“Ugh,” I groaned loudly, tossing my phone on the table as Kip’s name lit up my screen. “Go away, you thickheaded, ignorant, all-the-other-words-that-mean-that, stupid-face.”
That . . . that was definitely out loud. And slightly slurred.
Gavin was the first to burst out laughing but was soon followed by everyone else.
“I don’t wanna marry you,” I yelled at the ringing phone.
“Someone take her keys,” Sawyer said as he grabbed for my phone.
“Already done,” Rae assured him as she curled into his side, her mouth searching out his neck.
Vampire.
I tried to glare at her, but it was possible I just closed my eyes.
“Hello?”
“No,” I said softly when Sawyer answered my phone, drawing out the word so long my lungs started screaming for air.
He winked at me, but it lacked the usual Sawyer-ness. All of his actions throughout the night had been missing it. He was enjoying himself and pretending everything was fine. But I could see the tension and worry lingering beneath the surface.
Hopefully I’d drank too much for him to see anything.
“Well, hey there, Kip,” Sawyer continued. “How’ve you been?”
I hate you.
Oh, wait . . . out loud.
“I hate you,” I whisper-yelled.
He pulled the phone away from his face, his mouth quirking into a dimpled grin. “Love you too—Em?” he asked, bringing the phone back. “She’s right here, we’re just having a little game night, but it was winding down anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Here she is.”
His blue eyes danced as he extended the phone to me, his hushed voice crossing the distance between us. “I can’t wait to hear how this call goes.”
“Definitely hate you.”
“Best-man best friend,” he claimed, using the title he’d given himself when I’d first told him how Kip planned to marry me.
I gave an exaggerated roll of my eyes and let them fall to the screen of my phone, staring for another few seconds before taking it from Sawyer’s grasp. “Your boyfriend sucks,” I said to Rae as I stood from my seat at the dining room table to make my way to the living room, swaying as I did.
“He was your best friend first,” she called back all defensive like.
“’lo?” I said as I plopped onto the couch.
There was a beat of pause before Kip spoke, wariness bleeding through the phone, “You okay, babe?”
“I’m slightly and incredibly intoxicated,” I confessed on a rush.
And devastated. Wrecked. In love with someone who most definitely isn’t you and doesn’t care about me at all. And I’m more sure than ever before that there’s something horribly wrong with me for needing him this way.
A breath of a laugh sounded. His worries fading away just like that.
Oh my God, do I not know how to snap?
I kept putting my fingers together but couldn’t figure out what to do after, only realizing sometime into Kip’s next words that he was talking to me again.
“. . . imagine how much you of all people had to drink to get wasted, but that isn’t what I meant.” A beat passed before he meaningfully said, “You haven’t called since I left.”
I didn’t have to wonder how long that had been.
Kip had come into town the night before Cayson arrived.
He’d left not long after because I’d pretended to get sick when he started saying some seriously un-okay shit—is un-okay a word? It’s a word. Decided—Though he had tried to come back soon after with things to help had I actually been sick, and then again an hour after that. But I’d pretended not to hear the door to avoid the awkwardness that was Kip-plus-marriage.
I was going to vote for my mind not to count those last two.
Cayson was only there for about a day because he likes to destroy things, like my soul.
Which meant Kip and I hadn’t talked in about forty-eight hours.
Boom.
I’m ridiculously good at Cayson Math when I’m drunk.
“It’s only been a couple days,” I said as I repeatedly did an air-mic-drop.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Yeah, but shouldn’t we talk about what I said?”
You mean when you tried to marry us?
An unattractive snort left me and then I began furiously shaking my head as if to apologize for the thought and sound.
“I, uh . . .”
Oh, God, who let me drink so much?
I blinked quickly and then squeezed my eyes shut, trying to force myself to think clearly and talk normally. “Kip, I . . . we’ve talked about this. I’ve told you my thoughts.”
Silence met me.
Making a weird, uneasy feeling twist at my stomach.
I didn’t like having to do this. I didn’t like repeatedly turning him down. Why couldn’t we just stay how we’d been for so long?
Why did it have to change?
Why did I have to turn him down more than once anyway?
“I really just . . . all I want is something casual.”
I wanted the minutes or hours when he came back to be filled with nothing more than two people satisfying a need.
I wanted the distance between us because I didn’t want a romantic connection—I never had. I couldn’t when I’d fallen in love with someone else and remained hopelessly in love with him even after years with no word from him.
A weighted laugh came through the phone and ended on a sigh.
He always laughed, but the next time I saw him, our ‘marriage’ was all he wanted to discuss.
“Yeah, all right.”
“I’m serious,” I pressed, unsure if the firm tone I strove for was present.
“I know, Em. I always know.”
Right.
“What’s going on?” Kip suddenly asked.
I jerked, wondering how I could’ve forgotten I was on the phone and how long it had been since silence descended upon our conversation.
I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been trying to couch-dance to whatever song was in my head.
Couch dancing . . . that sounds dirty.
