I FROWN at my phone as a text from Amelia comes through telling me exactly what I don’t want to hear; she’s busy.
There goes my plan for the evening. Technically, I already have a plan—I’m in the middle of it—but I would’ve happily ditched. Seeing Amelia undoubtedly beats freezing my ass off on ice-cold bleachers and watching the guys swinging baseball bats around. It’s fucking December, for fuck’s sake. Baseball season is, like, two months away. Even preseason training hasn’t kicked in yet. There’s no reason they need to be fucking around practicing on a Friday night, and there’s even less of a reason for me to be here considering I don’t play the damn sport, yet here we all are.
“A mandatory roommate outing,” Ben had called it.
Fucking bullshit, is more like it.
Irritated, I scowl in the guys’ direction—the three of them are crowded into one batting cage, Jackson gently coaching a bat-wielding Ben while Cass sits on the grass with his back against the net, sucking on a beer and occasionally chiming in with shouted notes of his own. I should probably go over there and join in instead of sulking on the sidelines like a loser yet I can’t stop my focus from drifting toward my phone again.
Me: going out?
Amelia: yeah
My fingers hover over the screen as something hot and unfamiliar curls in my chest. Obviously, her going out without me isn’t a big deal. We’re a week into December and despite the fact we’ve both been rammed with busy schedules, I’m yet to spend a single winter’s night without her, so it’s probably healthy to spend one apart. Normal, or whatever. There’s probably something in her little rulebook about that.
I don’t like it, though. It makes me antsy. Uneasy. It irrationally casts my mind back to all the other times she’s gone out recently and it hasn’t gone very well on account of a deranged ex. And yeah, it makes me a tiny bit pathetically jealous of whoever’s occupying her time.
While I’m mulling over a response that doesn’t make me sound like a freak, three little dots pop back up.
Amelia: wild night
The two words are accompanied by a picture, and just like that, my bad mood dissipates. Amelia grins at me through a photo, Kate and Luna on either side of her pulling faces at the camera. They’ve got some kind of blue face mask shit smeared on their faces, hiding my favorite freckles. In plain sight, though, is the dark purplish-red mark my teeth left on her neck a couple of nights ago, peeking out from behind the collar of her pajama top.
My dipshit-level smile quickly fades when Ben plops down beside me, the bat in his hand clattering loudly to the ground. “What’re you grinning at?”
Quickly clicking my phone off, I slide it into my pocket with a shrug. “Nothing.”
Ben doesn’t miss a beat before accusing, “Liar.”
I ignore his goading tone in favor of snatching a beer from the six-pack Cass left by my feet, using the heel of my hand and the lip of the bleacher to pop the top off because the genius didn’t bring a churchkey. Ben follows suit but after a single failed attempt, he tips the bottle toward me with puppy-dog eyes. I sigh and do it for him.
You’d think that would earn me a bit of a reprieve from the interrogation brewing—it doesn’t. Beer spills down my chin as a surprisingly powerful elbow to the ribs knocks me askew. “Someone didn’t come home last night.”
God, he’s like a cross between an annoying little brother and an overbearing mother. “Mind your own business.”
Unsurprisingly, Ben does no such thing. “And when someone did come home this morning, someone was wearing the same clothes they left in yesterday.”
“Do you have a point?”
“All I’m saying is Amelia’s never gonna fall in love with you if you keep fucking around.”
I almost spit out my damn beer, that word all but triggering my gag reflex. “Do you have a head injury I don’t know about? Or are you naturally deluded?”
“I have a theory.”
“I don’t care.”
“I think you’re in love,” Ben sings, and once again, bile rises in my throat. It’s a helluva exaggeration. I’m not in love. Fuck me, I could barely admit I liked the girl until recently—that’s a feat in itself.
And I genuinely fucking like her, which is why it ticks me off when Cass and Jackson wander over, the former crooking a disbelieving brow. “Who’s in love?”
When Ben jerks his head toward me, Cass barks a laugh. “Fat fucking chance,” he says, and I bristle. “Pretty sure you have to have a heart to fall in love.”
