It was time to grovel.
“Oh, my God,” Harlow gasped, grabbing my phone from the table. “He’s calling again!”
“Damn, I’ve never seen that boy act so needy before. This is hilarious!” Pepper giggled as I let out a drunken groan.
It took extreme effort not to slur my words as I said, “It’s not hilarious. He’s a jerk-face and I hate him.”
After everything that had gone down at Rowan’s place with that slutty photographer, I was in desperate need of a drunken pity-party. Fortunately for me, I had two of the best girlfriends a woman could ask for. Unfortunately for them, I had passed buzzed four drinks back and was well into shit-faced territory, meaning I had lost all control over my emotions and had spent the past two hours going from angry to mopey and right back to angry again. I was currently sitting at angry. And I was pretty certain the only reason Harlow and Pepper hadn’t ditched me yet was because they were both equally as drunk as me and found my mood swings utterly hysterical.
“I can’t believe he made plans to fuck that photographer right in front of your face!” Harlow shouted. Whereas I was an overly emotional drunk, Harlow was a loud drunk. I was pretty sure every single one of the bar patrons knew every sordid detail of what was going on with me and Rowan, starting from the night at the Neon Room, all the way up to my humiliation just hours ago. Add in Pepper being a giggling drunk and all three of us were Urban Dictionary’s living example of ‘White Girl Wasted’.
It wasn’t pretty.
Hysterical, yes. But not pretty.
“You know what you should do?” Pepper declared as I swayed from side to side in my chair. Damn thing was wobbly as hell. “You should have sex with someone else!”
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d never be able to go through with Pepper’s suggestion, but I was ashamed to admit that, in my alcohol-addled brain, I considered it for a few seconds. That was, until some skeevy guy with a rapist goatee sidled up to our table with a creepy grin.
“Ew, gross! Not you!” I all but shouted, shoving at the man who’d obviously overheard Pepper’s idiotic suggestion. “Go away.”
Taking my not-so-subtle hint that there was no way on God’s green Earth he was getting his P anywhere near my V, he slinked away with a dejected expression on his pervy face. Reaching for my gin and tonic, I downed the last of it and slammed the glass on the table as Pepper and Harlow fell into peals of laughter. I didn’t hesitate in waving over a waitress for a refill.
“Why’s he have to be so friggin’ pretty?” I pouted, my southern accent becoming stronger the drunker I got. “Stupid Rowan with his stupid pretty hair and his stupid abs and his stupid perfect penis and delicious man buns.” I was so into my drunken rant that I hadn’t even realized what I let slip until my friends suddenly went silent.
After several seconds of silence, Harlow asked, “Uh, babe? How did you see his penis?”
Fuck my life.
Pepper giggled into her drink. “Man buns?”
“Oh, God,” I grumbled, dropping my forehead to the table and banging it against the wood a few times before Harlow slid a stack of napkins underneath to cushion the blows. “I walked in on him naked in the kitchen one morning,” I answered, still in my slumped position. “The image is burned into my brain.”
“And you got a good shot of his penis and… man buns?” Harlow asked, trying—and failing—to choke back a laugh.
“Yes,” I answered as I sat up straight, pulling off one of the napkins that had stuck to my forehead. “And it’s so hard to hate him when I know what he’s rockin’ in his jeans. And I really, really wanna hate him.”
“Men suck,” Harlow voiced, holding her drink up in solidarity. It was at that moment I realized I hadn’t gotten that refill I desperately needed.
“Yes, they do,” Pepper added, clinking her glass against Harlow’s hard enough to spill most of its contents onto the table. “Locklaine men, in particular,” she continued, unfazed by her party foul.
Had I been in my right mind, I would have jumped on that breadcrumb, demanding she give us all the dirty details of what was going on between her and Griffin. At that moment, though, I was too focused on getting as liquored up as possible.