“Uh . . .”
“Known you a long time,” he said somberly. “Know you can drink anyone under the table, men three times your size included. Also know you have only gotten drunk once in your life . . .”
The words he wasn’t saying might as well have been screamed.
And that was when you broke.
It was the night Leighton died.
Sawyer’s ex.
The third member of our trio.
Our third musketeer.
She’d starved herself to death. Her heart gave out just weeks after Sawyer’s dad had unexpectedly died and one month after Cayson had disappeared.
Worst month of my life.
I’d snuck back into Brewed after we closed up that night and sat behind the bar, drinking until the hurt didn’t hurt so bad.
Everything I knew not to do.
I’d known from growing up in that bar, listening to my mom and watching customers, that the hurt would still be there in the morning.
Didn’t matter that night.
Kip and some of his friends had found me stumbling down the middle of the street, singing and crying.
He’d taken me home and stayed in the bathroom with me for the rest of the night and morning. Gotten me to bed when I was able. When I woke, there was water, aspirin, and an empty sports drink bottle that I’d apparently already drunk.
A few nights later, I’d gone to his house and asked him to make it stop hurting for a little while.
Our use-me-when-you-need-me dance had continued ever since. But now he was trying to make it into something it was never intended to be.
“So, tell me what’s going on,” he finally said.
“Game night?” I said slowly, the words coming out like a question.
“Babe, you’re not drunk because of game night. I know you.”
No, you don’t, I wanted to
scream.
“Lots of things,” I said swiftly, the words sounding a little frantic as I swallowed the denial. “Like, I said: Game night. Faith and Gavin are having a baby—yippee.”
“Heard that,” Faith snapped.
“That’s awesome,” Kip began as I continued with my ramble.
“Cayson came back—”
“Wait, what?”
“—but then he left, and it was a shit show. So, there you go.”
“What?” he asked again, this time harsher than before.
I locked my jaw when the quivering began and quickly spread through my body.
Stupid emotions.
Stupid heart.
Stupid boy.
“Cayson came back?” The question was soft, but his voice was edged with steel.
“Yep. For a whole day.”
“Piece of shit,” he hissed. “Should’ve just stayed gone.”
“He was fine. I mean, it was bad, but that wasn’t entirely because of him. I don’t think, I don’t know.”
I prayed the waver in my voice couldn’t be heard through the phone.
Couldn’t be overheard by the people sitting at the table.
“I doubt that,” Kip said with a scoff.
“Really,” I defended softly, unsure why I was even defending Cayson. Why it mattered to me that I did.
He was gone.
But maybe with my head all fuzzy and happy and stuff, I was seeing past all the bullshit that I’d been holding tight to. All the resentment and blame and scorn.
“How you can—after every—” Kip stammered, all the words hushed and nearly incoherent. When he continued, his voice was almost pleading, as though he were trying to make me see reason. “Babe, don’t you remember that spring break when you wouldn’t go in the lake?”
I’d been staring at the ceiling before.
I was sure of it because I was trying to figure out how to get it to stop spinning before realizing that it was the fan’s blades that were spinning.
But with one seemingly innocent question, it felt like my eyelids shot open.
As if maybe I’d been lying there with my eyes shut. Drifting in my cozy, inebriated state.
I’d never sobered so quickly.
Mortification had that effect, though.
Humiliation rushing through me like a wave as my mind screamed for him not to continue, but I just sat there in horror.
Sat.
Sitting.
When had I sat up?
“He told everyone it was because you were on your period.”
My head was shaking and my lips were moving, but I was unable to make my throat work, which now felt paralyzed by this memory.
“The next week at school, he got the varsity baseball team to throw water balloons filled with red dye at you.”
“That—all that was Cayson?” I asked, my words choked and breathless.
“Who the hell else would it have been?” His anger at the memory lessened only slightly, mixing with lifelong concern and a decade of possessiveness when he asked, “Why would you ever try to convince me that this guy was anything less than an asshole?”
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
“Right,” I managed to scrape out through the tightening of my throat. “Yeah, I—you’re right, I don’t . . . yeah.”
This is why I had grabbed on to the pain.
This is why I’d tried to guard my heart when he’d stepped into my shop.
This is why I couldn’t let myself fantasize about a life where he would come back and love me and stay.
This is why I needed to move on.
But moving on had always seemed impossible—even when I’d been sure Cayson would never return, that I would never see or speak to him again. How was I supposed to now, after having my heart teased with what it craved?
“Quack, quack, Little Duck.” Eyes the color of a sun-lit sea locked on me and hardened. Jerking his chin in the direction Sawyer and Leighton were going, he continued, tone all mocking and superior. “Run along. Keep following them. It’s what you do best.”
“Just trying to be polite or something,” I mumbled, head shaking at the memory and my ridiculous attempt at brushing away all I’d said.
It wasn’t until another minute or so passed without a response that I realized the white noises that filled the call had disappeared.
I brought my phone from my ear to look at it, but the screen was black.
