a peculiar scent drifts its way into her nostrils.
"Is something burning?"
"Shit, the toast." Landon mumbles as he rushes over and pushes down on the lever to eject the bread. He quickly pulls out the borderline charcoal like square, letting out another string of swear words as he burns his fingertips, tossing it on to a plate, then sliding it into the trash. He lets out a small huff as he replaces it with new slice.
"I swear I'm not that bad of a cook." He attempts to assure her. He wasn't the best cook by any means, but by college student standards, he was better than most. In high school he had worked as a waiter for a number of years, so he had picked up a couple of skills along the way. Not to mention, being a foster kid, he often had to fend for himself when it came to food.
"I'll be the judge of that." Hope smirks over her mug as she takes another sip of her coffee.
As the toast finishes, this time with a nice golden color, Landon plates up the rest of the food and joins Hope on the opposite side of the counter. She pokes at the pile of scrambled eggs on her dish and places a piece of it into her mouth. He waits expectantly, and bit nervously if he's being honest, to see what she thinks of it.
"Well?"
Hope makes him sweat it out a bit before finally giving him her answer.
"This is... actually pretty good."
Landon nods, pleased with the compliment, and a comfortable silence falls between them as they continuing eating their breakfast. But at a certain point, Landon notices Hope keeps staring at him from time to time, and he starts to feel self conscious under her gaze. When he eventually can't take it anymore, he nervously speaks up.
"What?"
"Sorry, it's just... You look kinda familiar."
"I was playing guitar in the band performing at the party last night." He offers, but she shakes her head, not thinking that's quite it either. It's somewhere else, she knows it.
"We do have a history class together."
Hope scrunches up her face and snaps her fingers as she remembers now. Mr. Saltzman's class, of course.
"Right. Yeah, I tend to skip that class a lot." She confesses sheepishly, causing Landon to let out a small laugh.
"I noticed."
Hope takes a bite of her toast, enjoying it's carb-y goodness, and it seems like the conversation is done for now, but then she casually offers up one more statement.
"Maybe I'll have to start showing up to class more."
Landon looks up in surprise and feels a smile tug at his lips at her suggestion.
He really hopes that she will.