by Alice Raine
If I could be the man to make her smile like that every day then I would feel like the king of the world.
‘That would be awesome, thank you, Jack. We’re both a bit tipsy,’ Allie confirmed, and I actually found it difficult to drag my eyes away from Caitlin so I could politely reply to her friend.
‘I would have been too, but I have a long day on set tomorrow so decided not to risk a hangover.’
‘Ugh. Yeah, my head is spinning. I think there will be some sore heads at our place tomorrow,’ Allie joked with a slur as we began to head towards the exit. On our way out, I passed the bar and grabbed two bottles of water and signalled to Flynn in the corner that we were leaving.
After catching up with me, Flynn stepped in close to my side and leant in near my ear as we cut across the car park. ‘You’re upping your quest from one woman to two? They both gonna knock you back?’ he joked, but I was still on such a high from Caitlin’s smile that I didn’t even bother to respond to his ribbing. Flynn offered to drive, but I decided I rather liked the idea of being the one to chauffer them home, so with me driving, Flynn as passenger, and the two girls giggling drunkenly in the back seats, we were ready to set off.
Swivelling in my seat, I offered the two water bottles to them and watched as Caitlin tentatively leant forwards to take them from me. Our fingers briefly brushed, and her eyes jumped to lock with mine for just a second as she murmured a soft ‘Thank you’. They were the first words she’d uttered to me since I’d offered them a lift, but that was fine – she could be as quiet as she liked as long as she kept giving me those little looks and smiles.
Once we got to the compound I’d planned to stay in the car so as not to make Caitlin feel uncomfortable, but both girls practically fell from the vehicle in a giggling, drunken heap, so I told Flynn to stay in the car while I saw them inside.
‘Thanks so much for the lift, Jack. You should start a celebrity cab service, you’d make a fortune,’ Allie joked, causing Caitlin to giggle so infectiously that I couldn’t help but chuckle. ‘God, I really need the loo,’ Allie suddenly announced as soon as we were inside the front door, before she charged off towards the stairs, dragging a staggering Caitlin behind her as they both swayed.
‘Goodnight, ladies.’ I was about to turn and leave them to it when I watched Caitlin manage two steps and come to rest against the wall, giggling.
‘Come on Cait, I’m bursting for the toilet!’ Allie was practically hopping back and forth on the spot, so I lingered for a moment then decided to offer my help. I wasn’t sure Caitlin would want my offer of assistance, but I could try.
‘You go on ahead, Allie, I’ll help Caitlin.’ Seeing Caitlin flash me a bleary-eyed, slightly wary glance I nodded and softened my voice. ‘It’s OK, Caitlin, I’ll just follow you up the stairs to make sure you don’t fall, I won’t touch you, I promise.’
She observed me through her drink dilated pupils for a second and after giving me a wobbly nod of acceptance, she began climbing the stairs again as Allie dashed off ahead.
A satisfied smile curved my lips, but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the way this girl and her silent nods already had me wrapped around her little finger.
Watching her drunken struggle over the next five minutes was like utter torture because all I wanted to do was scoop her up in my arms and carry her to her room, but I didn’t dare touch her for fear of ruining what seemed to be developing.
Eventually, she made it to the top step and I followed Caitlin into the first room on the left, careful to keep my distance, and then watched as she lurched forwards and immediately sank down on the side of the bed with a grateful sigh. I had experienced that same drunken relief to be home many a night in my time, that was for sure.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, before flopping backwards and giggling at the ceiling. ‘You’re such a gentleman.’ Her mumbled words had me smiling like a complete idiot.
Still smiling fondly, I gave her one last look before leaving. ‘Good night, Caitlin.’
‘G’night, Jack.’ As I was turning, I heard her sigh behind me and speak again, this time her voice slightly less slurred. ‘You make me feel really safe.’ Those words caused me to freeze and turn back to see if she was actually addressing me or just mumbling drunkenly. Her eyes were closed, so I guessed the latter, but couldn’t help but feel elated. I made her feel safe, and that knowledge had my chest swelling with pride.
