I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

was starting to set in big time. I looked down at the pile of cocktail umbrellas and tried to count them but they all blurred into one smudgy blob. “Erm,” I slurred, trying to focus on Harvey, “yeah, I’m fine, but I, er, I think I could do with maybe freshening up?”
    “My room’s just on the second floor,” Harvey offered, and I blurted out, “No, it’s not!”
    He looked surprised. Shit. Bugger. “I mean, I asked at Reception. It’s on the first floor.”
    Harvey frowned, then he laughed. “Yeah, like this is the ground floor, not the first. I don’t get that about Britain.”
    Me neither, I wanted to say as I stood up and wove after him through the bar, but I couldn’t concentrate on talking and walking at the same time.
    We were halfway up the stairs when I realised that Luke was still in Harvey’s room. Oh, bollocks! And I hadn’t warned him! I’d taken out my earpiece!
    “Oh,” I said, stopping. “I just need to, I just need to, erm, make a phone call.” I was swaying in place. These steps were awfully narrow. And very steep. A person could hurt herself if she wasn’t extra, super-duper careful. I clutched at the railing as I rummaged in my bag for my phone, feeling slightly sick. I got out the Siemens and stared at it.
    “Something wrong?” Harvey asked, coming back down a few steps and taking my arm.
    “This is the wrong phone,” I muttered.
    “How many do you have?”
    “I, er…” He was looking very blurry. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that second Blue Lagoon. And probably the pitcher of Margaritas was not a good idea.
    “Sophie, are you sure you’re okay? How much did you have to drink?”
    I had no idea. I could only remember the first half-dozen cocktails. The rest were hazy.
    “Sophie?”
    I looked up and the phone slipped from my hand. I stooped to pick it up, lost my balance, and then everything went sort of swirly and nauseous and black.
     
    And when I awoke, I was alone. This bird had flown.
    My head was in agony. I felt sick and dizzy even without moving. My eyelids felt like they’d been glued together. No, scratch that; they’d been lined with ponyskin, then stapled together.
    I moaned.
    “Sophie?”
    I peeled open one eyelid and eventually focused on Harvey, looming over me, something white in his hand.
    “How’re you feeling?”
    I thought about it. “Blegh,” I said.
    The white thing was a damp cloth and he pressed it to my forehead. “I think you had a little too much to drink.”
    Really .
    I opened the other eye, because they were both starting to ache from the effort. “I know this is a really trite question, but where am I?”
    He smiled a lovely gentle reassuring smile. “My room. You threw up on the stairs. And then you passed out.”
    How attractive.
    “Have I… Have I been here long?”
    “About ten minutes. You want some water?”
    I thought about it. Right now my oesophagus only seemed to want to operate one way.
    “I think I’m going to be sick,” I mumbled, and stumbled from the bed.
    Sick I was, but I at least managed to get into the bathroom and lock the door first. Huddled on the floor, wiping vomit from my mouth, I sat and shivered, feeling pathetic. I hadn’t got this drunk since my eighteenth birthday, when I drank multi-coloured cocktails and threw up all over.
    Hmm.
    There was a knock on the door. “Sophie? You all right?”
    Peachy. “I’m okay,” I croaked.
    “Your cell phone’s ringing.”
    I crawled to the door, unlocked it, and accepted my bag from Harvey. Then I locked the door again and shuffled back to my hideout under the sink to pull the phone from my bag. The Nokia. Luke.
    Bollocks.
    “What?” I mumbled.
    “Several things. You have the James Bond theme tune on your phone?”
    How the hell did he know that? “How the hell do you know that?”
    “The wire. Remember? Sophie, did I hear that jockstrap saying you’d passed out?”
    “Mmm.” Where was the damn earpiece? My bag? My pocket? Christ, it was in my cleavage. Oh God, I was such a loser.
    “And threw up?” He made a noise of disgust. “Twice?”
    “I think I’m allergic to grenadine.”
    “Jesus, Sophie. What were you thinking?”
    “I was bored.”
    “You were pissed. Really, majorly pissed. Are you still in his room?”
    “The bathroom.”
    “Get out. Now. Get your arse down to the car. And put your fucking earpiece back in.”
    I ended the call, hands shaking, and hauled myself to my feet. I looked appalling. Worse than Sven