The ringing noise from Alyssa's cell phone caused her eyelids to flutter open and groan. Her first instinct was to glance at her alarm to read what time it was. Okay, who the fuck is trying to call me at 2 am? And how much do they value their life? She laid there for a moment, hoping that whoever it was would just give up, but the damn phone kept ringing. With a sigh, she grabbed it from her nightstand. "Hello?" she groggily answered.
"Hey baby. It's me."
Oh God, what does HE want? she wondered. And where the fuck does he come off with calling me baby?
"Nick, what do you want? It's after 2 and some of us were actually trying to get some sleep tonight."
"You."
Just the way in which the single syllable rolled off his tongue made Alyssa's breath catch into her throat. Had she heard him correctly? How was she supposed to respond to that? This had to be one of his cute little pranks in an effort to break the ice after their argument earlier that night.
She was silent on her end of the line for the moment until finally she decided her best bet would be to just play the comment off. "No really.... What do you want from me Nick?"
"I want to see you," he responded. "So why don't you come to my hotel and-"
Ahh, so this is what its all about, she realized. "Uhh... in case you forgot I'm pretty pissed off at you, so I'm definitely not going to break my ass to come see you."
"You are?" Nick asked, sounding thoroughly confused.
Alyssa frowned. How the hell does he NOT remember that I'm pissed at him? "Yea... Remember? We had a huge fight earlier tonight after the show which resulted in me telling you to go fuck yourself and storming off," she reminded him. "I'd say that's a pretty good sign that I was pissed at you."
"Oh yeaaaa..." he slurred out, as of it were just coming back to him. "You're sexy as hell when you're angry."
"Excuse me?" Alyssa asked, again unsure if she had heard right. Then all of a sudden it clicked. Duh, Alyssa. How did you not notice before that he's completely drunk? That definitely would explain him not remembering their fight and of course the phone call itself. Nick had always been a notorious drunk dialer, so she supposed that she really shouldn't be too surprised to be the lucky one to be one the receiving end of one of those such calls tonight. Oh, boy... This could get interesting. "How much did you have to drink at the club tonight?" she cautiously asked.
Nick laughed on the other end of the phone, as it sounded like he was trying to count for himself. "Only a few... One... Two... Maybe eight... I lost count."
Oh God, we're in trouble, she thought with a sigh. The best course of action would be to end this conversation before it got any farther and he made more of a fool out of himself than he already had. "Okay look Nick, you're obviously not in the right state of mind to be having this conversation with me right now, so I'm going to hang up. Good night!" Before she lost her nerve, she pressed the end key on her cell phone, knowing deep down that it was the smartest thing to do.
Placing her cell phone back on the nightstand, she nestled back into her blankets with every intention to go directly back to go sleep, and pretend that Nick's phone call had never happened, but the moment she closed her eyes, all she could think about was his voice, his words echoing back in her mind. I want to see you... You're sexy as hell when you're angry... She sighed. Of course he didn't mean any of it. It was just the alcohol talking. But in a way Alyssa almost wished that he had been telling the truth. Sometimes she really wondered how attracted Nick really was to her. Was she just convenient for him?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing again. She didn't even need to check the caller ID to know that it was Nick. She fought the urge to answer, knowing that it would only encourage him more. I refuse to answer it, she told herself, as she pulled on the pillows over her head to drown out the sound. He'll give up... eventually.
But he didn't. He was a persistent one. Finally after what felt like about ten minutes of constant ringing, Alyssa grew frustrated and losing her patience, she snatched up her phone. "Will you stop fucking calling me? I'm not dragging my ass out of bed and across the city in the middle of the night just to see you. You had your chance to hang out with me and you blew it!"
"Aren't we feisty tonight?" Nick's voice teased. "More the reason you should come see me."
Alyssa clenched her hands up into little balls. She could practically picture him standing there with that damn smirk plastered across his face just then. He was really starting to get under her skin now. "You just don't give up, do you?"