It’s not a new joke. I’ve heard it before; I’ve made it before, laughed at it before. But for some reason, it hits a little sour. And oddly, I’m not the only one who feels it.
Sucking in a hissed breath through gritted teeth, Jackson grimaces. “That’s kinda harsh, Cass.”
“I’m harsh?” Cass blinks at us in bewilderment, stabbing an accusatory finger my way. “Omega Chi have a picture of you taped over the dartboard in their living room because you fucked and ducked so many of them. A girl egged your car because she asked you out and you laughed. You banged a girl on her birthday, and then you banged her sister twenty minutes later.”
“Fuck off,” I cut off his deprecating rant, “you know that last one wasn’t on me.” I was trashed—I thought they were the same person.
“All I’m saying,” Cass continues, hands raised in a display of false innocence, “is you’re not exactly the type of guy you bring home to mother.”
“And you are?”
“I don’t run scared at the first whiff of commitment.”
My jaw clenches as I scramble for an argument and come up empty. Cass isn’t wrong—everything he’s saying is back up by cold, hard facts, and for the first time, I resent this reputation I’ve earned. How it makes people see me. Fuck, Amelia sees me like that, right? Probably, and I can’t even blame her.
As I sit there listening to Cass joke and gripe about how I’d be the last person he’d let near his sister, I’m wondering how the hell I can prove to him, and to her, that she’s the last person I want to hurt.
As hard as I try, I can’t pinpoint the exact specifics of how I went from shivering at the batting cages to shivering on the ground outside a bar. Alcohol was involved, that much I know for sure—when a six-pack of beer proved insufficient in drowning out the erratic thoughts buzzing around in my head, I moved on, and I convinced the guys to move with me. But I think I might’ve moved too far—I’ve drunk myself into a state even I can admit is excessive.
Yet even now, my brain won’t turn off.
Amelia this, Amelia that. Amelia, Amelia, A-fucking-melia, it wouldn’t, it won’t, stop. It’s like the drunker I am, the worse it gets. I keep finding myself thinking about silly shit, like how I need to start buying oat milk because it’s the only kind she likes. And how I should probably start stocking the kitchen with a fuck ton of sugar because she goes through that shit in her coffee like crack. And shampoo, I need to find out what shampoo she uses, and conditioner, so I can keep some in my bathroom. And I truly go down a dark hole when I start panicking about what the fuck to get her for Christmas, if I’m even supposed to. I want to but I don’t know if that’s against the rules and fuck me, I don’t know the first thing about buying shit for girls who aren’t related to me.
I can only be grateful that when it got to the point of me wanting to articulate those thoughts, I had enough clarity left in me to barrel out of the bar like a bat out of hell—if sober thoughts are drunken words, God knows what trouble drunken thoughts would cause, and I wasn’t willing to find out amongst the present company.
Obviously, the better option is mumbling aimlessly to myself while collapsed on the dirty sidewalk with my head between my legs mere feet from the front entrance teeming with life. At one point, I swear I hear someone call out for me but I firmly ignore it, writing it off as a rum-induced hallucination. But then I hear it again, definite this time, a feminine voice crooning my name, and I bristle.
“Not happening,” I mutter beneath my breath, an honest to God hiss escaping me when a hand lands on my arm. I jerk upright, ready to snap until I see a cloud of red hair and green eyes tight with concern, and I melt like a fucking ice cream on a summer day.
Contentment settles in my chest as I sigh her name. Reaching up, I swipe a thumb down the bridge of a freckled nose, grazing downturned lips before sloppily cupping her jaw. “Beautiful girl.”
When Amelia frowns, it takes me a second to realize I’m not speaking English. And when I repeat the sentiment in the language we both understand, pale cheeks redden. I grin, goofy as fuck, but I don’t care. I fucking love that blush, and I love it even more when I’m the reason for it.
Eyelids falling to half-mast, I loll toward her as dainty fingers sift through my hair, her soft, sighed breath grazing my skin. “What’re you doing out here?”
“Thinking.”
Amelia hums low and quiet, a corner of her mouth twitching. “It’s cold out here, Nick.”
