He was working late tonight, covering a shift for one of the weekend staff whose wife had surgery to remove her gallbladder. His kindness to his employees definitely earned him a small treat.
We each order another glass of wine and I hope we can drive ourselves home at the end of this lunch. That hadn’t occurred to me when we first got here. It’s our third glass so far and we’re getting a little louder, a little less refined and a little less concerned with what other patrons at nearby tables think of us.
We’re getting day drunk.
“It sure has been hard to get you alone lately. You and Chris are attached at the hip these days.” Lacey says, raising her eyebrows suggestively as I pack the to-go box and push it to the side of the table.
“Oh. Well. That’s nothing.” I wave my hand around, flustered.
Lacey smirks and I can feel a blush rising. I never blush dammit. What’s gotten into me lately?
“You’re blushing.”
“Am not.” I gulp some more wine. That’ll help.
“You are.”
Another gulp. The glass is almost empty. That has to be record time. I glance around for the waitress so I can order another.
“I’m just…hot. It’s the wine. You know alcohol flushes the skin.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She sips her wine with a smirk, eying me over the rim of her glass.
“There’s nothing going on with me and Chris. Nothing.”
“But you want it to.” She says matter-of-factly.
“Shut up and drink your damn wine. I would hate to have to slap a bride-to-be.”
She chokes on her wine in laughter. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re right. Max would probably tell everyone I attacked you in a jealous rage.”
She rolls her eyes lightheartedly and keeps laughing as we both finish our drinks. When the waitress comes back we order another glass each. By the end of lunch we most certainly can’t drive.
☠ Chapter Nine ☠
Chris
“Wha time d’you get awwfff work?” Natalie slurs over the phone.
“What?” I turn away from my computer screen where I was placing our weekly order for supplies.
“What time d’you get off?” She repeats louder, slightly less slurred than the first time. Slightly.
“At five. Why?”
I glance down at my watch. It’s a quarter after three.
“Ughh. Ne’er mind. Byeee.”
“Wait. Why?” I ask again, hoping she doesn’t hang up before telling me what’s going on. “Are you drunk?”
“Maybe.”
That was an absolute yes.
“Where are you?”
“Oli’ Garden.” Giggling erupted in the background and whispers come from nearby. It sounds a lot like Lacey but I can’t tell for sure. “Olive Garden.”
Who the fuck got drunk at Olive Garden? The whispers insist that Natalie asks me to come get them. She shushes the other person and starts a side conversation, evidently forgetting I’m on the phone.
“Which one?” I ask patiently, grabbing my keys from my top desk drawer.
I gesture to the front desk clerk that I’m leaving and mouth that something came up, to call me if he needed anything. Weekends were fairly casual and relaxed at the center. No one was allowed to leave the facility on a weekend and everyone mainly spent time to themselves, quietly reflecting on their progress with the twelve steps.
That was really all there was to it. No group counseling. No meetings unless they requested one in which case they would be escorted to by a staff member to a local meeting for an hour and then returned back to the center.
The guys were mostly just given time to relax after an intensive week of treatment and personal growth. It would be okay for me to sneak out a bit early today. After all, I was the owner and I said it was okay.
“The one off highway” Hiccup, “nine.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes okay? Don’t leave.”
“I’m not.”
She hiccups loudly again and erupts into more laughter. I finally recognize Lacey’s voice clearly in the background as the two begin talking. I hang up and haul ass to Olive Garden before the girls wander off.
They’re sitting on a bench at the front of the restaurant, laughing hysterically at something when I pull up. In all the time I’ve known Lacey I’ve never seen her drunk like this and I can’t help but laugh too as I pull up at the front of the building.
What the fuck had gotten into these two?
“Hey.” I call out, getting their attention. “You guys ready to go?”
“Oh hey Chris!” Natalie calls out as if she had no idea I was coming to get her. Did she already forget she called me?
“How much have you had to drink?” I ask, putting the car in park and getting out, helping them stumble over to the car without face planting.
“About a bottle.” Lacey says, sounding like the slightly less drunk one. “Each.”
Just great.
“Can you walk, Lace?” I ask, grabbing Natalie’s arm just before she stumbles over the curb.
“Of course I can Chris. Don’t be a-dick-ulous.”
“Ridiculous?”
“Yeah. That’s what I said.”
I watch as she stumbles just as bad as Natalie. I reach out and grab her arm too, walking both girls to the car. I help them climb into the backseat, one by one. When they settle in next to each other I hop in the front seat, lock the doors for safety purposes and head back to the apartment building.
Hopefully no one throws up in the car on the way.
A slurred voice in the back says, “Seatbelt.”
I laugh to myself and pull it on, shaking my head in amusement. Drunk out of her mind and she’s still the safety police.
By the time we get to the parking lot I’ve texted Max to come get his girl. Reinforcements are much needed. I can only carry one sleeping drunk girl upstairs and there are currently two of them slouched in my backseat. He’s going to have to come retrieve the one that belongs to him.
