I stumbled back to the bar and looked at the drink Max had ordered me. With uncharacteristic abandon, I threw back a long gulp. I almost immediately regretted it, as even the motion of tilting my head back sent everything spinning.
Closing my eyes only made it worse. It felt like I was in a washing machine, and even with all the nausea-inducing dizziness, I still couldn’t stop thinking about how silly I felt for doing all this to spite Nick. Even behind wine goggles, it had become clear that I wasn’t romantically interested in Max after five minutes of listening to him talk tonight. If I was honest with myself, I think I’d known it from the moment he got in the car with me at the airport. Deep down, I knew I was just using the excuse of his story helping our business because I wanted to put Nick’s feelings to the test.
Ugh. When had I become so pathetic? I distantly wondered if it was less of a bitchy move when the plan hadn’t been premeditated. And how could it have been? I’d been off balance from the moment Nick had walked back into my life. Everything I did was just a desperate grab for stability—one wild, scrabbling grasp after another. And tonight was a new low, even by my recent standards.
I thought I might pass out any minute, and I felt deep, terrifying pangs of panic at the idea of Max being responsible for taking me back to our cabin. I almost sent another text to Nick asking him to come rescue me, but there was no way to do it without Max seeing.
I tried to will myself to sobriety, but I was too far gone, so I resolved to stare glassy eyed at the bar and refuse to drink another drop of alcohol. I was not going to pass out.
Chapter 14
NICK
I commandeered a golf cart to get to the bar faster. I’d covered Miranda’s ass in the picture she’d sent me while I showed every employee I could find. I needed to know which bar had a bathroom that looked like the one in the image. I tore through the quaint little pathways, dodging more than a few pairs of Bark Bites employees who were drunkenly staggering home, jogging with their dogs, or just out enjoying a nighttime stroll.
When I arrived at the bar, I found Max Frost and Miranda on their way out. Max was holding Miranda, who looked like she was on the verge of passing out. He had her arm slung around his neck and his hand around her waist as he half dragged her.
I stopped the golf cart directly in front of them and stepped out. I knew rolling up in a golf cart was probably the least intimidating way on earth to make an entrance, but I didn’t care. “Miranda, are you okay?” I asked.
She looked at me, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw relief in her face. The expression passed and was replaced by a look like she was about to throw up, but I knew what I’d seen, and that was all it took to make my decision clear.
“I’ll take her from here,” I said.
“Like hell you will,” Max said. “I know all about you. Miranda told me what an asshole you are. About how you are always leading her on. Besides,” he said, shooting a curious look toward Miranda. He’d apparently decided she was drunk enough that he could speak freely. “I’m the one who spent all night getting her drunk. You think I’m just going to hand her over to you?”
“Set her in the golf cart,” I said in a cold, barely controlled voice.
“No.”
“You can either put her down carefully and walk away, or I’m going to make you. If I have to make you, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the news station you work for knows what a fucking creep you are too. It’s your choice.”
He stared at me, jaw flexing and unflexing. I sensed what he was about to do just before he did it, lunging forward to catch Miranda as he roughly let her go.
As she slipped from his arms, she drunkenly whooped like she was on a thrill ride. When I dipped to my knees and caught her, she fist pumped and cheered, eyes rolling back in her head. “And Nick steals the home run!” she whisper-yelled. “The crowd goes wild!” She made a hissing noise and did some strange gesture with her hands.
I really had never been the fighting type, but I knew if I hadn’t had to worry about Miranda’s safety, I would’ve already gone off on the man. I wanted nothing more than to hurt him. The intensity of my anger scared me, though. Burying my feelings for Miranda to do what was best for her career had seemed like the right choice, but I don’t think I realized she could stir up emotions this strong in me. It made me wonder if keeping these kinds of feelings from her was really the right thing to do.
“Happy?” Max asked.
“Every second I have to look at you pisses me off more.”
“Try closing your eyes,” Max suggested.
