Chapter 2: The Morning After Reckoning
The first sensation was a dry, aching throbbing behind her eyes. The second was the light—sharp, insistent slants of it cutting through the thin curtains and lying across her face like heated blades. Rhea groaned and turned her head into the pillow, which smelled faintly of her own shampoo and something else, something stale and sweet. Beer sweat.
Memory returned in splintered flashes. The cold shock of the surf. Crushed aluminum in the sand. The kitchen floor tiles under her bare feet. The feeling of shedding her clothes like a wet skin. A deep, hot shame began to uncoil in her stomach, separate from the nausea.
She forced an eye open. The other was glued shut with sleep. The bedroom was a disaster of light and shadow, the sheets tangled around her hips. She was naked. Of course she was. She always ended up naked.
And Margot was already awake.
She was p