‘I’m glad we’re friends now. I like you, Jack.’ Wow. My eyebrows rose so suddenly that they practically jumped from my head. The confessions were just flowing out of her now. I knew I should probably leave her to sleep, but this was so incredible that I remained glued to the spot just in case she chose to share any more drunken insights with me.
One of her hands rose up and then flopped onto her face to rub at her cheeks before clumsily trying to brush the hair from her eyes. She failed, and her hair still half covered her face, but she gave up and dropped the arm to the bed in defeat. Her uncoordinated attempts made me itch to help her, but I didn’t. My heart was still pounding from her confessions, the last thing I wanted to do was wake her up fully and break the spell.
‘Like yooou,’ she murmured. ‘Waaay more than I should,’ she added in a slurred voice so quiet that I wondered if I’d conjured the words up in my imagination.
She liked me, way more than she should? My pulse was now rocketing in my veins and thumping so loudly in my ears that it felt like half the compound would be able to hear it. Licking my dry lips, I blinked several times as I ran her words through my mind again. They had been garbled, but they were the exact emotions I had dreamed of hearing her say to me.
I’d rather Caitlin had said them when she wasn’t plastered off her face, but still, she’d said them. Wasn’t it generally believed that people were at their most honest when they’d had a few drinks?
‘Just wish I wasn’t sooo screwed up. So much baggage,’ she murmured next with a hiccup, a frown creasing her eyebrows and mine. She was intoxicated, so I wouldn’t attempt to follow this up now, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would prove to her that she wasn’t screwed up, and that I wanted her regardless of whatever baggage she carried around. Everyone had some baggage, and I was ready and willing to take on some of hers to lighten her load.
Pulling in a deep breath to calm myself I looked at her again and frowned. I couldn’t leave her like that. She was half on the bed and half off of it. Her feet were on the floor, but back and shoulders on the bed, and I knew that if I left her like that then she would either fall off in her sleep or wake up with a seriously bad back.
Her position on the foot end of the bed was awkward, because I couldn’t lay her down with her head on the pillows unless I shifted her entire body. I didn’t want her to wake up and find me pawing her, so I opted for simply lifting her feet up and placing them on the bed.
Stepping forward, I gently circled her ankles, one in each of my hands, the feel of her warmth beneath my fingers causing a strained groan to rise up my throat as I shifted her legs as slowly and carefully as I could.
Caitlin was now fully on the bed, her feet by the pillows, and her head at the foot of the bed, but at least she would be more comfortable.
Picking up her pillow, I was about to see if I could somehow get it under her head when something underneath it caught my eye. A small square of white cotton. Blinking hard, I clutched the pillow in my hands as I stared at the white square laying on her bed. If I wasn’t mistaken that was the handkerchief I had given her at the Getty Centre.
My handkerchief was under her pillow.
The fact that she had not only kept it, but chosen to keep it under her pillow nearly winded me with emotion and I let out a strangled breath as I looked at her peaceful face.
It couldn’t have got there by mistake, so surely if she’d kept the hankie under her pillow it meant she had wanted to keep a part of me close by? ‘Caitlin,’ I whispered, my voice hoarse from the implications of her simple action.
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I had a feeling that Caitlin would be mortified if she knew I’d seen it, so I placed the pillow back on top of it to keep her secret safe. She’d have to sleep without a pillow, but she was so drunk I didn’t think she’d even notice.
Knowing I had already been in her room for way too long and broken my promise not to touch her, I felt a little bad for lingering, but I felt like tonight had been so monumental for us that I could hardly bring myself to leave.
Hopefully, Caitlin was so drunk that she wouldn’t remember my trespassing in the morning. Although having said that, there were certain things about the last few minutes I did want her to remember – like her declarations of liking me.
More than she should.
Smiling again, I couldn’t help but step closer to her and gently finish the job she had started by carefully brushing the hair back from her face properly. My touch prompted her to sigh and then roll onto her side so she was facing me, but her eyes remained closed in relaxation.
