Page 62

It’s a small relief when she comes home alone.

It’s no relief at all when he watches her stumble towards the house.

It’s something he doesn’t have a word for when the first place she goes is to him.

It’s been a long, long time since I stumbled onto Serenity Ranch, drunk off my ass.

Even longer since I genuinely felt bad about it. Honestly, I’m not sure I ever really, completely did. There was always an inkling of guilt, but it was hidden beneath so much burning anger and resentment that it was never acknowledged. It never had a chance.

It isn’t a mere inkling tonight. It’s… everything.

Everywhere. Simmering beneath my skin, embedded in my bones, as nauseating as the alcohol sitting heavy in my belly.

I never wanted to sink to the floor in a shameful heap—I was rarely ashamed, full stop.

I never thought I deserved whatever punishment I might get, never thought I’d earned it.

I never wanted to find my older sister waiting up for me, but I do now.

As I slip inside the A-frame, I want to be greeted by her quiet disappointment, and isn’t it so damn ironic that I’m not.

That all those times I tried to be so sneaky, I failed, and the one time I don’t, I’m met with nothing but a dark, empty living room.

A quiet house. My unsteady footsteps are the only sound, echoed by wet sniffs and raspy breaths as I desperately try not to burst into tears.

I don’t deserve to cry. To feel sorry for myself.

I made a choice. An ugly, wrong choice that I regretted the very second I made it, but that didn’t stop me, did it?

It didn’t stop me from throwing back another drink, it didn’t stop me from doing exactly what Ricky wanted, it didn’t stop me from throwing away three months of trying .

Because I was trying. Even if no one believed it, even if I couldn’t admit it. I wanted to be sober. I wanted to prove that I could; to prove everyone wrong.

Hot liquid dampens the skin beneath my eyes. I wipe it away roughly, as frustrated as I am upset. And I am so, so upset. I wish it was anger constricting my chest. I can deal with anger, I can handle it, I know what to do with it, but this , I don’t.

I don’t know how to be sad. And as much as I know I don’t deserve to feel better, I want to. I want comfort.

I want it from one person in particular, and to him is exactly where I go.

It takes three rounds of knocking before Finn opens his bedroom door. At first, I think I woke him up. I see a bare chest and tired eyes, and I think he was asleep—that’s why it took him so long to answer. And then I smile, I mumble a greeting, and I realize I was wrong.

Because Finn doesn’t smile back. He doesn’t say anything. He… he looks at me for a handful of seconds. An unreadable gaze scans me quickly and briefly flashes with relief before hardening, darkening. He nods quickly, jerkily, like he’s assuring himself of something.

And then he closes the door in my face.

Lips parting with a surprised exhale, I stare at the solid slab of wood. A little damn stupefied, I raise my fist to knock again, catching myself at the last minute and going for the doorknob instead. When it twists easily, I feel relief—if he really wanted me out, he’d lock it, right?

Even though doubt slows my steps, even though something painful stabs at my chest, I laugh as I shoulder my way into the room. “Really, cowboy? That was a little dramatic.”

Halfway back to bed, Finn pauses. That strong, naked back rippling, he tilts his head towards the ceiling, as if asking whatever higher power he believes in for strength.

Without turning around, he rasps, “Get out.”

I sway on my platformed feet, knocked off balance by his tone. His harsh, tough tone that makes the rock-like lump in my stomach throb and grow. I set a hand over my navel, like my cold, clammy palm might soothe it.

“You’re mad at me,” I say, and there’s no snarky response—just a very honest hum. “Okay. Then I’m sorry.”

“Do you even know what you’re sorry for?”

Because I left. Because I snapped at him. But, “You said you liked me mean.”

“Mean,” Finn agrees dryly. “Not cruel.”

I flinch.

“And that’s not even it.” He shakes his head, finally daring to face me, but his gaze still evades mine.

It fixes on a spot on the wall at my back, on the floorboards at my feet, on the hand on my belly, everywhere but me .

“You’ve been gone for hours, Lottie. You didn’t take your phone.

No one knew where you were, if you were okay.

I know I’m not your boyfriend ,” he spits the word out like a bullet.

“But I was worried. We all were. Lux almost started calling hospitals, for fuck’s sake. ”

Guilt wraps around my neck like a noose.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat, stepping forward and reaching for him on instinct, taking the way he dodges me like an uppercut to the chin. “I just lost track of time. I’m fine.”