My eyes go wide. Shit. She’s right. Hurriedly scrambling to my feet, I shrug off my jacket—a beat-up old leather thing that used to be my dad’s. As I scan her outfit, a pained groan echoes through the night air. “What the fuck are you wearing?” I whine needlessly because I can see exactly what she’s wearing; I just wish I couldn’t.
Fucking pajamas. Thin, white pajamas with tiny little hearts printed all over them.
Never thought I’d simultaneously find something cute and sexy as well, yet here she is.
“I was asleep when Cass called.” Amelia begrudgingly accepts my offered jacket. Not that I give her much of a choice—I bundle her up before she can object. “I didn’t exactly have time to change.”
My face scrunches. “Cass called you?”
“Said you guys needed a ride.” Looking me up and down, she dryly adds, “I can’t imagine why.”
A noise I’ve never made before escapes me—a goddamn chortle—and I would be embarrassed if I wasn’t so fucking drunk, and if it didn’t earn me the best laugh in the world.
Hands itching to touch her, they slip beneath my jacket to grip her sides and drag her closer. I huff when she weakly protests, one pretty eye twitching as she nervously darts a glance toward the people milling around. We’re shrouded in the dark where we are, and even if we weren’t, no one’s paying attention to us. And even if they were, I wouldn’t give a shit. Amelia does, though, either way, and I hope my lips brushing hers will distract her enough.
It does—for a too-short second and then she’s using a hand on my chest to gently push me away. “You taste like a distillery.”
She tastes like salty, buttery popcorn and sugar, an odd combination that I want more of, but she denies me. Instead, she frowns and cocks her head in that way she does when she’s thinking hard about something, and it makes my mind race.
“I didn’t do anything.” I nuzzle the side of her face in an attempt to ease the tiny kernel of panic sprouting in my chest. “Promise.”
When I pull back, that frown has only deepened. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
I exhale my relief. That’s good. Part of the reason I fled outside was I got so panicked about the girls flocking around us—all of them discreetly but speedily diverted in Cass’ direction. I was paranoid that someone would see and get the wrong end of the stick and it would somehow get back to Amelia and I’d be screwed.
“And,” I remember to add, because it’s been fucking bugging me, “I’m not gonna bang your sister.”
There’s a long pause before Amelia coughs. “What?”
“And please don’t egg my car.” I sigh, remembering that mess. “That really sucks.”
It’s hard to read her expression—I’m not sure if it’s actually tough to decipher or if I’m too drunk to do it—but I think it might be amused. Or it’s confused. Irritated, maybe? Whatever it is, her tone is soft and genuine as she assures me, “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Good.” Satisfied I haven’t accidentally ruined everything, I try for a kiss again, pouting and whining like a fucking child when she evades.
“I have to get the others,” she explains gently before turning on her heel and heading towards the bar entrance.
I stop her before she can even make it two steps, an arm looping around her waist and hoisting her back. “Please,” I dip my head to mumble into the crook of her neck, “don’t go in there like that.”
Amelia twists around in my grip, tipping her head back to glare at me defiantly. “Why not?”
Tugging on the hem of shorts that barely cover her fucking ass, I answer honestly. “I’m too drunk to get in a fight.”
Almost on instinct, she adopts an argumentative stance, but when she opens her mouth, it’s a surprised laugh that comes out. “You’re gonna fight someone for staring at my ass?”
“Querida, I wanna fight people for staring at your face.”
Amelia’s face scrunches up as she futilely tries to hide a smile. She spins out of my grip, not giving me any time to grumble before she grabs my hand, tugging me after her as she heads for her car parked on the other side of the street. “That’s a little dramatic. I can’t control how people look at me, Nicolas.”
Yeah, well. I think I’ve proven she makes me a little fucking dramatic.
Shoving me into the back seat—a wise choice considering if I was in the front next to her, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands to myself—Amelia clutches the door, leaning down to peer in at me. “I thought all those boxing lessons were so I could fight for myself, hm?”
“Yeah.” I clumsily hook an ankle around hers, essentially tripping her into my awaiting grip. She catches herself before our heads clunk together, two palms braced against my chest. Whatever reprimand she prepares dies on her tongue when I lean forward and admit, “And so I could spend time with you.”