He meets us at the bottom of the staircase and looks as thoroughly amused as I felt when I first saw them.
“Looks like they had fun dress shopping today.” He peers at the girls slumped into each other’s side in the backseat, hair tousled wildly.
“They made a pit stop at Olive Garden on the way home and somehow this happened.”
“Olive Garden?” He sounds as perplexed as I feel.
I shrug. “Just repeating what little I was told.”
He opens the back door on Lacey’s side and gently pulls her away from Nat, who slumps over more without the support. He maneuvers her into his arms and manages to carefully lift her from the seat without waking her up. I lock the car, making sure Natalie is safe being alone for a moment, and follow Max upstairs to help him get inside. He has his hands full at the moment, literally.
After I help him open the front door without dropping his fiancé, I race back downstairs to grab Natalie. He meets me back at the car just as I’m picking up her limp, drunk body.
She wakes immediately when my arms scoop under her knees. She begins stroking her fingers through my hair and giggling uncontrollably.
“Wait! I got you some breadsticks!” She points crazily to the backseat until Max grabs the small container.
He does the same for me that I did for him, following me to the door of my apartment and unlocking it for me. He drops my to-go box of breadsticks on the kitchen table and gives me a pat on the shoulder as if to say good luck with that before closing the door and going back to his own place.
I bring Nat to her bed and gently drop her on top of the sheet, pulling off her sandals and tucking her in. After making sure she has a bottle of water next to her bed I climb on top of the blankets next to her and stare up at the ceiling as she naps peacefully beside me.
☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
A few hours later my rumbling stomach urges me to get up. It’s been a long time sinc
e I’ve crawled into bed next to Natalie. Not once since we’ve shared this apartment together.
Our past of sleeping side by side was mostly prompted when we felt overwhelmed with life and needed the comfort from one another. That didn’t happen much these days and I missed those quiet moments together more than I cared to admit.
I leave her room before she wakes to heat up some soup on the stove. The clanking of bowls and the smell of chicken noodle must rouse her because she shuffles down the hall and pulls up a chair at the kitchen table.
“You feeling okay?” I ask.
She groans miserably in response.
“Want some soup?”
She ignores me, opens the black box filled with breadsticks and bites into one.
“That’s good. Bread will soak up some of the alcohol.”
She nods, still not saying a word. I pour my steaming soup into a bowl and take it to the seat across from her so I can keep an eye on her as I eat. The bread seems to bring her back to life. She’s still a bit drunk but the worst of it has passed. Now she just feels a bit sick to her stomach and groggy.
“Thanks.”
I smile and take a bite of noodles. “I didn’t do anything.”
“For bringing me up here and putting me to bed. I’m guessing that was you. The last thing I remember is calling you. It gets a little fuzzy after that.”
I grab a breadstick and dip it in my soup. “Yeah that was me.”
She smiles despite the obvious headache that has her massaging her temple. “So thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She winces in pain and puts her head down on the table. “I shouldn’t have had that fifth glass. It’s been too long since I’ve drank this much.”
“Let’s get you back to bed. You just need to sleep it off a little more.”
She agrees and I follow her into the bedroom, bringing an extra water bottle to put on her bedside table even though she hadn’t yet opened the first one. When she crawls under the blankets and settles in I look at the door, look back at her and make a quick decision.
Kicking off my shoes, I crawl in bed next to her and tuck one of the decorative pillows under my head.
“What the hell are you doing?” She asks sleepily.
The last time I climbed into bed with Nat we were at my dad’s old house. I had been drunk or high. Or both. She had been crying softly to herself thinking I couldn’t hear her through the thin wall between us.
That was how it always started. Tears, longing, me climbing in her bed.
“It’s been a long day. A really long day. Can I just hold you? I’ll leave if you really want.”
She pauses briefly before whispering, “Stay.”
That’s all the invitation I need to toss my pants to the floor next to the bed and pull her into my chest. We’re spooning and she feels so good wrapped in my arms, against my bare chest. She fits in my arms as perfectly as a puzzle piece. Everything about it just feels right.
“What happened today?”
“You mean besides having to pick up my drunk future sister-in-law and drunker roommate before the sun even set?”
“Yes.” I hear the smile in her voice. “Besides that.”
“Travis relapsed. He left the center late last night and got arrested at the dealer’s house. It was quiet at the center after that but still…it left a bad vibe for the rest of the day. It was quiet. Too quiet. He’s probably going to end up going away for a while after this. It was his last strike with the probation officer.”
She grips my forearm and rubs soothing motions over my tattoos. It somehow awakens and settles me at the same time. My nerve endings come alive but the anxiety that’s tightened my chest for the majority of the day loosens and begins to evaporate into the darkness.
“It’s not your fault. You know that right?” She continues her soothing motions over my forearms and up to my biceps to match her soothing voice. She traces the outline of the intricate skull tattoo on my forearm. I let my eyes close and enjoy her soft touch. “You can’t control what other people do. Only what you do. And you’ve been doing amazing.”
