by Amie Knight
She smiled and one of her eyes was a lot smaller than the other. “Not so drunk that I couldn’t still rock your world.”
I’d never seen her this drunk. I’d seen her have a few drinks, but she never got sloppy ass drunk. She was still fucking adorable even with her little eye. She’d stolen the show at the wedding and reception today. I had a feeling every man in there was drooling over her tight pink dress that hugged her curves in all the right places. And Hazel had so many curves, a guy could get lost traveling them.
“Okay, well, it seems like you got this under control. See y’all later.” Mason made a quick dash back to one of the tents.
I knew I couldn’t take her in there. She’d be mortified in the morning if anyone else saw her like this.
“Where’s Pops?” I asked drunk Hazel, who was rubbing one hand up and down the front of my shirt.
“He left with Amor.” She did some weird thing where she used her pointer and middle finger to walk from my belly button to my face where she gently gave me a boop on my nose. “But you can take me home with you.” She either had something in her eye or she was trying really hard to bat her eyelashes and only one was working.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, brat. Pops will worry about you.” I had to get her home. There was no way we were having a conversation tonight about my virginity and whether or not she wanted a relationship with me or just sex. That was a big fat no.
“What Pops doesn’t know won’t hurt him, Winnie.” She booped my nose again.
Jesus, I had to get us the hell out of here. She was a mess.
“Come on. Let’s get to my car.” I started walking us that way as quickly as I could with me half holding her up.
“Ohhhh. Is that where we’re gonna do it?” Hazel asked and tried to bite my bow tie but completely missed. “I’ve been wanting to bite that off all night.”
I tried not to laugh at her. “Really?” I asked, knowing I shouldn’t be encouraging her at this moment, but maybe drunk Hazel would fill me in on the good stuff since sober Hazel was like a safe.
“Mmmmhmmm. I think about biting all of your clothes off all the time.”
“You do?” I questioned, trying not to smile like a fool.
“And that’s not the only thing I wanna bite. I wanna bite that ass. You have the most tremendous ass, Winnie,” she practically sang.
I laughed a little as I steered her toward my car. Hazel had always had a thing for my ass and I’d always known it.
“That’s why I think we should just do this thang.” She said thing really funny and I laughed again.
We arrived at the car and I opened the passenger side and tucked her in or I tried to, but she grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down into the car with her and I fell between her legs, accompanied by a very loud rip.
“Oh, shit,” I said, my hands on either side of her head in my console. “I think we just ripped your dress.”
She continued to pull on the lapels of my shirt until we were nose to nose. “That’s because you’re a wild man, Winnie. Now take me home and have your way with me.”
This might have been sexy if she were sober. Instead, it was one of the most hilarious moments of my life. I was the opposite of a wild man. I was a virgin, for fuck’s sake.
I eased off her and pulled her hands from my shirt before sitting her up in the seat. I tried not to look at her ripped dress but definitely noticed that the side slit on it was now all the way up past her hips and to the side of her stomach, her nude panties on full display.
I closed her door and got into the driver’s side, buckling my belt and cranking the car before backing out of the parking space. I was going to have to book it home. Hazel was being a feisty one.
We were a good thirty-five minutes away and I spent most of the drive trying to keep Hazel’s hands out of my lap and her mouth away from my ear. Any other day I’d be all for a little foreplay, but she was drunk and I refused to take advantage of her right now.
I put on the radio and she sang her heart out. I really wanted to bust my phone out and record it to show it to her later, but I didn’t think she would like it as much as I would.
When we pulled up in front of Pops’s place and I turned the car off, she looked at me with her bottom lip poking out.
“This is not your place.”
“Nope, this is your place.” I got out of the car and came around and opened her door up.
“But I thought we were going to your place,” she whined.
I grabbed her hands and lifted her out of the car, before leaning down and holding her dress together.
She tried slapping at my hand that was keeping her from being exposed to the world while I tried to half hold her up and close the door to the car. Fuck me running, this woman was going to drive me nuts.
“It’s okay, Winnie. It’s just a little ass. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
Actually it was. I mean I’d seen asses in porn and in magazines but never in the flesh, and I definitely didn’t want to see Hazel’s while she was drunk. Well, I did want to. But I shouldn’t want to.
Holding her dress closed, I finally picked her up bride and groom style and carried her to the front door. The quicker I got her there the better and this was the fastest way I could think of.
“Ooooh, are you carrying me over the threshold so you can ravish me?”
I tried to ignore her, hold her, and search for the emergency key Pops always had in the planter by the front door. When I finally found it, it felt like scoring a touchdown.
Only my victory dance was cut short when Hazel threw the scarf that was around her arms all evening around my neck and pulled my lips to hers. She smiled against my lips and I couldn’t help but do the same.
“You’re a complete nut, Hazel,” I mumbled against her lips.
“I know I am, but you still want to have filthy, dirty sex with me, right?”
I pulled back and tried to wrestle the scarf out of her hands while holding on to her before she choked me to death.
When I finally got a little control of the situation, I said, “We can talk tomorrow about sex. Tonight, we should just go to bed. You’ve had a lot to drink.”
