I buried my face in my pillow as the sun leaked in my window, hitting me right in the eyes. I really need to fix that somehow, it’s not a pleasant way to wake up after a night full of drinking. I mean, I don’t get much of a hangover since I’m good about keeping myself hydrated, but I’d rather not push my luck.

I climbed out of bed, rather ungracefully to be frank. There was a small chance that I was still slightly intoxicated from last night. It wouldn’t be a shocker, it actually happened to me a lot when I’d been drinking. I may not be a lightweight when it comes to getting drunk, but once I wasdrunk, it wouldn’t wear off anytime soon.

I’d somehow managed to get myself into a tank top and pair of plaid sleep shorts in my stupor last night, but I wasn’t entirely sure how. Fuck, I didn’t even know how I’d got home. I hadn’t had one of those nights in a while.

I stretched lazily, waiting for my joints to pop before shaking my limbs out. I was unusually sore for some reason, and the back of my head killed, but I wasn’t going to dig too much into it. There’s no telling what I’d done last night, but chances are someone will be damn excited to remind me. Most likely Jordan or Raychel.

“I’ve got to get something for this headache,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my skull and feeling a knot beneath my hair. Hello there, you must be the cause of my misery little buddy. Lovely.

I snatched the bottle of Tylenol that I kept on my night stand and headed downstairs to get a bottle of water. I got about halfway down the stairs before I noticed the form sleeping on the couch. Huh, had Raychel put Tyler in the dog house for the night?

No, that’s not right. There’s no curly Jew-fro peeking out from the blankets. Actually, the hair was black. Fuck I hope Stacie wasn’t in the house. The last thing I needed was to see her. She’s a really nice girl, but a really scary human being.

I probably should have been paying more attention to where I stepping instead of who was sleeping on my couch, because I managed to miss a step and send my ass tumbling down the last four or five stairs and right to the floor with a loud thump.

“Fucking Christ,” I growled from my sprawled position on the floor as I glared up at the ceiling. “I should have grabbed more Tylenol.”

“Taylor?” A raspy, accented voice came from the couch. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, trying to figure out why the hell he would be on my couch, or above that, why the hell he would be at my house.

“Kris?” I asked, sitting up and groaning as I felt the bruise that was already on my back worsen. Great. He’d stood up from the couch, and I was a bit in awe with what I saw. I mean for fuck’s sake, I was drooling over the man. I mean, I’ve seen him without a shirt before. Hell, I’d seen him in the locker room in only a towel. But I’m not sure I can recall seeing him in his boxers. It seemed a bit more intimate then seeing him, and the rest of his teammates, in just a towel.

Especially when he was sporting one of the most impressive good morning hard-ons that I’d ever seen.

“Oh hell,” I said under my breath, blatantly ogling the man. Unfortunately, no matter how impressive his body was, my eyes kept being directed towards one ‘stand up’ feature.

Wonder what that was?

I seriously couldn’t take my eyes away from it, as awkward as it was. I mean, I wanted to be respectful and look away, but I just couldn’t do it. It was like witnessing a brutal car crash. It may be rude and horrible, but you can’t help but stare!

“Are you alright?” he asked, taking a tentative step towards me as he looked me over with concern. Not sure why, it’s not like Tanger hasn’t seen me royally bust my ass before.

“I’m wood,” I mumbled, immediately catching what I had said and hurrying to correct myself. “I mean good. Good. I’m good.”

He seemed skeptical, and a little amused at my outburst, but I don’t think he had caught me. Or caught himself… depending on how you looked at it. Somehow the man managed to be oblivious to the large cucumber like object between his legs.

I was once again staring at him when the front door flew open and Raychel stumbled in wearing a pair of Tyler’s sweats and a tank top and the aforementioned man following right after her. She looked up and spotted Kris, then put the brakes on right away, staring in awe, much like I was.

She, however, didn’t mind vocalizing her shock.

“Holy steel rocks Batman, look at the size of that cock!” she blurted out, pointing right at Kris’ crotch. “It’s time to put Excalibur back in the stone Kristopher, you could poke someone’s eye out with that!”

He raised an eyebrow at her, then looked down at where she was pointing. His face immediately turned a violent shade of pink and he scrambled to grab a throw pillow and put it in front of himself. I always found his modesty cute, but right now it was pretty damn funny too. It’s not like we all hadn’t just seen it.

“Got a case of morning wood, Tanger?” Tyler smirked, ushering Raychel into the kitchen since she was too busy giggling and staring to really move herself. Once she’d left the room, she seemed to sober up quite a bit and her laughter died down. She even composed herself enough to stick her head out of the kitchen and ask me if Kris was staying for breakfast.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, taking a drink from the water bottle she had thrown me. “Ask him yourself. I’m not his keeper. I’m going for a jog anyway.”

“But I’m making waffles. You know you want some waffles before you go jogging,” she tried with a hopeful smile. I shook my head as I began climbing back up the stairs.

“Nah, I’m not hungry right now. Maybe when I get back from my jog,” I dismissed, not wanting to make any commitments to the waffles. God knows the girl would actually hold me to it.

“Taylor, you need to eat something. You haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday,” Tyler reminded me. “It’s not good to drink all of that and not eat.”

I rolled my eyes, looking down at three concerned faces from the landing on the stairs. “I’ll eat later. I want to go for a jog before I lose the initiative to do it. Besides, I’m not hungry right now.”

“But you-“

“Not hungry,” I repeated, giving up and heading toward my room. “I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I always do. Getting drunk last night doesn’t change that.”