“It still makes me wonder if I could have done something different.”
“Don’t. Don’t do that.”
She scoots back an inch until she’s flush against me and I instantly harden like a rock. She stills when she feels it but doesn’t pull away. I snuggle closer to her and make no effort of hiding my reaction, nuzzling my face in the crook of her neck and breathing her in.
“What are you doing?”
“You smell nice.”
“What. Are you. Doing?”
“Do you want me to stop?” I ask against the shell of her ear, my breath fanning over her skin.
She sucks in a sharp breath and I can’t help but smirk in victory when she says, “No.”
“Okay.” I breathe the word against her ear again, hoping to earn a similar reaction as the first time. I knew I was in dangerous territory but I didn’t much care right now.
I keep holding her in my arms. She keeps stroking my forearm. I keep nuzzling into her neck, smelling her hair and feeling her warm, soft body pressed against my chest.
“Remember last time we did this?” She asks, reading my mind. Her voice sounds more content than I’ve ever heard it and that thought makes me smile in masculine satisfaction at knowing I had something to do with it.
“I do. You had a rough night.”
“And you always checked on me. I loved that about you.”
I worried so much about her back then. I could tell that something was very wrong that night and climbed in her bed to provide comfort. She told me she had no one. No one in the world but me. The tortured confession was whispered between us and from that moment on I made it my personal job to make sure she was okay.
Always.
“Just wanted to make sure you were ok, Nat. I felt like shit that I couldn’t save you from it all back then.”
“You did.”
“How? I never got you out. I failed you.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you there, Chris. I made that decision. Now shut up. You’re ruining the moment.”
Impishly, I gently bite the side of her neck and she squirms away, elbowing me while she laughs. She’s ticklish and I know her neck is a hot spot. Not letting her escape, I pull her back toward me by the hips, tickling her one last time on her waist. She squeals and I stop torturing her, not wanting her to kick me out of bed.
I wasn’t ready to walk away just yet.
Neither of us falls asleep for over an hour. I don’t know about her but I don’t want to miss a second of this. It’s the closest I’ve ever had Natalie and I’m afraid if I fall asleep we might roll away from each other and never end up like this again. Never end up this close. Losing this moment wasn’t something I was ready for yet so I stayed awake.
I need to appreciate each and every moment I can with her. We lay in her bed just basking in the feeling of each other’s embrace.
I had wished so badly that night years ago that things could be different between her and I. That I met her somewhere else and that we actually had a shot at being together-alone- without all the drama. Without the pain and expectations from my father and without my brother constantly getting in the fucking way.
Back then I wished I could have Natalie to myself.
And, squeezing my arms around her waist as she drifted off to sleep, it looked like in a way that wish had finally come true.
☠ Chapter Ten ☠
Natalie
Late night cuddling and random talks in bed become our norm again. There wasn’t much I missed about living in Brad Davis’s mansion but that was one of them. It was nice to have it part of my nightly ritual again even though I didn’t need to be checked on or comforted these days.
There had been no one around looking out for me growing up. No dad. No siblings. Mom was in her own world most of the time.
It had always been me against the world and I was f
ine with that. Then I met Chris and he changed my view on facing life alone. He understood me in a way not many people could. The times I grew quiet and just wanted to be left alone were the times I needed support the most.
He saw that.
He didn’t have any better of a childhood than I did and could recognize parts of his own faults in me. When he felt me withdrawing from him and everyone else around was when he pushed his way into my life even more.
It annoyed me sometimes. But it was greatly needed and he had a beautiful way of ignoring my pissy attitudes and getting to the heart of the issues. The heart of me.
He got it.
And he wasn’t just using me for sex like every other man I encountered over the years. I knew that because he never had sex with me to begin with. We had both carefully avoided going down that path and I’m glad because I know it’s all genuine. I can trust what I see and feel, I can see it for what it is.
Our companionship hasn’t been tainted or soiled. That would have been destructive and had the potential to ruin everything good we had spent so long building and growing. Our friendship had blossomed and we had managed to carefully avoid sex or romance thus far.
Since moving into our apartment together, without anyone else around, we had toed the line of flirtation more times than I could count. But we never crossed the line.
For one, I didn’t want to be a notch on his bedpost. Despite my former profession I wasn’t attracted to man whores. And Chris had been a man whore times ten. I had witnessed enough disheveled girls leaving his bedroom when we lived at the Davis mansion together. Had heard the sordid accounts from nearly all of the other girls in the house.
I didn’t want to be a flavor of the week, one of many girls hanging on some guy’s arm. Not even Chris’s.
Been there, done that. If I was going to date someone I expected a bit of loyalty. And after everything I had witnessed in my life I wasn’t sure any man had an ounce of loyalty or faithfulness in them.
He had certainly never offered loyalty to any woman. If I got involved with him I couldn’t expect things to be any different. I would be in so far over my head with him I would drown.
Flying High (Davis Brothers Book 2) Page 6