I unlocked the front door and tried to be as quiet as possible so we wouldn’t wake Pops.
“But, Winnie, if we just have sex with each other, things won’t be so hard anymore.”
I paused in the doorway. “Hard how?”
“You know.” She threw her hands around dramatically. “I’ll stop thinking of you all the time. I won’t imagine having sex with you day and night. We can be normal around each other again.”
My body locked tight as the words she threw out there like confetti rained down on me like knives, piercing my heart and completely gutting me.
She didn’t want the relationship. She wasn’t going to tell me she loved me. She just wanted to fuck me.
I huffed out a sarcastic laugh as I walked through the living room and then to the hallway that led up to Hazel’s room.
Pops jumped out of the dark like a fucking jack in the box and Hazel and I both yelled.
“What the hell are y’all yelling about? It’s one o’clock in the fucking morning. Sneaking in like a bunch of teenagers.”
I wanted to point out that he was lurking in the damn hallway waiting on us like we were a bunch of teenagers, too, but I didn’t.
“Sorry, Mr. Price. I was just making sure Hazel made it home okay from the reception.”
He looked me up and down before looking at Hazel in my arms with her ripped dress and her scarf around my neck. I looked at the ceiling to ask God for some grace at this moment because I knew exactly what this looked like.
“Is that so?” Pops asked, walking around us in a circle like a prowling tiger ready to attack.
“Aww, Pops, you’re so cute. I love you so much,” Hazel cooed at the old man while her hand whipped out and she rubbed the top of his half bald head.
He melted like
chocolate in her hand. “I love you, too, Hazey.” He glared at me. “You go on and put her to bed, Oliver. I’ll be waiting on you out here.”
I guess that was code for you are not sleeping with my granddaughter under my roof.
I walked Hazel to her room and set her on the bed, removing the scarf from around my neck and placing it next to her. I was sad. Really fucked up. She just wanted to have sex with me and that was never going to fly for me. I didn’t want pieces of Hazel. I wanted every bit of her. Her body, and her heart and soul. I wouldn’t settle for less. I’d wait, but there was a chance that my gamble would cause me to end up with absolutely nothing.
“What’s wrong, Winnie?” Hazel asked, lying back on her bed sleepily, the alcohol finally making her tired, which seemed like a blessing at this point.
“Nothing,” I answered, knowing this wasn’t a time for this tonight. I rummaged her dresser trying to find her something to put on. After three drawers, I finally found her sweatshirts neatly folded. I stared at the three that were on top. They were mine. When had she gotten a collection of my shirts that she’d never returned?
I pulled one out and laid it on the bed before leaning over and pulling her into a sitting position.
“I’m tired, Winnie,” she complained.
“I know,” I said softly while pulling my sweatshirt over her head, leaving her arms loose. The thing swamped her and she looked damn good in my clothes.
“I’m going to help you get your dress off, okay?” I said, slipping my hands underneath my hoodie and finding the zipper on the side and pulling it down all the way. I reached back up inside the hoodie and grabbed the top of the dress and pulled down until her arms were free and it was pulled around her waist.
“Lift up,” I ordered and she obeyed. I was glad for it. I didn’t have much fight left in me tonight.
I pulled the bottom of her dress and it slid right off. I tried not to look as I pushed her hands through the arm holes of the sweatshirt and made sure to pull it all the way down so it covered her ass.
“You’re so good to me,” Hazel said as I laid her back on her pillow and pulled the covers over her. “I don’t deserve it.” She closed her eyes and was asleep in two point five seconds.
Running my hands through my hair, I looked down at her.
I don’t deserve it.
That was where the problem lay. Hazel not thinking she deserved good things. I was going to prove her wrong.
I had to get through to her. I was done with the bullshit. I was past the avoiding. I was over the pretending. I thought of the day on the bikes when Hazel was terrified and how I’d pushed her to do it. And how much fun she had. And how free she’d been.
It was time. I was going to prove to her that she deserved me and I deserved her. She needed a nudge and I was going to have to be the one to push her.
Brushing the hair off her face, I kissed her forehead before whispering to her, “You deserve everything, Hazel. And I’m going to prove it to you, consequences be damned.”
I was dying of thirst. It was like the Sahara desert in my mouth. I rolled over in my bed and smacked my mouth, knowing I probably had the worst case of morning breath in the world. But that paled in comparison to the lovely headache I was sporting. The sun was bright outside my window so I covered my eyes with my arms and begged for God to keep me from throwing up.
He probably wasn’t going to listen to me since I’d hit on one of my best friends in the world and made him so uncomfortable that he hid from me all evening while I told a big NFL football player my entire life story that I was sure he didn’t give two shits about.
I groaned and rolled over onto my stomach so I could put the pillow over my head without suffocating so I could really hide my shame. If I ever thought of having a normal relationship with Oliver that shit was out the window now. That man had probably packed all his shit and moved to another state last night. And poor Mason was probably going to avoid me like the plague now, too.
I don’t normally drink, but when I do I get shitfaced, apparently.
God, I wanted to crawl under a rock. I’d ripped my dress, booped Oliver’s nose repeatedly, and tried to molest him. And he wasn’t having any of it. I was disgusted with myself.