"Well, I'm only going to keep calling until you come," he warned her. "So, the way I see it you might as well just give in baby." There it was again. Second time, so far he had called her baby. Again Alyssa wished that he had meant it as a genuine term of endearment, but Nick called every woman baby, especially those he was interested in trying to lure into bed. It was like a perfectly written script for him. Nice to know, that all of a sudden I'm in the same category as his groupies now, she angrily thought.
"Why do you want to see me so bad all of a sudden? Did none of the girls at the club catch your interest?" she sneered. "Am I just a last resort to you?"
"Come on... Don't be like that," he begged.
"Be like what? How am I supposed to be? Am I just supposed to jump at your every beck and call? You clearly didn't want me around earlier, but now it seems as if you'd do just about anything for my company. Seems a little strange to me..." She stopped, realizing that she was trying to argue with a drunk person which was as pointless as watching two goldfish have sex. She was never going to win. The only thing she'd succeed in doing would be to get herself more and more aggravated. Although she couldn't resist one last dig. "I'm a hell of a lot smarter than most girls you associate yourself with, so its not going to work with me."
Nick seemed oblivious to her entire speech. "Okay, so you're pissed. Just come over," he whined. "I'll make it up to you."
"You'll make it up to me?" Alyssa doubtfully asked. "How are you going to do that?"
Nick continued to ignore her, switching tactics. "You know I can't stop thinking about you and that night we had together. How amazing you felt... How sexy you looked... And especially how turned on you were..."
Alyssa bit her lip. Again, she had no clue of how she should respond to him, but now that he had mentioned that night, she found it impossible not to let her mind wander back to those memories. Damn him, she thought, as the entire night seemed to flash forward in her mind. Maybe he's more alert than what I gave him credit for. Considering he's drunk, he's pretty manipulative.
He had her and he knew it too. Taking full advantage of Alyssa's delayed reaction, he went in for the final blow. "Please just come Alyssa," he pleaded, his voice seeming to take on an urgent tone. "I need you."
She sighed as she realized that he wasn't going to accept no as an answer. She knew that going over to see him in the middle of the night was probably not the greatest idea, but something else seemed to be pushing her to go. Come on... Live a little, she criticized herself. Nothing has to happen. You can just go and make sure he's okay and not doing anything else to further embarrass himself. Besides... He needs you., Yes, he had used the word need, not want. There was clearly a difference between the two. "Okay, give me the address to the hotel again and I'll be there as soon as I can, but I want you to know that I'm only stopping by to make sure you haven't like choked on your own vomit or something."
Her sarcasm appeared to be wasted on Nick as he rattled off the hotel information to her, clearly delighted that he had gotten her to change her mind. "Get here as soon as you can and then just come right up."
Alyssa stifled another yawn as she grabbed the clothes that she had previously worn that night. " Okay. I'm leaving in a few minutes. I just need to change and then get a cab."
Nick seemed agreeable to this and they quickly said their goodbyes. What the fuck are you doing? she asked herself as she pulled her sweater back over her head. This had to have been one of the absolute craziest things she had ever done. What was it about Nick that made her totally just throw any sort of caution she had to the wind? Just a few hours earlier she had vowed to never speak to him again and here she was going off to visit him at his hotel at 2:30 in the morning?
You're just doing this to shut him up, she reminded herself. He'll probably be so drunk by the time you get there that you'll spend the whole night taking care of him. With that thought in mind, she purposely didn't even bother to put any makeup on outside of lip gloss and barely ran a brush through her hair. What did it matter how she looked because nothing was going to happen. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.
With that decided, Alyssa did a quick survey of herself in the mirror, grabbed her keys and her purse, and headed downstairs to the street to catch a cab. Thankfully enough it didn't take very long for one to stop for her. After she got in and told the driver the address of Nick's hotel, she leaned back against the seat and sighed.
I am so screwed, she realized. Why do I have this feeling that maybe I should've stayed in bed?