‘For the record, I like you too.’ I whispered the words, but it still felt good to actually say them out loud to her. Grinning, I decided to add on her extra phrase as well, because regardless of how clumsy it was, it was true for me too. ‘Waaaay more than I should.’
Dropping into a crouch beside her, I was now level with her face, and just a small gap separated us. If I rolled forward on my feet I could easily kiss her, but I wouldn’t break her confidence like that.
The next time I kissed Caitlin Byrne would be when she was awake, sober, and wanting me to.
Caitlin shifted slightly, and for a second I panicked that she was waking up and would see me this close and freak out, but then she murmured quietly and curled further into a ball. ‘You know what else I really like?’ she mumbled with a smile that was so addictive I found myself mirroring it.
‘No, what’s that?’
‘Bacon.’
A sporadic laugh flew from my mouth as I stood up and pulled as much of the duvet around her as I could. I had been hoping for more heartfelt words, but no, she was dreaming about bacon. Perhaps it was time I left her to sleep.
‘Bacon, huh?’
‘Yep. I would totally love you forever if you could get me a bacon sandwich. Mmmm. Bacon …’
Love me forever? My eyebrows rose in amusement, but all joking aside that was a prospect so appealing that I was almost tempted to go and hunt down some bacon right that second. Or perhaps I could just get Flynn to drive out to an all-night store and buy some, but then, hearing a small snore escape Caitlin’s throat, I realised she had finally fallen properly asleep.
Shaking my head, I watched her for a few more seconds as her eyelids fluttered. She was so hammered I doubted that she would remember any of this in the morning, but the majority of the evening was certainly engrained into my mind for eternity. Her smiles, laughs, drunken confessions, hidden handkerchiefs … tonight had been amazing. Not to mention when she’d grabbed me earlier at the batting cage. A groan rose in my throat as I remembered how soft her skin had felt and I had to force myself to back towards the door and leave her alone.
Jogging downstairs to the kitchen, I filled two large glasses with ice water, and then dug around looking for some painkillers. Ibuprofen usually worked best if I had a hangover, but all I could find were paracetamol, so they’d have to do.
Carrying my collection back upstairs I placed one of the glasses beside Caitlin’s bed along with two tablets and then turned to leave the room after giving her sweet, sleep-relaxed face one last look.
‘Is she OK?’ Turning at the door, I found Allie staggering around the corridor and coming to check on us.
‘Yep, drunk, half-asleep and talking about bacon,’ I said with an affectionate chuckle.
‘Ah yes, Cait’s favourite hangover cure is a bacon sandwich.’ Allie half leant and half flopped onto the wall beside me, clearly feeling the effects of the drinks too, although perhaps not quite to the extent that Caitlin was. ‘She’ll be disappointed, because there’s none in the fridge. In fact, there’s not much in the fridge at all.’ Making a mental note of Caitlin’s preference for bacon, I held out the second glass of iced water and the box of paracetamol. ‘Here, these are for you.’
Allie looked surprised by my gesture and took both gratefully, immediately taking a long drink from the glass and licking her lips in appreciation.
‘Thank you so much. Cait’s right when she says you’re a gentleman,’ Allie murmured, giving me a surprisingly intense look considering her drunken state. ‘Good night, Jack. If you pull the front door shut behind you it’ll automatically lock.’
Allie turned away, and made her way back upstairs but I paused in the corridor for a second as I wondered whether she had been standing at the door earlier and heard Cait call me a gentleman, or if it was something she had said at another point when sober.
Whichever it was, I definitely left their house with a spring in my step and a decidedly positive feeling about the future buzzing in my system.
TWENTY-NINE
Cait
Opening my eyes, I immediately felt like the daylight seeping between my lashes was trying to sear my eyeballs. Cursing, I squeezed them shut again and groaned loudly. Jeez. I felt like utter crap. Tentatively lifting a hand, I rubbed it over my face and tried to assess the state of my body. My head felt like I had an out of tune bongo band playing in my temples, my throat was sore, and my feet hurt like hell.
