“Avery is experienced?” Larue snorts as my house comes into view. “Did he pay you to say that? How much? Is that what he does with his millions?”
I put one hand on his chest and one on his side and push away from him. I stumble but, luckily, don’t fall over. Alex smirks at me. We reach my porch steps. “Go home, Alex.”
He glances up at my house and Avery’s and back down at me. “Team’s plane won’t land for another couple of hours. Let me come in and make sure you’re settled, okay?”
My skeptical face must not be muted by alcohol because Alex smiles—innocently this time—and says, “Whoa. As friends. I promise. I’m not suggesting it because I’m looking to get in your pants. I’m suggesting it because I’m your brother’s friend and he asked me to keep an eye on you.”
“Sebastian asked you to check on me?” I ask, cocking my head to the side like a puppy that doesn’t quite understand the command. “But I’m not shutting him out. I talk to him every day since this whole thing happened.”
“Yeah, but he just didn’t want you to be alone. And I don’t want you to be either,” Alex says quietly.
“I don’t need…” I pause. My stomach flips. Uh-oh. I swallow it down. “I don’t need company. I’m just going to sit here and wait. Avery will be here soon. I told him he could just use his key and come…”
I climb the porch stairs, turn and drop into the rocking chair near the door. A chair that moves was probably a bad decision. The motion feels quick and jarring and my stomach lurches. I jump back up and run to the side of the porch and barf into the bushes. When my body finally stops rioting, I hear Alex’s deep belly laugh. And then I’m totally embarrassed. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and can’t look at him as I try to bustle by him, pulling my keys from my pocket.
“Thanks for walking me home. Sorry about that,” I mumble, and promptly drop my keys. Alex scoops them up before I can bend down, which is a good thing because bending might mean puking again.
“Don’t get all shy on me, drunkie,” Alex says. “You think I’ve never handled a drunk girl before?”
He puts the key in the lock and opens my front door, then puts his hands on both my shoulders and steadily guides me inside.
“When I was a junior player, I used to be the guy who would hold the drunk girl’s hair while she puked,” he explains to me. “I was a shitty hockey player back then, barely held my place on the team. I didn’t have the panty-remover known as a future first round NHL draft pick. I also wasn’t the smartest and not nearly the best looking. I earned my girls by being the funny one who made sure they didn’t get taken advantage of or choke on their own vomit.”
This revelation makes me almost as dizzy as the alcohol. I look up at Alex in the dim light filtering in from the living room. He gives me an honest, soft smile for a second before it turns snarky and cocky. “Luckily, now I don’t have to be the sweet guy. I’ve got an NHL paycheck to get me tail without any nice guy bullshit.”
He gently uses his hands to shift me and heads down the hall toward my kitchen. “I’m getting you some water. Lots of water.”
“I might puke it up,” I say, and walk in anything but a straight line over to the couch, which is calling my name. I crawl slowly into a lying position on the couch. I close my eyes and the room spins, so I groan and sit up.
“I didn’t know you were such a lightweight. You only had a few drinks.” Alex’s voice is getting closer, but I don’t see him. He must have gone through the dining room instead of the hall because suddenly he’s behind me and his head is tilted down, hovering above me. He hands me a full glass of water. “Drink.”
“Ugh,” I protest, but sip more than half the glass down anyway. ”I’ve never been drunk. My buzz of choice was narcotics, or haven’t you read the Internet lately?”
He disappears again, and when he comes back he’s got the bucket we use to mop the kitchen floor. He places it next to the couch and drops down beside me. I turn away. I can’t even look at the bucket without wanting to barf. He rubs my back softly. “Yeah, I’ve read the Internet. But I didn’t have to. I knew in Seattle.”
That statement sobers me up. “You knew? Sebastian told you?”
He shakes his head; his eyes crinkle a little in the corners as he smiles. “I’m a smart guy. I figured it out pretty soon after you moved to Seattle and I got drunk and crashed at Seb’s and there wasn’t so much as an Advil in his house to fight my hangover with. And then he started refusing painkillers when he got injured. And he was way overprotective of you. Like absurdly so. Do you know he said he would gut me like a sewer pig if I touched you?”
All I can do is blink at that statement. Alex’s face is incredulous. “Sewer pig. His words. All because I hit on you. Which reminds me, is he going to be gutting Avery? Because I want advance notice so I can videotape it.”
I try to picture a pig in a sewer, but mostly my mind just starts picturing a sewer…and sewage—like poop and…“Bucket.”
After puking one more time, I tell Alex I am going upstairs to change. And after stumbling upstairs, changing my clothes, and tripping into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth I open the bathroom door to find Alex stretched out on my bed. That’s not where I left him. I left him downstairs on the couch. His eyes are closed and his hands are behind his head. He’s got all my pillows stuffed up behind him, and I have a lot of pillows.
Without opening his eyes, he says. “Your phone made a silly noise.”
I walk toward the night table where I dropped it before I got changed. It’s still there, facedown the way I dumped it. I feel a flutter of hope that it’s Avery. That he’s landed and he’s coming to see me. He never did actually confirm he’d come over. I invited him but he never responded. In his defense I told him I wouldn’t be answering my phone so there’s no reason to call me back, but I really wish he had. Halfway through our liquid supper I turned my phone back on hoping he had called and never turned it off, hoping he still would. I flip it over and see a text alert, but it’s from Maddie. She’s just making sure I got home okay. Despite the fact that it feels like my heart has turned to cement, heavy and cold in my chest, I text her back that I’m just fine, safe and sound at home.
I drop the phone back on the nightstand and stare down at Alex.
“Did you hit on me before or after you figured out I was a recovering addict?” I ask, my words kind of stepping on each other. I’m also getting really sleepy, which is annoying because I don’t want to sleep. I want to wait up for Avery.
“After,” Alex says, opening his eyes to level me with a curious stare. “Why?”
I can’t help it. I start to cry.
Alex sits up instantly and reaches for me. His hands grab my arms at the elbows and he gently pulls me to the bed. I end up sitting on his lap. I don’t even care how inappropriate this is. I just care about the fact that he’s hugging me and I so need a fucking hug right now. God, alcohol sucks. It makes me feel everything. I hate feeling everything.
