“I must have slept through it.” And I planned to sleep through this one, too. Even if I had to drown myself in tequila.
“You know, after my accident, I tried to hide from them, too.” She held up her left arm, showing me that it was a prosthetic.
I knew which ‘them’ she referred to, but decided playing dumb was my best bet for getting out of this conversation. “Hide from whom?”
“That’s how you’re gonna play it?” She reached around to grab two beers from the fridge. Popping the caps off both, she tilted one toward me and said, “If they didn’t let me hide up in my room, your ass doesn’t have a chance. But good luck. Let me know how it goes for you.” With a wink, she turned on her heel and headed toward the kitchen.
I wondered if Levi had sent her to fuck with me, but didn’t have time to think about that.
With the threat of a party hanging in the air, I hightailed it upstairs.
14
Hound
MILA DIDN’T COME down for dinner. I wasn’t surprised at her absence, just disappointed. Considering everything the club was doing for her, I kept hoping she’d give them a chance. Regardless, I didn’t want her to go hungry, so after church, when everyone else hit the bar, I made her a plate and took it up to her room.
Knocking until she opened the door, I was surprised by the wide smile she greeted me with. She was still dressed in the white blouse and blue pants she’d been wearing before, but she looked rumpled. Her caramel locks were tousled, her green eyes were glassy, and she leaned heavily on the door as she studied the plate in my hand.
“Aww. You brought me food. You do care. Come on in.”
The way she slurred her words gave me pause. “Have you been drinking?”
She giggled—legit giggled—and it sounded borderline manic. I took a step back into the hall, but she released the door and sashayed across the floor to collapse on the loveseat. “I might have had a drink or two.”
The dwindling bottle of tequila on the coffee table told a different story. She kicked up her feet beside it and stared at me.
“You comin’ in or not?”
Entering seemed like a very bad idea. Mila was an enigma. I wanted her—and not just her body—but it was best if I kept her at an arm’s length. I needed complete honesty, and Mila seemed to value her secrets above all else. Still, I had her plate in my hand. She was making no move to come to me, and her dinner was getting cold. I eyed the bottle by her feet and decided she’d need the food to absorb the alcohol in her system. Resigned, I ventured inside, closing the door behind me.
Mila silently toasted me with a red solo cup before tossing a drink back. Immediately, her eyes squinted closed, and her lips puckered. Fanning her face like it was on fire, she dropped the cup on the table. “God, that shit’s toxic. Every single swallow burns. You’d think it’d get better the more I drink, but it doesn’t.”
Recognizing the bottle, I replied, “Cazadores isn’t so bad.” I’d spent many nights sampling various types of booze, trying to forget myself.
“All tequila is vile. Sit.” She animatedly patted the spot beside her.
Knowing I shouldn’t, I took the seat she offered. The truth was, I missed our conversations. Besides, if she was drunk, maybe her walls would be lowered far enough that she’d finally let me see over them.
“If tequila’s so bad, why are you drinking it?” I asked.
“Because the club doesn’t carry champagne.”
Not surprising. Nothing about the Dead Presidents made me think they were the champagne drinking type. “Are they supposed to?”
She looked at me like I’d just asked why the sky was blue or why water was wet. “Everyone should have champagne on hand. It should be a law. Like wearing a seatbelt or using a crosswalk.”
I chuckled. “Those things are for safety.”
“So is the bubbly. In the absence of champagne, people have to turn to toxic fire water, a.k.a. tequila.”
“You know, there are other types of liquor out there. You didn’t have to jump straight to tequila.”
She winced. “Yeah. In hindsight, I probably should have at least grabbed a mixer to cut it. But hey, YOLO, am-I-right?” Her slurring was getting worse.
Concerned she’d make herself sick, I gestured at the plate. “You should eat something.” Unless she’d ventured into the kitchen during church, Mila was pounding eighty proof booze on an empty stomach. She must have one hell of an alcohol tolerance to still be vertical after all she’d drunk, but I wasn’t interested in seeing how much more she could handle.
Lifting the fork, she speared a bite and waved it in the air. “That’s what I like about you, Hound. You’re always trying to take care of me. That’s sweet, you know? Not many people really care about others these days. Everyone’s so worried about their own damn problems. Also, you have really nice eyes. Has anyone ever told you that?” She popped the bite into her mouth.