“Walk. Away,” I warned.
Max sniffed dismissively. “Having money doesn’t make you invincible, you know. This isn’t the last you’ll hear from me, and you’re going to wish you hadn’t fucked with me.” He spit on the ground before stalking off.
I picked her up carefully and sat her down in the golf cart. I wasn’t afraid of his threats. He was just trying to save face. I was almost certain.
As much as I wanted to go after him and start a fight, I wasn’t willing to leave Miranda alone for long enough to do it. So I turned the wheel on the cart and headed back to our cabins.
When I took the first turn to the right, Miranda slumped into my shoulder and made no sign of wanting to straighten back up.
“You schmell yummy,” she slurred in a drunken approximation of Sean Connery’s accent.
I pressed my lips together. Do not engage. She was beyond drunk, and, unlike Max, my plan was to take her to her room, set her on the bed, and leave.
“I’ve always wanted to take a nibble out of you,” she said, clamping her teeth together a few times for emphasis. “Did you know that? Nope. You didn’t, ’cause you asked out the wrong girl.”
I swallowed hard. Ignore all of this. I had to resist the overwhelming urge to tell her the truth, even if she was hardly likely to remember any of this tomorrow.
I stopped the golf cart in front of our cabins and unbuckled her carefully. I had to tug her black dress down her thighs to avoid getting a pervert’s view as I did so, and I couldn’t help picturing the image she’d sent me on her phone a little while ago. The image I knew I had no plans of deleting.
I offered her my hand, but she shook her head, closed her eyes, and leaned back against the seat. “Sorry. This one is all out of walksies. You’ll have to carry me with those big, strong, juicy muscles.” She opened her eyes then and tried to give me what I took for a seductive look, except one eye was squinting far more than the other, and her smile was crooked.
I could’ve laughed if I were seeing this under any other circumstance. Instead, I sighed and scooped her up. “Where’s your key?” I asked when we got to the door.
“Probably in my purse. Right next to the dildos,” she added with a snort. “Just kidding. My dildos are way too big to fit in there.”
I couldn’t help grinning a little. I set her down and propped her against the wall as I looked in her purse. I frowned when I saw a familiar piece of paper folded into a small square. When I pulled it out, I knew exactly what it was.
“Why did you take this?” I asked. My heart was in my throat at the thought of her reading it. Things with Kira had never worked out, but it didn’t mean I wanted to embarrass her. I also didn’t want to have to explain why I’d kept the thing for so long. “Was this why you really snuck into my office? To snoop and steal my shit?”
She raised her eyebrows, then squinted, like she could barely see what I was holding a few inches in front of her face. “Oh. No. I took that because I was the one who wrote the damn thing in the first place. Your dumb ass got it wet. Then you thought some smears of ink were a signature. It was supposed to be an anonymous letter, Nick.” She said my name in a comically deep voice, then shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Anonymous, but obvious.”
My knees felt weak, so I crouched down beside her and tried to wrap my head around what she’d just said. The ira I’d assumed to be Kira’s name, minus the K for r
easons I could never puzzle out, had been from Miranda. Shit.
One of the most satisfying things about overcoming a complex challenge in just the right way had always been the sensation of things falling into place. It was like a domino effect. Once the right action was taken, it trickled down, sometimes in unexpected but gratifying ways. This was similar, but deeply unsettling.
It was a puzzle I’d had wrong my whole life, and now I knew it was because it had all been based on one single faulty piece of information. The poem hadn’t been from Kira. I could still see the shock on Kira’s face when I’d asked her out a few days after I got the note in my locker. It explained why Miranda had acted so utterly betrayed. She’d been waiting for me to tell her what I thought of the poem—the damn poem that was so obviously from her if it hadn’t been for the name I’d thought had been given at the bottom.
