by Paula Cox
How had the night gone in this direction? If Nash hadn’t mentioned Holstein, would they have moved on to a different game by now?
Glaring through a teary field of vision, somehow Eliza managed to pick up that damn pink seal. The game shrieked her victory after depositing her prize in the pick-up compartment, but Eliza left it there, arms wrapped around herself as she made a beeline for the exit Nash had just stormed off toward in a fury. If he wanted to be a childish prick, she wouldn’t stop him. Eliza thought Doms were better mannered than that, but apparently Nash wasn’t just the king of being up front, but also the king of proving her wrong.
Chapter 23
If anyone had asked Eliza how she saw her day going when she woke up that morning, her answer would have been simple. Classes. Assist Professor Holstein. Dinner and arcade date with Nash. Amazing sex into the night. Falling asleep in her boyfriend’s arms.
She never would have said that she’d be at a trendy club downtown, surrounded by fellow law students with many, many drinks buzzing in her system. Music pumped through the huge former-warehouse-turned-nightclub, a heavy bass rattling her bones and coaxing her to jump and dance and laugh. Someone had spilled his or her drink, ice and all, down her back earlier and she didn’t even care. Drunk on the moment, Eliza found herself wondering why the hell she hadn’t done this before.
On her way out of the arcade, disappointed that she now had yet another horrible memory to cling to while walking through the side exit, Eliza received a text from one of the law girls in her new study group. Harriet had been desperate to get her out ever since they clicked a few weeks ago, but Eliza had been tactfully dodging the invitation, preferring to spend her time with Nash instead. However, it seemed that tonight Harriet had texted at the right moment—because Eliza was desperate to think of anything but Nash.
Phone in hand, tears in her eyes, Eliza made the decision not to go home and sulk over a fight. Couples fight all the time, and she didn’t want to sink into a pit of despair. Nash probably wasn’t in a pit of despair. Anger, maybe, over what…she had no clue, but she was sure that he wouldn’t be at home crying over the heated conversation they’d had. So Eliza accepted Harriet’s invitation without putting much thought into it, then met up with the bubbly brunette at a mellow bar a few blocks away from the arcade. While she’d been a little down at first, not engaging in much conversation unless it was about what drink she wanted next, Eliza slowly emerged, fluttering from her shy cocoon until she emerged the glorious drunk butterfly she currently was.
Harriet’s friends, some of which were from Eliza’s study group, others familiar because they were in a lot of Eliza’s classes, swept her under their wing. Even as they moved from the low-key bar to the jumping nightclub, not one person let Eliza lag behind, and soon enough she was laughing and dancing with the best of them. Nash, funnily enough, was the last thing on her mind.
A hand on some girl’s arm—Cordelia, was it?—Eliza shouted in her ear that she would be right back, that she was off to get another drink. Before the woman had a chance to follow, Eliza was off like a shot, shimmying and wiggling her way through the packed dance floor toward one of the four bars. The last round of shots had made her stomach feel a little off, so her drunk brain insisted on a vodka-cranberry—because cranberries were healthy. Duh.
As she stood in the huge line, toe tapping to the beat and lower lip caught between her teeth, she fished out her phone to check the time. Given how long she’d been out and how buzzed she was feeling, Eliza figured it had to be pushing two in the morning. Her jaw dropped, however, when she saw it was only a little after eleven. Clearly she wasn’t used to be out this late.
A hand brushed against her lower back suddenly, and she jumped, stumbling around to see who had invaded her personal space. It was a man—a rather handsome man with a square jaw and a messy mop of light brown hair on his head. He offered her a handsome smile as he eased around her, and she grinned at the back of his head when she realized he’d only touched her to get around her. Even still, the brief moment of contact made her heart pound, and she remembered just how excited she had been to go home with Nash tonight. Her stomach knotted uncomfortably for a moment, tightening enough to prompt a wave of nausea. Nash. Eliza frowned, her attention back on her phone.
Nash. He’d ruined everything tonight, from being too touchy-feely with her in front of Professor Holstein to bringing up the man and getting irrationally angry with her because she liked being helpful. Useful. Swaying slightly on the spot, she opened up her contacts list with a shaky finger and scrolled down to find Nash’s name.
There were no alerts. He hadn’t tried to contact her, nor had he been on any of the social media—all two of them—websites that she followed. Not that he was ever very active, but if he wasn’t sulking at home like she’d thought, Eliza would have liked to know what he was doing. A nervous wave fluttered over her, toying with her, making her feel crazy. She wasn’t like this. She wasn’t this person. Even if she hadn’t dated many men in her life—at all—Eliza knew she didn’t want to be some psycho possessive girlfriend.
Still. He’d started the fight. He could have made the effort by now to finish it. But maybe, again, that would fall to Eliza. For all his domineering energy, for all his outspokenness and sexy suaveness, maybe Nash wasn’t the brave one. Maybe in the relationship, Eliza had to be the one to make the first move, to step forward and initiate… something. She’d never considered herself to be all that brave, but for Nash, she was willing to switch hats and try.