“Where the hell’s our waitress?” I asked no one in particular before finally spotting her across the crowded room. Waving—quite possibly flailing—my arms excitedly to get her attention, I yelled, “Hey! Can I get another drink?”
I could have been seeing things, especially considering everyone in the bar seemed to have a twin as the night progressed, but I could have sworn the waitress rolled her eyes before making her way over to us. Well, there goes her tip.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You’ve been cut off.”
“What? By who?” I demanded indignantly to the triplet waitresses standing in front of me—or were there four of them? It was so hard to tell with my chair being as wobbly as it was.
“Bartender’s orders. You three have had enough. You’re starting to make a scene.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Harlow chimed in, downing the last of her drink before slamming the glass back down. Only she missed the table top by several inches, basically throwing the glass to the floor with a loud shatter that had the majority of the bar patrons glaring in our direction. She stared down at the broken glass with a surprised look on her face. “Whoops.”
“I’m gonna have to ask you ladies to leave,” the burly bouncer spoke up as he stopped at our table. His big, meaty arms were crossed over his chest in an intimidating stance that would have had me running scared had it not been for the fact that I was already fuming at the male population as a whole. And at that moment, the asshole with a Mr. Clean head was standing between me and my next gin and tonic. Eff that!
“Back off, cue ball,” I spit nastily, standing from my chair so we were chest to chest—well, chest to hips, actually, seeing as he towered over me by about a foot and a half. But I wasn’t backing down. I was pretty sure I could take him. “You don’t wanna piss me off. I’m two seconds away from getting a stepladder so I can kick your ass,” I said as I drilled my finger into his barrel chest.
“That’s it,” he grumbled, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me toward the door. “You’re outta here.”
I heard my friends shout in protest approximately three seconds before the shit hit the fan.
She was avoiding me again. And what pissed me off the most was I had no one to blame but myself. I’d lost count of the number of times I called her after nearly shoving that pushy photographer out the door. Each and every call went unanswered.
Finally, deciding to put my inability to sleep to good use, I sat behind my desk and attempted to write. Unfortunately, the story I was contracted to write wasn’t coming to me as easily as I’d hoped. The heroine was supposed to be broken and scarred, scared of her own shadow. But every time I sat down to write, a fire came out in her personality that wasn’t supposed to be there. A fire very similar to the one I saw in Navie’s denim colored eyes each time I looked at her.
Leaning back in frustration, I raked my hands through my hair, trying my damnedest to get into the headspace I needed to be in to write. Just as my fingers landed on the keys, my cell vibrated on the desk next to me, the shrill ring echoing through the room like a siren. Not giving two shits how desperate I sounded, I snatched up the phone up without so much as looking at the screen.
“Navie?”
Griffin’s rumble of laughter came through the line, sending a bolt of agitation through me. “No such luck, lover boy.”
I didn’t bother to hide my irritation. “What the fuck do you want? It’s after midnight.”
“I need you to come down to the station. I have something you want.” Typically, hearing he needed me to come to the police station in the middle of the night would have worried me, but there was humor lacing his words together.
“Got news for you, cuz. There’s nothing you got that could make me drag my ass down there right now.
”
“That so?” He chuckled.
“Yep.”
“Have a good night then.” Just as he was about to hang up, I heard a familiar voice yelling, “Hey, asshole! Let me outta here!”
A red haze of jealousy clouded my vision. “What the fuck? What’s Navie doing with you?”
“Told you I had something you’d want. See you in a few.” And with that, he hung up.
I was pretty sure I broke the land speed record getting my ass down to Griffin’s station, which was damn near impossible to do when driving in New York, but never discount a determined man. Pulling up in front of the building, I slammed my car into park before coming to a complete stop, not caring in the slightest about fucking up the transmission on my Mercedes S550. The damn thing cost a mint, but at that very moment, I couldn’t care less. It only took a few minutes to clear the front desk and make my way back to Griffin’s. Being related to one of the detectives in the precinct had its advantages.