Anonymous, but obvious. She was right. It would’ve been, and what would’ve happened if I’d asked her out instead of Kira back then? Would Miranda and her friends have even made their stupid oath in the first place? God only knew, but one thing was certain. Nothing I’d thought I knew made sense anymore. All the decisions I was making had been based on a flawed foundation of understanding, and I’d need to take the time to sort through all this.
“I can’t find the key,” I said a few minutes later when I had dug through her purse thoroughly enough to be sure. “I also didn’t see any dildos.”
“That’s fine. We can share your bed. And I’ve always preferred the real thing, anyway.”
I picked her up again, carried her to my room, and laid her on my bed. I had zero intention of getting in that bed with her, so all I did was slip off her shoes and pull the comforter up over her. I thought she had fallen asleep, and I was just admiring how heartbreakingly beautiful she was when she made a soft moaning sound, then smiled.
“One stupid poem cost us seven years.” She muttered the words so softly I wondered if I had imagined them.
I leaned closer, straining my ears—waiting for more. The only answer she gave was a delicate little burp before she rolled over and seemed to fall asleep.
I made myself comfortable in the chair on the other side of the room and tried to sleep, but with everything running through my mind, I was almost certain I wasn’t going to find any rest. Nothing was going to be the same between us after tonight. Miranda might care about her career, and it might be the cornerstone of her identity, but if she was really holding back thoughts like that? Then I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.
I’d been doing everything in my power to bury my feelings for her. The only thing giving me the willpower had been the belief that I was doing the right thing. Now, though? I wasn’t so sure it was right, after all.
Chapter 15
MIRANDA
I would say I opened my eyes, but that would imply there was no struggle in the act. The reality was that I had to pry my eyes open with what little power my eyelids had. They felt crusty and dry. The faint light streaming through the window wasn’t helping my pounding head, and I had the worst case of morning breath I’d ever had. I breathed against the back of my hand, sniffed, and reeled back. “Jesus,” I muttered.
“Just Nick, unfortunately.”
I jerked my head toward the sound of his voice. “What the hell are you doing in my room?” I spotted a small bottle of mouthwash on his nightstand and drained the whole thing, swishing aggressively, and then realized I had nowhere to spit, so I swallowed it and winced against the burn.
“I take it you don’t remember last night?” Nick asked.
Oh no. I lifted the covers and peeked under. I silently thanked God that I was still fully clothed. I’d done a lot of things in life that I regretted, but blackout drunken sex had never been one of them.
Last night started to come back to me out of order. I remembered nearly throwing up while riding a golf cart. I remembered sending some kind of text to . . . “Did I . . . happen to text you something? Because I was not completely in the right state of mind, and I hope you’ll cut me some slack if I said anything out of line.”
Nick licked his lips. There was something different in his face. The coldness I had seen come and go from him didn’t feel like it was momentarily gone this time. It felt like it was completely gone. “You might have sent me something. And it probably could’ve been considered out of line, but I enjoyed it.”
I reached for my purse and pulled my phone out. I needed to know what I’d sent, and, from the look of amusement in his eyes, Nick was looking forward to the moment when I saw it. I pulled up my texts. God. There was a picture of me smiling with half-lidded eyes and my dress pulled tight against my ass. I’d even sent an obnoxious caption to him. “Wait,” I said. I suddenly remembered Max and his stupid high school war stories. I’d gone to get drinks with him, but ended up in Nick’s room? “What happened last night?”
“Your date seemed pretty intent on getting you sloppy drunk. When I found you two, he was practically dragging you back to the cabin. I took the liberty of telling him to fuck off, but I couldn’t find your key, so you got to crash in my bed for the night.”
“It wasn’t really a date,” I said. I groaned when I tried to sit up and pushed my palms into my eyes.
“Do you remember anything you told me last night?” he asked. He was openly smiling. My gut told me that was a very bad sign.
“Do I want to?” I asked carefully.
Nick produced the folded-up square of paper from his pocket and raised his eyebrows. “You told me the truth about this.”