It stayed black no matter what I did.
Dead.
I let it fall to the couch beside me as I flopped onto my back again, draping my arm over my eyes to block the light.
“Bed.”
“No,” I whined unattractively as I twisted and clawed at the comfortable spot I’d just been pulled from.
I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep.
“Jesus Christ,” Sawyer said from where he was holding me in the air like a rag doll, the words all soft laughter. “Remind me to never let you drink like that again.”
“Let go,” I pleaded in that same whiney tone.
Maybe Kip’s earlier reminder of the past hadn’t sobered me up as much as I’d thought.
I was turned and lowered until my feet touched the floor. “Go to bed. Walk there on your own.”
“So mean.”
I could hear Rae giggle from somewhere near us.
Cracking my eyes open, I realized all the lights were off except for a soft glow coming from somewhere near the kitchen.
I pouted as I thought about how far it was from where I stood to the guest room.
So far. Hundreds-of-miles far.
“Who knew you were such a whiney drunk?” Sawyer teased.
“You didn’t know this?” Rae asked, something like amazement and excitement swirling through her tone.
“Fuck no,” he laughed. “You saw how much it took to get her like this. I’ve never seen her trashed.”
“I am right here,” I snapped and stomped my feet. Both of them.
Oh God, I was irritating myself.
I pointed in front of me, nodding. “Okay, I’m going.”
I started to take a step but was turned again. “That way, sis,” Sawyer said helpfully, the amusement in his tone slightly subdued.
I flipped them off as I groggily stumbled toward the hall and into the guest room, then nearly toppled over as I got out of my boots and headed for the bathroom.
But it wasn’t until I was looking for my toothbrush after washing my hands, my fingers grasping at the air again and again, that I remembered I no longer had any of my things here.
Because Cayson had come.
And then left.
“Asshole,” I muttered to the empty room as I shut off the light and headed for the bed, clumsily stripping out of my fishnet stockings as I went.
Untying the knot that kept my shirt tight on my thighs, I let it hang loose around my legs and grabbed for the comforter. Falling into the bed and immediately going still as I became surrounded in him.
His scent, like bourbon and sandalwood.
His confusing and intriguing presence that seemed to cling to this space even though he had spent such a small amount of time in it. Calm and patient and good.
My eyelids slipped shut and the air eased from my lungs as I fought the wave of emotion that crashed over me.
As I wished for just one more day.
One more moment near him.
A chance to be people who didn’t have the stained past we did.
A chance to love him.
Chills skated across my skin when I breathed in again, savoring the way his scent seemed to envelop me and made my belly warm and twist with the craving to be wrapped in him.
With my eyes closed, I could almost believe it.
My body shuddered when the tips of my fingers trailed across my stomach, the contact soft and light, but my body ultra-sensitive.
Gripping the bottom of my shirt, I slowly
inched it up until it was bunched around my hips and let my legs ease apart.
Every brush of my fingers against my skin had a shiver rolling up my spine while my mind wished to replace them with his.
Hands so big and strong, I wanted to know what it felt like to be held by them.
Be touched by them.
Worshipped.
Loved . . .
Maybe it was the alcohol.
Maybe it was being wrapped in Cayson’s lingering presence.
Maybe it was the aftermath of being so close to him.
Or a combination of the three . . . but I was trembling and aching for a release I hadn’t even begun to reach for.
My body shuddered and a whimper fell from my lips when I slid my fingers through my slit and dipped into my body. Already so wet from the images I’d spent years fantasizing over—dreams I would give anything to make a reality.
Slipping my fingers up to my clit, my breaths came harsher, my insides shaking and shaking as I teased and rubbed the metal piercing there, all while Cayson’s scent continued to swirl around me.
Making those images that flashed behind my eyelids as real as my own heartbeat.
I was sure I could hear him. The low timbre of his voice—the way I’d always imagined he would sound in a darkened room.
Was sure that presence he’d left behind was getting bigger, louder.
My back bowed a little when I pressed my fingers into my heat, the warmth in my belly constricting as I neared the end when I’d just begun.
Another whimper crept up my throat.
Another shudder rocked through me as I returned my slick fingers to my clit. Circling and teasing and savoring this feeling of being strung so tight just before I fell. My teeth digging into my bottom lip to keep from crying out when I pressed against the sensitive bud.
Any other moment, I might’ve found it pathetic that my drunk, wrapped-in-Cayson, self-induced orgasm had ripped through me so fiercely, but I had bigger problems right then.
Like the fact that I was mid-body-racking-tremor, fingers still on my clit as I pushed myself through the most intense orgasm of my life—okay, fine, maybe not. Still drunk here—and the bedroom door was opening.
“Holy Cayson,” I hissed as I scrambled to an awkward, propped-up position.
Wait, what?
“No—shit. Shit,” I tried to amend for whoever was coming in, my eyes widening and jaw dropping when Holy Cayson stepped through and flipped on the light.
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 10