“You’re drunk.”

I flinch again, shoved a step backwards by the accusation—by the truth .

“You’re drunk ,” he repeats and if I could form the word, I would tell him to stop . “I was losing my fucking mind, Charlotte, and you were… partying? With your not friends ?”

“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, and at least that’s the truth. At least about that, I can be honest, more honest than I am when I add, “I didn’t want to.”

He sniffs like he can smell the fucking lie.

“I didn’t want to go with them.” Truth . “I didn’t want to stay.” Truth . “I didn’t want him to ki—”

I snap my liquor-loosened lips shut, but it’s too late.

Finn puts the pieces together, he figures out that final truth all on his own, and he goes frighteningly still. “He kissed you?”

I nod slowly, wishing I didn’t have to. Wishing I’d had more of my wits about myself so I could’ve beaten Ricky off with a goddamn stick.

God, that’s probably why he was so insistent on getting me drunk.

It was more than just a power play, than proving a point, than knocking me down a peg.

He wanted me nice and pliable and stupid .

I laugh under my breath.

“So glad you find this funny.”

“I don’t,” I insist because it isn’t funny at all yet still, I chuckle again.

“It’s just he used to… You know that awful thing people say?

‘I’d have to be drunk to hook up with them?

’ Ricky used to say to hook up with me, I have to be drunk.

Because Drunk Lottie is the only version of me anyone likes. ”

God, he said that all the time. So often. And I never called him out on it, I never stopped him, I ripped into him for so much of the inane shit he used to spout, but not that. Because I believed him. Because I agreed.

Pity . That’s what creases Finn’s face. There one second, gone the next, replaced by forced, jarring indifference. “Okay.” He scrubs a hand down his face, the only hint of agitation he lets me see. “Go to bed, Lottie.”

“I didn’t kiss him back.” I told him to go fuck himself, among other things. I told him to never touch me again, to never see me again, to never think about me again because I sure as fuck would never be thinking about him, and then I got the hell out of there.

Finn doesn’t care; he only repeats himself.

That’s it. That’s all I get. A gruff command.

I messed up, fine, I acknowledge that, but… what? He just won’t talk to me now? He’s just changed his mind? He doesn’t like me anymore? I fuck up once and he’s done?

That’s not how it works, right? It can’t be. That’s not fair .

“That’s not fair,” I repeat aloud.

And then I walk out of his room because I don’t think I have it in me to hear his dismissal a third time, but I don’t go to bed.

I clomp back downstairs. Swiping at my wet eyes with one hand, I yank the front door open with the other, letting it slam shut behind me because who cares if I wake everyone up?

If I piss them off? If Finn’s mad at me, I’m sure they are too.

I’m sure everyone is just fucking furious that I’ve upset their golden boy.

Fine. Fine . Be angry. Whatever. Like I said, I can handle it.

Besides , I think as I stomp down the porch steps, I’ll probably be gone by tomorrow anyway.

I’ll be halfway to God knows where before they’ve even had their first cup of coffee.

Because there’s someone who’s probably even angrier at me.

Someone who’s going to kick me off the ranch the second she gets a whiff of me.

Someone my clumsy feet guide me towards now, like they know, I know, it’s the right thing to do, I should go, Ricky was right and I don’t belong—

A hand clasps around my bicep and yanks me to a stop. “What’re you doing?”

Shaking Finn off, I carry on in the vague direction of the main house. “I have to talk to my sister.”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“I need to talk to her,” I insist, almost tripping when I have to dodge him again. “I have to tell her.”

“Hey.” Far more nimble than my drunk ass, Finn ducks in my path, body-blocking me. “Stop, Lot. What’s going on?”

A horrible, painful noise rips from my throat, from my fucking soul. “I’m drunk , Finn.”

Two hands rise. Hesitate. Gingerly hover above my shoulders. “I know.”

“I drank.” My voice cracks—my heart cracks too. “I was supposed to get my chip tomorrow, but I drank, and now I have to tell Lux and she’s gonna hate me again, she’s gonna make me leave again, and—”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Fingertips splay across my shoulder blades and gently dig in. “Slow down, I don’t understand. What chip?”

My eyes flutter shut, a whimper fluttering my lips. Hot, heavy rivulets streak down my cheeks, burning my skin, slickening my palms when I cup my face in a pointless attempt to hide.