In other circumstances I would think that I was sick, or coming down with something, but the sour taste of stale booze on my tongue gave me an unpleasant reminder of the vast quantities of alcohol I had consumed, which was no doubt the cause of my current state. Well, not my sore feet, they were no doubt a result of the heels I’d changed into to go to the bar last night.
Clearing my throat, I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was so dry that I failed horribly and ended up opening and closing my mouth pathetically instead. Ugh. My tongue was like a slab of sand-encrusted carpet sitting within the Sahara desert of my mouth. Rolling over to get a drink, I tentatively peeled my eyes open and frowned. Instead of seeing my bedside table, I was staring out at my bedroom, because I seemed to be upside down on my bed. Huh. Weird.
Gingerly sitting up, I pushed my hair from my face as my bleary eyes settled on a large glass on my bedside table. Water. Thank God. My tongue tried to salivate at the thought of the cool liquid refreshing my parched mouth, and I lurched along the mattress and reached for it desperately.
Gulping down half the glass in one go, I sighed my appreciation and then saw two small tablets sitting beside it. Paracetamol. Perfect. Allie had obviously taken care of me last night and left these for me. Popping the tablets in my mouth, I swallowed, and as I gazed around in a hungover fog, I had a sudden recollection of Jack Felton being in my room.
Almost choking on the tablets, I forced them down and then frowned at the blurring images in my mind. I could picture him standing in front of my wardrobe so clearly. Had he been here? I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why he would have been. I wouldn’t have knowingly invited a man in … but then again, I did have some serious blanks in last night’s events.
I gave my wardrobe another scrutinising look and felt my heart leap with worry as I turned and quickly picked up my pillow. Jack’s hankie was still hidden, safe and sound and folded neatly. Phew. I don’t know why I still had it there, but for some reason I’d felt a weird urge to keep it close since he’d given it to me.
Dismissing my blurry visions of him as a trick of my fuzzy post-drink brain, I shrugged off the strange sensation and looked down at my rumpled state. A small smile pulled at the corners of my lips when I realised that I was still in last night’s clothes. At least if I was still fully dressed it would seem I hadn’t been up to anything too crazy.
Did sleeping in your clothes mean you’d had an awesome night, or a really dreadful one? I couldn’t decide, but it’d been a long while since I’d fallen into bed fully dressed and upside down, that was
for sure.
I thought I’d had a good time last night. I thought, but I couldn’t quite remember.
Squinting, I thought back over yesterday’s events and tried to piece together what I could recall. I hadn’t started drinking until the bar, so the afternoon at the batting cages was pretty clear. It had been great fun, and I’d actually been quite good in the end. Mel and Lisa had hit it off with Allie straight away, and between us we’d made quite a fun-loving little group.
Yep, all in all the batting cages had been great. I’d even dealt well with seeing Jack again. Apart from my one slip up when I’d grabbed him in a panic, of course. Grimacing, I shook my head, then groaned and clutched at my skull as my brain pounded out a painful reminder of my hangover.
Keeping my head still, I gave the elastic band at my wrist a flick in agitation. I still couldn’t believe I’d grabbed him. Me. Caitlin Byrne, spinster specialist and the girl who avoided contact with men at all costs had actually made the first move.
Jeez. My cheeks heated as I thought about it. The chairs falling behind me had been so bloody loud that my heart had tried to burst from my chest in shock, and a second later I’d almost passed out when I’d looked down and seen my hands wrapped around Jack’s. A wry chuckle escaped my throat as I recalled just how shocked he’d also looked, but he couldn’t have been half as stunned by the forward gesture as I had been.
I still was. Apparently after years of being completely independent from men, my subconscious was seeing him as the one man I could turn to for physical support, which was certainly an interesting, if somewhat shocking, development for me.
I remembered that we’d officially agreed that we were friends. Me and Jack Felton. Friends. Mates. Buddies. I had to roll my eyes, and then wondered if the title would change much between us. I supposed not, but it still felt like a pretty major step.