After all, getting drunk was fun, but it wasn’t very productive—even through the cloud of shots and vodka and fruity mixed drinks cluttering her mind, Eliza could see that. So, rather than advancing toward the bar where she could pay for another shot of forgetfulness, Eliza turned and made her way for the smoker’s patio. Even though it was a chilly February night, she’d seen that the patio was busy on her way in. Pushing through the doorway, she stumbled out into the cold, her breath fogging in front of her. The alcohol did a good job at keeping her warm, and she was able to find an empty spot in one of the corners to make her phone call.
Standing there overlooking the alley outside the club, Eliza held the phone to her ear with her shoulder and crossed both arms over her, glad she finally had something to lean on. Most of the women around her were in ridiculously tall heels, and she was also suddenly grateful she’d worn boots for her date night instead.
Two rings.
Three rings.
Four rings.
She swallowed hard, half-expecting to hear his usual answering machine again. If she did, was she ever going to give that damn machine an earful. However, just before the sixth ring could hum in her ear, it stopped midway and Nash’s voice cut through the line.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” she managed, trying to keep the drunk tremor out of her words. Hearing him talk was enough to get her shaking, but she chalked it up to the cold instead. “What are you doing?”
“Watching TV.”
She waited for more, lips pressed together as irritation started to wriggle its way back into her system. While she hadn’t expected him to launch into an immediate apology, she wanted something more than two words.
“Is that it?” she snapped, temper getting the better of her with all that alcohol coursing through her. “Is that all you have to say to me after how you acted tonight?”
“How I acted tonight?” She heard some rustling in the background, followed by the clink of beer bottles. “You… We… I acted fine. You were the one who told me to butt out, so I left.”
“And you were just so dramatic about it, weren’t you?” She huffed, pushing away from the wooden patio railing and pacing back and forth. “You must have known I didn’t mean butt out of our date, just my business. Because I have no right to ask about your business, so why do you get to dictate mine? You aren’t my master in all things!”
A pair of guys glanced her way, eyebrows up, and she turned her back to the
m, blushing.
“Eliza, I’m not trying to control you,” he said tersely, and she could practically see his thick brow furrowing. “I’m just trying to look out for you. I gave my opinion. You freaked out. I left. Simple as that.”
“Grown men have rational conversations about things that upset them,” she insisted, hiccupping over upset in a way that only made her blush worse. To her credit, at least she wasn’t crying. Eliza didn’t feel like crying. Suddenly she felt like shouting, spurred on by rage and vodka. Her hands balled into fists.
“Fine, fine,” Nash muttered just as she drew in a breath, her words ready to explode like a volcano. “You want to have a rational discussion? Fine, but not over the phone. I can come over in a bit.”
“I’m not at home,” she said proudly. “I’m out.”
“Where?”
Behind her, someone opened the door for a moment and the pounding bass of club music wafted out. Apparently that was her answer.
“Are you… Eliza, are you at a bar?”
“So what if I am? I’m a grown woman who deserves a real night out every once in a while, Nash.”
“Of course you do.” His tone seemed softer now, and she heard him let out a sigh near the mouthpiece of his phone. “Eliza, are you drunk?”
“N-no.” She cringed. Why was she lying? She’d just made some big statement that she was an adult who could go out, yet she was too embarrassed to admit that she was wasted off her face? “Yes. Really drunk.”
“Oh my god…” Keys jingled in the background. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“No.” A cold panic clutched at her. No, she didn’t want him to see her like this. Tonight, her world was separate from Nash, and she suddenly wanted to keep him at an arm’s length until she was back to normal. “No, don’t. I’m out with some girls from my study group, and we’re having fun. I just wanted to c-call to check on you.”
“And I just want to make sure you don’t do something you regret because I was an ass,” he said gently. “Tell me where you are and we can just…hang out.”
“I don’t want to hang out with you tonight,” she quipped, throwing her shoulders back and gripping the phone tightly. “I just wanted you to know I’m having fun. And you were a jerk. And we can talk about it later.”
“Eliza, can you just—?”
She hung up before he could finish, then shoved her phone back in her purse.
Well. That hadn’t been productive. All it had done was rile her up and earn the attention of a few of the quietly chatting smokers nearby. Brushing them off with an embarrassed shrug, Eliza made a beeline for the door, desperate for that vodka-cran and the anonymity of a busy dance floor once more.
Chapter 24
Even if she was drunk, at least Eliza had the good sense not to turn her phone off. After she’d hung up on Nash, he knew calling her back wouldn’t do any good. She hadn’t been this upset with him before, but he deserved every ounce of rage that little beautiful creature had to give him. He’d been an ass. A jealous, possessive, clingy ass who’d lost his shit on a perfect woman because he couldn’t control his own jealousy in the heat of the moment. Even as he took his first step away from her at the arcade, Nash had known he was making a mistake, but he kept on walking anyway—because that was the kind of asshole Nash Reeves was whenever he ventured anywhere close to a legitimate relationship.
