The world was a shitty place. Not only was my sister on my case in the worst way, but I had a headache like someone had been testing nuclear weapons in my head, courtesy of a monumental hangover. The way Alice was going on at me it was hard to figure out which was worse.
"You insulted my friend." My sister Alice was saying for the hundredth time, loud and angry. "You were pissed and you insulted her. You embarrassed me you cretin. Look at you... you can barely open your eyes you were so pissed last night."
Alice wasn't wrong. I was in a bad place. Way too much beer was taking its toll on my body and the pain only got worse when the sunlight crept between my eyelids. I was clinging to the small kitchen table in Alice's apartment, wishing I could reach the coffee that was next to my hand.
Somehow my first weekend away from my new job had come to this – rather than a relaxing weekend walking the city streets and taking in the sights with my sister, I'd gone with her to her friend's party, had no one to talk to and drank way too much. Apparently the really bad part was when I asked her friend and my host, Molly, if her tits were real. Which, probably wasn't such a bad thing to do, or outlandish, considering Molly's rack, had it not been the first thing I'd said to her all night beyond, "Hello, nice to meet you." There it was - me, at my inebriated, tactful best.
"I'm sorry, okay." I tried to quell the onslaught of a scorned sister. It was a small gesture that was received with more scorn.
"Sorry," Alice shrieked, "It's not me you should be sorry to, it's Molly. You should go round there, right now, and apologize. She doesn't deserve being talked to like that by her friend's idiotic little brother."
I sort of half-nodded, turned away from the volume and wondered how to make the pain go away.
"Have you got any Aspirin?"
****
In the end it was just after lunch when I felt well enough to do something about the requested apology. I didn't feel sober enough to drive round to the scene of the previous night's party and Alice refused to drive me, so I tapped the address into my phone and set off on foot, happy to be out of Alice's audible range for a while.
I knocked the door of Molly's apartment and backed away, down a couple of steps, when I heard some movement behind the door.
Molly opened the door to her apartment and scowled down at me. Way to make me feel better.
"I... I just came to say sorry... for last night." It was like I had a stutter now, another affliction to add to my broken head.
Molly gave a quick "humph" and then a thin smile spread across her face. "Yes, you were a bit of a dick."
There wasn't much to disagree with there, so I kept quiet.
Molly stood aside a little and motioned for me to enter her apartment. "Come in. It looks like you could use a few minutes to sit down and maybe some coffee."
Again, there was nothing to disagree with; Molly's assessment was totally accurate.
Molly had probably spent most of the morning tidying up the apartment because it looked a whole lot better than I remembered it. Not a single piece of glassware was left on view and there was no evidence of that big bowl of chips that someone had tipped over and then been stomped into the carpet. The air didn't smell of alcohol and smoke, but was heavy with some kind of air freshener that she'd obviously used to obliterate the odors of the previous night.
I sat on her sofa and leaned back while she asked from the kitchen how I wanted my coffee. I managed a weak, "Great." when she suggested straight-up black.
When Molly brought the coffee in she pulled up a small table to my side of the sofa and placed a steaming cup on it for me. She got her own drink, sat sideways at the other end of the sofa and pulled her feet up in front of her. She looked content and, despite the circumstance, I didn't feel the least uncomfortable.
"I expect Alice made you come over." Molly sipped from her mug.
"Kind of," I admitted, "but I think I probably was a bit of a dick, and you do deserve an apology. I'm really sorry. I was really drunk."
Molly nodded. "Alice can be a bit prim and proper at times but, yes you were a bit out of line. I can't imagine where you found enough beer to get in the state you were in."
I sighed and recalled, "I'm pretty sure there was some wine involved too. It's hard to be sure. There was a lot of booze around."
As I had observed the previous evening, Molly looked spectacular to my strained eyes. I knew that she was a few years older than Alice, who was six years older than me, so that put Molly closer to 35 than 30, but she was looking good at whatever age she was.
The first thing you noticed about Molly was the huge bush of curly locks that she wore long and cascading around he shoulders. Her brown hair framed her young-ish features and ready smile but the casual observer might not get to those deep hazel eyes before the noticed her figure. While not exactly a stick insect, Molly was thin with a layer of latent puppy fat that filled out her jeans nicely and probably added to the impressive size of her breasts – the subject of my ill-advised comment the night before.
As I sat and cradled my coffee I glanced frequently over at Molly, trying not to let my gaze linger on her boobs, but knowing I was failing miserably.
Molly was more relaxed about the whole thing than I could ever have expected, but I guess that she'd lived with the "problem" every day of her adult life so maybe it wasn't so surprising. "It's not like I haven't heard it before." She said matter-of-factly. "Men, and boys, seem to be infatuated by breasts, and these are... noticeable, I guess." Her eyes darted down to the breasts in question.
They sure were that, I managed not to say it out loud. "We are a little... predictable, at times. Men, I mean." I managed a limp smile.
"Anyway," Molly reached around to place her mug on a table, "Consider yourself forgiven. It's not like I haven't made a few verbal mistakes in my time. It's nice to meet you by the way, Alice has told me about you a little. She's very proud of her little brother, so I hope she gets over her outrage soon."
"She will." I assured Molly. "She's okay, just a little uptight at times. And not sympathetic to hangovers."
