Sunburn Madness

Brendan has got to remember his sunscreen. His face is an entirely different colour than his chest. Unnervingly so. The back of his neck is a screaming red mess of angry freckles that emanate heat like  a burning coil, almost too hot to touch. This is going to hurt in the morning. Five pints too many, he has vague memories of a woman named Natalie or Alexa, maybe Analee. Someone with too many vowels in their name. Karaoke in a private room, throngs of Japanese ESL students and Sweet Home Alabama on repeat at 11 on the dial after a beachside pub crawl celebrating July. Or summer or something or nothing in particualr. Brendan can not for the life of him remember anything in specifics. Except he is suddenly aware that he has indeed lost his phone. It's sometime pre dawn but not quite 5 am and Brendan can't move his neck for the pain in his skin. He flails around like a blind mole, flapping his arms in a 360 degree circle desperately feeling for anything familiar that will send some sort of recognition signal to his guinness soaked brain. He'd move his neck but the skin feels like it's about to split. This will definitely hurt in the morning. Or now, seeing as the sun is starting to crest over the horizon out of the corner of his eye through burgandy and gold velvet curtains. Wait, what? Where is he. Brendan's starting to have a mild anxiety attack. How did he end up here, on a couch in some random condo, with the world's worst sunburn and swathed in fun fur with a pair of uknown boxers around his ankles, purple painted accent walls and a bug eyed pug licking his left knee.  Somehow this wasn't what he had planned for a summer afternoon frolic. If he managed to make his way to the kitchen and found a gorgeous amazonian woman with many A's in her name making waffles and espresso, not all would be lost. Surely, a man can dream.

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