I love Raychel and Tyler to death, but good freaking God. They act like my parents. They always had a little bit, because I have a knack for getting into trouble, but it’d gotten worse ever since Max and Sammy had gotten together. I appreciated the sentiment, but I really don’t need them up my ass about little shit like eating. I’ll eat when I want to eat, fuck! They worry so God damned much, it drives me nuts sometimes.

I threw on some jogging pants and switched into a sports bra before pulling my hair up into a ponytail, trying to remember where the hell all of my jogging tanks had gone. I finally gave up looking and grabbed my sweatshirt and iPod so I wouldn’t have to come back upstairs.

“Raychel, are the colored clothes still in the dryer?” I asked as soon as I got down the stairs. She yelled something that sounded very close to yes, so I went right for the laundry room, not stopping in the kitchen for fear that they’d try to talk me into eating waffles again. “Where the fuck are you?” I muttered, digging around in the dryer for a tank to wear. I finally found one and tugged it on, pulling my sweatshirt on over it and walking back into the kitchen.

I stopped seeing that all three of them had stopped what they were doing to stare at me. Tyler had literally stopped mid bite and just watched me. What the fuck is wrong with them?

“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?” I asked slowly, putting my ear buds in and looking at them skeptically.

“Just wondering if we’d be able to count your ribs again when you came out,” Tyler shrugged as they all went back to eating. “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”

“Positive,” I groaned, leaving the room before anything else could be said. I slipped my feet into my shoes right next to the door and heading out.

I turned my iPod on, drowning out the noise from the world around me. I just wanted to concentrate on my run, I didn’t want to deal with other people’s bullshit, just my own. This was meant to calm me, to get me away. With every stride I imagined another bit of stress seeping from my body. Unfortunately, I really had too much stress to make much of a dent in it.

Instead I found myself pushing myself to run harder and faster, pushing myself to the limit so that I no longer had to think. All I could concentrate on was breathing and running. It was invigorating, and a bit painful.

And boring as fuck if I’m being honest. I hate running, I really do. But it’s great for getting in shape, so I just have to suck it the fuck up.

Sooner than I would have liked, I once again found myself in front of the house. I stopped and stood in front of it for a moment, letting the snow fall onto me as I stared. Kris was still here, I could see his BMW sitting in the driveway. I’m still not sure why he was here when I woke up this morning, but it’s quite possible that he was the one that brought me home. He’s done it many times before, so it wasn’t a stretch. Maybe he was too tired to drive all the way home? Or maybe he was drunker than he had originally thought? Who knows with him really.

“What are you watching?” I asked the three amigos that had parked themselves on the couch while I took off my shoes. None of them even glanced up, but Kris answered.

“ New Star Trek movie.”

“Nice,” I nodded, peeling off my sweatshirt with a slight shiver. Now that I wasn’t running anymore, the chill was setting in. Fucking winter. I really should have moved somewhere warmer than Pittsburgh.

“We’re going grocery shopping after the movie. Jordan’s on his way over and the boys are going with us,” Raychel told me, glancing up momentarily. “I figured we’d go get Chinese afterward and make one of the boys pay.”

“Fine with me,” I shrugged, stretching out my arms. That meant Jordan and Tyler would probably wind up paying for the groceries too since they ate half of our food anyway.

“Good,” she grinned. “Now go shower, you smell like you’ve just sweat out an alcohol distillery.”

I frowned, sniffing my arm as I wandered up the stairs. I didn’t smell anything, but then again, I wouldn’t. Damn, I really must have been drunk last night.

I spent a little extra time in the shower, trying to make sure I got the scent of the alcohol off of me. The last thing I wanted to do was go out in public smelling like an alcoholic. I’d never hear the fucking end of that.

Once I got out, I put my hair in braided pigtails to keep it out of my face. I dug out a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to put on and began searching for socks. I always had a hell of a time finding socks. I was starting to believe that our dryer actually ate them.

“Aha! Found you, you little fuckers,” I mumbled, tugging a pair onto my feet and slipping on some black moccasins. I grabbed a hat to wear since my hair was wet and a sweatshirt from the closet. It would most likely be chilly in Walmart and I didn’t feel like having to wear my coat while trying to babysit three grown men in the store.

“It’s about time you get down here,” Jordan laughed once I joined everyone in the living room. I rolled my eyes and perched myself on his lap, glad to have him here to lighten the mood a bit. Everyone had been a bit sketchy since I’d refused the waffles, at least Jordan would distract everyone from that. “So, Ray and Tyler were just telling me about your trip down the stairs and Tanger’s morning wood,” he chuckled. Raychel and Tyler laughed while Kris and I both turned a nice shade of pink.

“Shut up. I do that all the time,” I grumbled, making Raychel laugh even harder.

“You get morning wood?” she asked, beginning to laugh even harder. I shook my head quickly and blushed even more.

“No! I fall down the stairs all the time,” I corrected, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m glad to say I’ve never had morning wood.”

“Lucky,” Kris muttered, just loud enough for Jordan and I to hear him. Poor Kris, he was never going to live this down.

“Are we ready to go then?” Raychel asked as she stood up, grabbing Tyler’s hand to tug him up too. Everyone nodded and she grinned. “Good, let’s go then. I’ve got to ge-“ she stopped speaking as a loud growl erupted from my stomach, making everyone look over at me. I grinned sheepishly and patted my stomach.

“I’m kind of hungry,” I admitted with a shrug. “Anyone up for eating before shopping?”

“Pfft, I’m always up for eating, sugar tits.”

I swatted Jordan on the chest and grabbed my coat. “Shut up, you big blonde oaf.”