“What the hell’s going on?” I asked, not bothering with a friendly hello. Griffin was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped casually on his desk as he, Dex, and some of the other guys laughed. I hadn’t paid attention to where their eyes were trained until I heard the voice that made my blood run hot.
“You called my boss? God, you’re such a dick!”
Spinning around, I saw Navie with Pepper and her friend, Harlow. The sight of the bars surrounding them had me stunned silent for all of two seconds. “You threw them in the drunk tank, Griff? Seriously?”
His hands came up in surrender as he dropped his feet to the floor and stood up. “Hey, man, I’m not the asshole here. Dex threw his own sister in there.”
“And I’m telling Mom as soon as I get out of here, limp dick! Just wait until she finds out you locked up her baby girl. She and Wendy are gonna string you up by your balls!” Pepper hollered. Dex’s face paled as the guys standing around them burst into laughter.
“Someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?” I asked, looking back at Griff for answers.
He pointed at a young guy in full uniform. “O’Neill got a call for a drunk and disorderly. When he got to the bar, your girl and her friends were three sheets to the wind, trying to take on the bouncer for kicking them out. Gotta hand it to you, man, you got a little firecracker on your hands. They said Navie was clinging to the poor guy’s back like a goddamned spider monkey when they pulled up.”
The retelling of the story sent the guys into another round of hysterics. But for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine Navie getting into a bar fight. Let alone with another dude. “You’ve got to be shitting me. They press charges?”
“Nah, it’s all good. O’Neill recognized Pepper’s last name and called Dex. We saw an opportunity and took it. The night was pretty slow, so we have to get our shits and giggles from whatever’s available. They’ve been in there for about an hour and already made best friends with the prostitutes.”
“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, running a hand down my face as I turned to look at the three of them in the drunk tank. Sure enough, they were huddled around a few hookers, one of them obviously a tall black man in drag. Fuck me. “I’m taking Navie with me. You getting the other two home?”
“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Let’s go get your girl before she starts taking makeup tips from LaWanda there,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
Griff pulled a set of keys out of the pocket of his slacks and unlocked the metal door. “All right, you three. Let’s go.” Pepper shoved past first, shoulder-checking Griff as hard as she could before making her way to her brother and smacking him in the back of the head. Harlow trailed behind her in a fit of giggles, still clearly drunk. My little blonde spit-fire pulled up the rear.
Holy fuck. When the hell did I start thinking of Navie as mine?
I tried my hardest to push those thoughts and the accompanying anxiety to the back of my mind as she turned and called over her shoulder. “Bye, girls! Good luck with your surgery, LaWanda!” I so didn’t want to know what surgery she was talking about.
“Thanks, girl,” he/she answered in a scarily deep voice. “You take that luscious man home and treat him right, you hear?”
There was no fighting back the shiver that ran down my back. Even if the thought of Navie treating me right was appealing, hearing those words from a person who looked big enough to snap me like a twig, all while eyeing me like a juicy steak, was enough to deflate any man’s dick.
Wrapping my fingers around her elbow, I pulled her close to my side as I began guiding her from the room. “Let’s go.”
“Hell, no! I’m not goin’ anywhere with you!” she shouted, drawing the attention of practically everyone in a one mile radius.
Stepping closer, I lowered my voice so only she could hear. “You’re making a scene in the middle of a police station,” I hissed. “You have two choices. You either come with me, or Griff locks your ass back up. Take it or leave it.”
I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. Her drunken brain was trying it’s hardest to create a third option. “Griff can take me with Pepper and Harlow.”
“Sorry, babe. Not an option.”
“That’s bullshit!” she snapped.
“It is what it is. He’s my cousin. Who do you think he’ll side with? Me or you? He locked you up, for Christ’s sake.” Those deep blue eyes narrowed and I knew I’d won.
Harlow and Pepper yelled out their goodbyes as I tried to lead a stumbling, slurring Navie from the room. “Love y’all!” she yelled back, her usually soft southern accent coming out stronger than I’d ever heard it before. “Call ya tomorrow!”