I can’t. Finn won’t let me. Fingers loop around my wrists and tug my hands away, folding them within his own, and I try so, so hard to stifle the sobs wracking my body, but they won’t stop.

And neither will the admission that pours out of me when I suddenly lack the energy to hold it in anymore.

“That DUI I told you about,” I rasp between ugly, heaving breaths, “I didn’t get community service for it.

I got court-mandated rehab. Like, rehab rehab.

Like the one you picked me up from. Like…

” I sniff, I try to catch my breath, I try not to vomit as pure mortification, pure shame, slams into me like a tidal wave. “For alcoholics.”

I can’t bring myself to look at him, but it doesn't matter. I feel the slow dawn of realization. I hear his lips part with a huffed exhale. “Oh, Lottie.”

“Don’t.” I step back, out of his grip once more, away from that searing pity . “I gotta go, I need Lux.”

Again, Finn grabs me. Tighter than before—tender. A hand in mine and another on my face. “I’ll call her,” he promises, thumb desperately swiping at the tears that won’t stop coming. “I’ll call her, okay? Just come back inside. Please, baby.”

He does it on purpose, I think. He knows. Baby . My little, pathetic weakness.

And it works.

He holds my hand as he guides me to the attic.

And then he lets me go, and he doesn’t touch me again. And as I settle on the edge of my bed, it strikes me with a force I can only describe as devastating that it was only this morning that he was cradling me in this very spot. Smiling at me. Kissing me.

Twelve hours. If that. That’s how long it took me to ruin the closest thing I’ve had to a relationship—a pitiful, humbling realization.

It was only last night that our positions were switched, that he was drunk and I was taking care of him.

That he was murmuring sweet things he regrets now, he doesn’t mean anymore.

He won’t even look at me. He crouches to unlace my boots and slip them off, dropping them with a heavy thud.

He maneuvers my arms from my leather jacket.

He undoes my braided ponytail and tugs the tie holding it up free.

And he does it all without really touching me.

All without looking. Even when he murmurs that he’ll be right back, he says it to the floorboards, gone before I can even ask where he’s going.

Although, I can guess. He’s doing exactly what he promised, probably.

He’s going to call Lux. She’s going to come here, with her anger and her disappointment and big, betrayed eyes, and I think that’ll be it this time.

The last straw—the actual last straw. This time, when she tells me to leave, she’ll mean it.

When I leave, I won’t come back. I can’t. I can’t do this again.

Numbly scooting further up the bed, I curl into a ball, the pillow beneath my cheek quickly dampening as tears stain the silk fabric.

I don’t know how long I sob for before Finn finally comes back—I just hear a soft curse echo around the attic and I huddle further into myself, knees tucked as close to my chest as they can get.

I try to bury my face in my pillow, but it’s stolen away, tossed somewhere.

I try to roll over, but I can’t do that either.

A firm hand on my shoulder stops me, a warm weight makes the mattress dip and me slide in its direction.

My face brushes something soft—a sweatpants-covered thigh, I think, so I burrow against that instead only to feel the muscles stiffen with discomfort, and that makes me cry harder, a feat I didn’t think possible.

But when I try to get up, gentle pressure keeps me down.

A just-as-gentle stroke sweeps my hair away from my wet face. A voice that’s all undeserved softness insists, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” I hiccup, the sound muffled as I press even closer to the thigh flush against my forehead, as I hide my shame in dark grey sweatpants. I soak them with my tears, damn near ripping them as I fist a handful and cling and fucking weep .

“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I gasp with whatever air I have left in my lungs. “I can’t do it. I don’t want to.”

A sharp inhale whistles through the air. An exhale of my name tickles my ear and I shiver, I tilt my chin to gaze woefully at the man hovering right above me, his body hunched over mine, his expression a wrecked crumple.

“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I say again, and it’s even more garbled than the first time, even more true. “But I don’t know how to be anything else.”

“Oh, Lottie,” he says again, he mumbles into my hair. “Sweetheart.”

I wail like a damn banshee.

And then I move, he moves me, shifting me higher up his body until I’m cradled between his thighs, tucked against his chest, soaking his t-shirt now too. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”

He shushes me so quietly.

“I didn’t want to kiss him.”

The arms around me stiffen.

“I…” I swallow, tilting my chin until my lips brush a collarbone. “I did want to kiss you.”

The heart beneath my ear skips a beat. “Go to sleep, Lottie,” Finn says quietly, with none of the hard edges as before.

This time, I listen.