“Freddie.”
Shit. I need to get out of here. “Don’t worry about it. I get it. I’m more trouble than I’m worth.” I refuse to meet his gaze and dig around in my purse for my keys. I find them and start off down the hall.
“No.” He catches up to me and snatches them from my hand. “You’re not driving.”
“I’m not that drunk.” I try to snatch them back.
He holds them over my head. “I’ve told you you’re a bad liar. I’m taking you home.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders, holding me to him as he guides me out of the hall, just like he did that first day on the ice. I deserved more pity then than I do now. Another tear rolls down my cheek.
“You must think I’m such an idiot,” I mumble as I follow him to his car. “All I’ve done is make your life harder.”
A surprised laugh escapes him as he unlocks the car. “I can’t disagree with that.”
It stings, but I let him help me into the car and turn my face away to stare out the window. His car smells like him, and I hate how even after being rejected, his scent comforts me.
Pathetic.
He doesn’t say anything else as we pull out of the parking garage. He doesn’t even ask me for my address, so I close my eyes.
My head is swimming. I knew I should have avoided bubbles—they always upset my stomach. I clench my teeth, determined to make it the rest of the way home without throwing up in his car. The last thing I need is for Mattias Falkenberg to watch me puke my guts out.
It’s no use. We’ve just barely pulled onto the freeway when a wave of nausea hits me, so strong that I scramble to roll down the window.
“Need me to pull over?” he asks.
I don’t trust myself to speak, so I nod, pinching the bridge of my nose. He puts on his blinker and switches lanes, pulling into a gas station parking lot. He’s barely parked the car before I’m jumping out and heaving my guts onto the asphalt. I retch and retch, and when I think I’m done, I retch some more. A tentative hand lands on my back, grabbing a fistful of my hair.
“Don’t take me home,” I gasp suddenly. “I don’t want to see him. Can’t let him see me like this.”
The idea of looking my father in the eye, of being anywhere near him after what he said tonight fills me with unbridled rage.
“Is there a friend you can stay with? I can drive you,” he offers.
I shake my head. I don’t want Grace or Margot to see me like this, either. They’ll ask too many questions, tell me too many things I already know.
“Can I stay with you?” I say suddenly, looking up at him. I know Falkenberg will just let me sleep. Let me be. “I won’t bother you. Just put me on the couch. I’ll figure it out in the morning.”
I expect him to protest, but he doesn’t. “Okay.”
My eyes widen, but I don’t have time to question him, because I vomit again. I don’t even give a shit that it’s stained my dress. When I’m confident it’s over for the time being, I get back in the car, but in my haste to empty my stomach like a third rate Regan MacNeil, I didn’t realize I knocked the contents of my bag all over the floor. He helps me gather them up, and drives us to his place in silence.
I pass out long before we get there.
Chapter 42
Freddie
A phone rings somewhere far away. I stir awake to muffled words and a pounding headache, like my skull’s been cracked open with a meat cleaver. My mouth might as well be stuffed with cotton balls and I feel like my insides have shriveled up like raisins. I rack my brain, but I don’t remember getting home. When I roll over to reach for my phone, my hand drags through unfamiliar ivory, cotton sheets, and my eyes fly open.
This isn’t my bed. I’m not at home. And I’m enveloped by a horrifyingly familiar scent of pine and mint. Memories resurface, slamming into me all at once—patchy recollections of leaving the party last night. Of Mattias driving me home. Of me asking to go home with him instead.
Then I remember the vomiting, and it suddenly makes sense why my stomach feels as though it’s shrunk to the size of a pea. I glance down and find I’m no longer in my dress. I’m wearing only a white T-shirt that doesn’t belong to me, and the thong I was wearing the night before. Blood drains from my face. I glance at the door, my ruined stomach churning at what, or who, lies beyond.
Comeon, Freddie. It’s just Falkenberg, I tell myself. I end up grabbing a pillow and screaming into it anyway. My parents are probably shitting themselves since I didn’t come home last night. They’re probably blowing up my phone. I jump out of bed and find my purse on the floor with my phone inside, somehow still perfectly intact with not so much as a crack in the screen. It’s seen worse nights. It is dead, however, and I’m not going to make myself at home, so I don’t dig around for his charger.
I need to leave. I need my clothes.
I must go out there—in not much more than half of my undies. Fuck my life.
