Using the couch as leverage, I picked up my phone lying next to me, stuffed it in my pocket and got to my feet. It took several sways and a bit of wall grabbing to make it to my room. There, I dropped to the bed with a hard thud. The last time I’d drunk myself to pass out point, I was sixteen. At almost thirty I should’ve been more than capable of handling my liquor. So why the fuck was I this mummified. Okay, wrong choice of description but I currently felt like death which made it a reasonable option.
I turned my head, closed my eyes and on the verge of drifting off when the potent smell of lilacs crept up my nasal passages. My eyes flew open, and I sat up, momentarily forgetting my lack of body functions.
“Skye!”
With her name, my head flooded with the memories of what I hoped to fucking God was a dream.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I vaulted off the bed, knocking my head on the wall as I landed on unstable feet. Fisting my hair, I paced the room for a minute before I stopped in front of the mirror, my eyes dropping to my lips. I touched them, remembering what I’d done to her. The kiss...then...fuck. I’d touched her, tasted her. “You crazy fucking son of a bitch!” I slammed a fist into the mirror, wincing at the connection. “Shit. What the fuck did I do? Fuck.” Dragging a hand through my hair, I paced the room once more. “Skye,” I breathed harshly.
I raced out and took the stairs two at a time to her room. At her door, I stopped and let my brow fall to it, the throbbing in my temples already heading for a migraine I knew would worsen the second the door opened. Lifting my now bleeding fist, I stared at it for a second, not feeling any pain from the cuts to my knuckles before it came down with a resounding bang against the hard wood.
“Skye,” I called out. Two more knocks and the door swung open to a sleepy-eyed Skye staring at me like I was out of my mind.
I was.
“Shay?” Any other day and I would’ve blamed the huskiness in her voice on sleep, but it was the sudden pinking to her cheeks that changed that perception. She was remembering what I’d done to her.
“Fuck, Skye.” I dragged both hands through my hair, my eyes glued to hers. “I’m so sorry about last night. I fucked up badly. That should never have happened. I should’ve never touched you, never kissed you. I was so fucking drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing,” I ranted.
Her eyes widening in horror, she shook her head before her mouth opened to speak.
“No,” I shook my head vigorously. “It was wrong. I was wrong. I was piss fucking drunk,” I repeated. “I took advantage of you.” I yanked my phone out of my pocket. “You need to call the sheriff. Report me. Tell him what a sick fuck I am. Call him, now,” I shouted the last part.
“What?” Her eyes filled with immediate fear. Her bottom lip trembled, and she wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her arms.
“Please, Blue, I’m so sorry. You need to report this. I’m a sick man.” I pulled her hand and placed the phone in her open palm. “Do it. Call him,” I begged, searching my head for any other possible solution to the fucked-up man I’d become. “You know I’d never intentionally touch you like that, right? Never hurt you. Please don’t hate me.”
“You’re hurt,” she panicked, grabbing my injured hand.
Cruelly, I yanked it away. “It’s nothing.” I balked at the raw pain on her face. She hated seeing me hurt, even a small scratch was a big thing for her and she always wanted to nurse it right away. Now, I was acting like she didn’t matter but I had to, for her sake. “Just call the sheriff, Skye,” I urged, forcing her gaze away from my bleeding knuckles.
She shook her head, shoving the phone at my chest. “It’s okay. I don’t have to.”
I grasped the phone, tension riding a wave over my emotions, my body. “You have to call—”
“No. I’m not.” she shook her head, vehemently this time, her curls bouncing around her shoulders. “I promise. It’s okay.”
I looked at the phone, my fingers cresting over the locked screen. “It’s not. I took advantage of you. I’m a perverted fuck. I was supposed to take care of you.” For the first time in my life, words defeated me when I needed them most. “You’re the most precious thing in my life, Blue, one I swore to protect, to never hurt, I did. Fuck.”
Turning away, I massaged my temples with my thumb and forefinger. I was such an idiot. This was so wrong. I should’ve never returned home so soon, knowing my feelings for her were growing this intense that I couldn’t hide them. Now I remembered why I’d drank myself silly in the first place. That dance, almost kissing her then. Maybe Griffin was right. I’d fallen in love with her. Not in a lustful degrading way but brought together over time with all the small moments we’d shared her entire life. Moments that I’d keep locked up tight, forever.
This was a boundary I couldn’t overstep, should’ve never overstepped in the first place. I made a promise to protect her not fucking defile her.
“Skye—” I swung around, the words snapping from my throat in a hard wrench as I met her glazed eyes before a steady stream of tears rolled down her cheeks. “Fuck, baby, don’t cry.” I took a step closer intending to take her into my arms, I stopped, my hands falling to my sides, suddenly scared to hold her.
Palpable shock flooded her face, her eyes filling with pained disbelief. It was the first time I’d withheld comfort to her, and I felt like a real douche. “You’re not a sick man, Shay, you’re just a man who made a forgivable mistake,” she sobbed then stepped back and closed the door in my face.
I stared at it, the soft sniffles on the other side shredded me from the inside out. Shaking my head, I curled my fist on the solid wood and rested my brow on it. “Forgive me, Blue,” I whispered, the need to open the door and go comfort her, burgeoning with every breath. I had to get out of there before I took us down the path of no return. “I’m sorry, baby.”
An hour later, with my duffle bag slung over my shoulder, I walked out to Jim’s truck, idling in the driveway. When I called Griffin and told him I had to leave right the fuck now, my friend, the best damned brother I’d ever known, didn’t question me.
He merely said,“I’ll see you in an hour, bro.”
It was the most agonizing sixty minutes I’d spent going through the motions of packing and getting ready. Part of me desperately wished Skye would come down and talk to me, beg me to stay, make me rethink my decision. While the other part prayed for her to stay away from the monster I’d threatened to become.
Seated in the passenger side, Griffin looked worse for wear than I did, still he grinned like it was the most natural thing to wake up drunk and hightail it to the airport. He waved to my father as Dad drove in.
His brow creased in a frown, he climbed out in fireman overalls. “You’re leaving?” Judging by his clothing he had a training session down at the firehouse in prep for his new stunt role.