My eyes bulged. “I didn’t—I . . .” Despite the fact that I considered myself to be a fully grown adult, I was so embarrassed that I yanked the comforter up and covered my head with it. Maybe hot guys and monsters had the same limitations about not being able to penetrate the defenses of a blanket over the head.
“I can still see you,” Nick said.
“What exactly did I say?”
“Enough to convince me of something.”
“What?” I asked impatiently. I was still hiding under the comforter, but I didn’t want him to see how red my cheeks were. I guessed burying myself under a blanket was arguably more embarrassing than blushing, but I wasn’t going to worry about that.
“I’m tired of pushing you away.”
I peeled the comforter back. Jesus. Now I really wanted to know what I’d said. Before last night, it had felt like Nick was using a cattle prod to urge me as far out of his life as possible. Now he was saying this?
Nick moved from the chair and sat on the bed beside me. He spent long enough gathering his thoughts and raking a hand through his dark hair that I couldn’t help admiring him. He was the kind of good looking most people could go a lifetime without ever seeing in person. It was the unquestionable kind—the sort of good looking that made complete strangers stare without worrying what anyone thought. It was like seeing a natural phenomenon, except this one had dreamy eyes with long eyelashes you could get lost in; full, playful lips; and an easy smirk that made me want to melt into a puddle.
Despite all that, I think I would’ve still been intrigued by him if he’d looked like a gargoyle. Every other guy I’d entertained interest in since Nick had felt like settling. Worse, it had felt empty. I had started to accept that it was silly and immature to think I deserved to find somebody who made me feel the way I’d felt back then. Except now I wasn’t so sure. He was sitting right here, and even if he wasn’t making it easy, I didn’t know if I’d forgive myself for not at least taking the chance.
“I’ve lied to myself for a long time,” Nick said finally. “About you. About how I felt.” He shook his head, eyes fixed on something outside the window. “I’ve made it into such a complicated mess in my head. It’s like some puzzle where I keep thinking I’m almost finished, then I realize the first pieces I placed were all wrong—that I need to wipe the board clean and start over. I just can’t—”
His face was so close that I had to lean forward only a few
inches to find his lips with mine. It all happened in an instant. The buzzing of my thoughts was silenced the moment my mouth met his, like a window slamming shut on a noisy night. At first, he didn’t respond, and I had enough time to wonder if I’d made what would go down as the most embarrassing mistake of my life.
I pulled back from the kiss, eyes closed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to show you that it didn’t have to be so complic—”
Nick’s hands swallowed me up, and his mouth was on mine again, hungrier this time. There was no air in my lungs, no time to think. All I could do was let myself get pulled along with his wave, to kiss him back and marvel at the silky warmth of his tongue against mine, at the way I could feel passion radiating between us like heat.
Before I knew what was happening, I was falling backward to my pillow, and Nick was propped above me. I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t even think. Every train of thought went off the rails, like Nick’s presence was a tsunami-force event, demanding every available ounce of my focus.
“W-Wait,” I stammered between kisses.
Nick stopped, and the surprise I saw in his eyes told me he’d been feeling exactly as I’d been. Pulling back from his touch felt like waking from a pleasant dream only to remember you were staying in a dingy motel across from the fast-food chicken place with a neon red sign. Except all I would’ve needed to do to fall back into that dream was reach out. It would’ve taken only a single word. More. Please. It would’ve been so easy, but it had happened too fast.
“You’re right,” he said. He pushed himself off me and stood up. He shook his head slightly.
Someone knocked at his door.
“Room service,” called a voice with a heavy French accent.
Nick pointed at me and motioned for me to hide.
“Hide?” I mouthed.
He nodded quickly and made some face and expression I couldn’t figure out. I decided to take his word for it and rolled off the bed, slipping underneath.
I could see his shoes from where I was lying, so when he opened the door, I saw the expensive leather shoes of somebody who was definitely not room service step inside.
Anyone But Nick Page 12