The remainder of the walk to my car was unbearably quiet as she did her best to ignore my presence next to her. Neither of us spoke a word as I deposited her in the passenger seat. Almost as soon as I had the car started, I heard the faint sound of her breathing evening out as she leaned her head against the window with her eyes closed. I could have taken her home. I should have taken her home. But as Griffin had said earlier, I saw an opportunity and I took it. It might have made me an asshole, but I wanted Navie with me, in my home, for a reason that didn’t involve work. With that decision made, I turned the car in the direction of my apartment, my eyes bouncing between the road and the sleeping woman next to me the entire way.
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white, fighting against my twitching fingers and their desire to reach over and brush at those strands of hair that were blocking her face from my view. Being close to her was like taking a wrecking ball to the wall I’d built around myself. It terrified me, drove me mad, but my need to be in her presence was just too strong of a pull to deny.
Just as I turned into the parking garage, she stirred in her seat, never opening her eyes. “I don’t get you,” she mumbled, making it hard to understand her, but I concentrated hard as she continued to speak, somewhere between asleep and awake.
Yep, I was a real asshole, because I was going to try and get whatever I could out of her, drunken rambling be damned. I pulled into my spot and put the car in park before turning to face her. “What don’t you get, sweetheart?” I asked softly.
Her brows furrowed as she adjusted her position, trying to get more comfortable. “Don’t call me that. You call all your women that.”
Was that true? I never stopped to think about what I called the women who had come before. I felt like the biggest jackass right then realizing that Navie had seen me that way.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying not to pull her completely from her sleep. My need to touch her finally won and I reached across the console, running my fingertips across her cheek, relishing the soft feel of her skin. She gave a little shiver as one of those deep blue eyes slit open just slightly.
“I really wanna hate you,” she slurred as that eye fell closed once again, like it took too much strength to keep it open. “But you make it so hard. That pisses me off.” Her words trailed off, followed by
a delicate snore, and I couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across my lips. She didn’t hate me. I made her mad as hell, but she didn’t hate me.
I could work with that.
I was dying.
There was no doubt about it.
If the marching band that had taken up residence in my skull was any indication, I was most certainly knocking on death’s door. And I was pretty sure a small animal—maybe a raccoon or possum—had died in my mouth, if the taste was anything to go on. I was sure it didn’t smell too pretty, either. I was miserable. My head had been cracked open, I had a dead rodent in my mouth, and it felt like I’d been sleeping with a million blankets on top of me, heavy and hot.
Somehow, I managed to pry my eyes open despite the crusty makeup that seemed to be holding my lashes together like glue. The moment my vision came into focus, I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of the unfamiliar room. What in the ever-loving hell did I do last night?
Ignoring the throb in my head, I attempted to slide to the edge of the bed so I could figure out where the hell I was. Only, when I made my move, something wrapped around my waist impeded my escape. My fuzzy brain couldn’t compute what was going on, but the moment a deep, sleep-graveled voice spoke from behind me, I realized exactly why I felt like I was sleeping next to a furnace.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Turning my head on the pillow, I went wide-eyed at the sight of Rowan’s sleepy face next to mine. As in right next to mine. As in sharing the same damn pillow.
Panic, intense panic, took over, causing my lungs to beat against my ribcage with every shaky breath. That was, until the corners of Rowan’s eyes crinkled and he gave me the sexiest, most unguarded smile I’d ever seen him wear. With just that one smile, the panic that had seized my chest turned into a gooey, liquid heat that pooled low in my belly.
“Good morning,” he spoke, leaning in the remaining inch or two between us in order to nuzzle his face into the crook of my neck.
“Uh… good morning?” Choosing to ignore the butterflies that had taken flight in my stomach, I focused solely on my confusion. “Rowan?” I kept my hand over my mouth as I spoke, not wanting to kill him with my gorilla breath.
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