I knew one thing. I wouldn’t be drinking for a very, very long time. Like ever again. Because my shit was ridiculous.
I was still feeling sorry for myself the first time I heard Pops yell.
“Hazelllllllll!”
I wanted to kill him, but I was feeling too sorry for myself to even get up. I picked up my phone off my bedside table and checked the time. It was already almost 11:00 a.m. As Pops would say I was sleeping the day away. Which wasn’t at all characteristically me. But today I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep. And maybe cry a little. But first, I needed to fix my sandpaper mouth.
I went to the bathroom attached to my room and brushed the hell out of my teeth before filling a cup I kept in there with water and guzzling it. I drank two more cups of water like that and took three ibuprofen I found in the cabinet. I stared at myself in the mirror. I’d decided to wear a little makeup last night and because of that I now looked like Night of the Living Dead.
So, I decided to scrub my face down and put some pajama pants on before I lay back down in bed.
I snuggled down into Oliver’s hoodie, thinking that this was probably all I would ever have left of him. That and his bracelet. Because I had a feeling most guys didn’t like when you growled at them or told them that they were wild.
I pulled the hoodie up over my head and tightened the straps until my whole face was covered and lay there sulking like a goddamn baby.
“Hazellllllllll!”
Oh my God, the man was not going to give up and he knew I hated that shit. I loosened the straps on my hoodie until my face was visible so he could see just how pissed off he was making me.
Stomping down the hallway, I heard voices in the kitchen and assumed that Amor was over already.
Ready to lay into Pops, I came around the corner like a bat out of hell. I was going to tell his ass. Enough with yelling my damn name. But I stopped short because there stood Oliver in the kitchen with Pops mixing something in a bowl in a pair of wrinkled tux pants and equally wrinkled white T-shirt. His hair was all over the place. He had more than a five o’clock shadow and I could still see the sleep in his eyes, but he’d never looked so good to me in his entire life.
He was here in my kitchen. Not some other state. Not avoiding me or running from me. Relief filled me up so much, my eyes flooded with unexpected tears. I wanted to pull the strings on his hoodie to hide my face again.
“You’re here,” I breathed, the words flying out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Pops’s and Oliver’s heads turned toward me, playful at first and then suddenly grave when they saw the tears in my eyes. Pops looked worriedly at me and then at Oliver.
Oliver set aside the bowl he was stirring and immediately came to me. I hurriedly wiped the tears that were starting to spill over. I shouldn’t have felt so incredibly relieved to see him, but I was and now he knew it. I’m sure he could see it all over my stupid face.
“We’ll be back in a minute, Mr. Price,” Oliver said to Pops before grabbing my hand and dragging me back to my room and closing the door behind us.
I sat on the bed, my heart pounding in my throat. What the hell was happening? Why was he still here?
Oliver knelt on the floor in front of me, right between my legs and used his thumbs to wipe more wetness from beneath my eyes.
With intense eyes on mine he asked, “You okay?”
I was the queen of playing it cool, so that’s what I did. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said nonchalantly, trying to look anywhere in the room but at him, thankful for this hood to hide in.
That didn’t stop his eyes from roaming the expanse of my face. “You looked upset.”
Shaking my head, I continued to play it off. “I’m not upset.” That wasn’t a lie. I w
as happy he was here. The man had really driven me crazy and now I was one of those silly girls who cried happy tears. But I’d never let him know he’d done that to me. “What are you doing here?” I changed the subject.
He grinned up at me. “Your pops let me crash on the couch last night since we came in so late and I thought that was a good idea since you were in such bad shape. I wanted to be able to check on you throughout the night and make sure you didn’t get sick.”
He’d stayed and checked in on me and I tried to sexually maul him? What kind of terrible person was I and what kind of damn saint was he? “That’s really sweet, Winnie. About last night—” I started.
“It’s fine, Hazel. Don’t worry about it. But I do need to tell you something and I need for you to be paying close attention. Okay?”
This wasn’t good. He looked too serious. Was this where he told me he was sick of my shit and that he was, indeed, moving to another state to escape me?
“Okay,” I said apprehensively.
“You sure you’re not still drunk?” I think he was only half joking.
I thumped his ear with my middle finger. “Get on with it.” He was scaring me to death. I needed him to make it quick.
“Okay.” He ran a hand through that messy hair before laying them both on the tops of my thighs. “I love you, Hazel.”
Aww. My sweet guy. “I love you, too, Winnie.” I was praying he wasn’t going to follow it up with but I gotta get the hell out of here.
Shaking his head, he licked his lips slowly. “No, Hazel. I love you. And I don’t love you like a sister or even a friend. I love you like I want to marry you and have babies with you and grow old with you. And I have for a long time.”
Okay. Then I guess he wasn’t moving. My heart picked up speed and so did my breathing. I was starting to think this was what the beginning of a panic attack felt like.
“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? I don’t just love you. I’m in love with you.”
Slowly I moved my head up and down and took big gulps of air. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Was he trying to kill me so he didn’t have to leave his family and move to a cold, northern state?