Now she’d gone off with people she probably didn’t know very well to get really, really drunk, and it was all his fault. They should have been in bed together, her ass red from a paddling and her body relaxed from whatever number of orgasms he saw fit to let her enjoy. They shouldn’t have been out, Eliza at the Sandy Beach Nightclub on Tenth Street, a club famous for its behind-closed-doors coke deals, featured recently in the papers because a college girl was roofied and assaulted in one of the bathrooms. Nash shouldn’t have been gunning it down the taxi-ridden late night streets of downtown Blackwoods, worried out of his mind that he’d all but pushed her into some skeevy asshole’s arms while she drowned her sorrows in liquor.
She wasn’t the type to drink or party. He knew that. But apparently these new “friends” in her study group brought out a wilder side of Eliza, one that didn’t suit her, and all he wanted to do was make sure she was okay. He’d never be able to forgive himself if something happened to her tonight, even if it was that she drunkenly tripped over her own two feet and skinned her hands on the sidewalk. Nash wasn’t having any of it.
Creepy assholes installed tracking apps on their girlfriends’ phones—and tonight, Nash felt like one of those creepy assholes wholeheartedly. He’d installed it when her father wandered onto his perp radar, if only to track her movements when she said she was out with him. It wasn’t to track her movements, per se, but her father’s. Until now, he hadn’t even used it, but tonight it came in handy when she refused to tell him where she was. Once he found her, he planned to delete the app off his phone, not liking the way it made him feel when he used it.
Like a chump. Like a creep. Like a stalker. He didn’t want to be any of those things. Eliza deserved to live her fucking life however she wanted, but Sandy Beach was bad news for pretty girls, and her safety, somehow, had become his top priority that night.
If she had been anyone else, he would have let it go. Kept on watching TV. Had another beer or two. In fact, if she had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have fought with her about fucking James Holstein, manipulative professor extraordinaire, but he had. Nash had thrown a hissy fit like some pre-teen boy who discovered the girl he liked had a crush on someone else, and it made him sick.
Pathetic.
The only way he could make up for the shit he pulled tonight was to make sure Eliza was okay. If she didn’t want to leave with him, fine, but he was going to make damn sure no one caused her any trouble while she was out.
After parking his bike up the street and paying at the front door to get in, Nash pushed through the thick crowd of drunken idiots, eyes peeled for a familiar head of blonde hair. The whole place stunk of sweat and booze, the floor wet and sticky, and he couldn’t imagine Eliza wanting to be here sober. But true to his phone apps tracker, she was indeed there, sitting at the corner of a bar with her head in her arms, slumped over. When he eventually did spot her, more out of luck than anything, a jumpy panic lurched through him, shooting his heart into his throat as he shoved people out of the way to get to her. Preppy college kids called him an asshole or told him to fuck off as he made his way through, and normally Nash would have turned and addressed the situation, but he had tunnel vision for Eliza and Eliza alone.
Around him, no one else mattered.
“You here for her?” the bartender shouted as Nash approached her slumped form. When he nodded, the bartender gave a sigh and pointed for the exit. “Good. Otherwise they’d have to kick her out. Too drunk.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he growled, situating himself between Eliza and her barstool and the herd of teetering drunk girls trying to get the bartenders attention. Under his breath, he muttered, “Maybe if you’d stopped serving her, she wouldn’t have passed out.”
But then again, it probably wasn’t the bartender’s problem. She was a petite thing, no doubt a lightweight when it came to alcohol, and it shouldn’t have surprised him to find her like this.
It definitely made him hate himself just a little more, of course. Images of him and her back at her apartment flashed through his mind as he wrapped an arm around her slim waist and used the other hand to get her head up. Her eyes had been closed—maybe she’d fallen asleep—but once they were open, those vibrant greens radiated nothing but anger.
“No,” she grunted, pushing at his chest. “No. I’m having fun…”
Even though he would have been happy to hang back and just watch out for her from the sidelines, he couldn’t do that anymore—not with the way her speech slurred.
“I know you are,” he offered kindly, hoisting her up and pulling her away from the bar area. He could
n’t carry her out, but she needed support to stay on her own two feet. How much more had she had to drink since the end of their phone call and now? He hadn’t taken that long to get here.
“Leggo’m, Nash.”
“Your friends are moving the party somewhere else,” Nash told her, speaking softly in her ear as he wove her through the crowd. This time, people shifted out of the way somewhat, maybe realizing he wasn’t just another drunk dick with a devil-may-care attitude moving through the crowd. “I think it’s time to go to bed.”
“I’m…tired.”
“I know.” He was tired, too. Tired of feeling the way he did for her. Tired of caring. Tired of trying to pull away. It wasn’t fair to her. “Let’s go to bed.”
He had plans to pump her full of water once they were back at her place, then he’d spend the night watching to make sure she didn’t barf in her sleep. Fantastic.
Once they were outside, however, just as Nash was wishing he’d brought the car instead of the bike, all his good intentioned plans shot straight to hell. Halfway down the sidewalk, away from the huge line of people waiting to get into the club, a sleek black town car pulled up to the curb, and out of it strolled none other than Dean Darryl Truman.
