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“He’s dead.” He swings his legs over the bed and reaches for the whiskey bottle, but I snatch it away.
“You had enough. Don’t you think?” Luckily, he wears boxers. Otherwise, I would have sprinted out of this room.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” He stands up, and for a heartbeat, I think he’ll lunge at me, and we’ll wrestle over that bottle like toddlers fighting over a toy. Instead, he stumbles toward the dresser, opens the top drawer, and pulls out a bottle of aspirin, shaking a few into his palm and swallowing them like candy.
“Naomi,” he says, softer. “Just… leave. Please.”
I should. I could be doing a million other things, like being at the gym right now. But here I am, babysitting a grown man who can’t seem to get his shit together.
So, I’m going to drag his sorry ass out of here. Whether he likes it or not. “Again. If you don’t show up, people will talk. And if they start talking, they’ll wonder why your loving girlfriend”—I point at myself—”isn’t able to convince you to attend a simple event held in your father’s honor.”
He appraises me, top to bottom. “You’re really nailing this whole ‘supportive girlfriend’ act. How about a career in Hollywood?”
I set the bottle down next to some others at the door. “Only if you promise to be my co-star. We could call it ‘The Reluctant Asshole and the Girl Who Couldn’t Care Less.’”
“You’re the one who agreed to it.” He takes a step toward me. “You could have said no. You could still say no.”
“And then what?” I close the distance between us, jabbing my finger into his chest. “My mother hounding me about being single, and my father, who barely acknowledges my existence at the office as it is, throwing me out the moment I stoppedmeeting their expectations? Don’t act like I have any real choices here.”
We’re close now, too close, and I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze. The smell of alcohol seeps from his pores, mixed with the faintest trace of his cologne. It’s intoxicating, making my heart race for all the wrong reasons.
I take a step back, creating some much needed space.
“I’m just saying,” he says, “if it’s so unbearable, you could end our oh-so-loving relationship. I’m not holding a gun to your head.”
No, just a knife to my throat. Just like when we were in college and he’d corner me in the hallway, all charm and dimples, asking me to taste his latest culinary creation. The same fluttering panic. The same helpless surrender.
“I’ll play my part,” I say. “Can you?”
“Would you be here if we didn’t have that stupid deal?”
I hesitate, and that says everything.
He walks past me toward the bathroom, scratching his chest with the nonchalance of a condemned man. “You can let yourself out.”
What I let out is a silent scream of frustration. Can’t he be like in college and follow me around like a lost puppy? That would help right now. A lot.
“Fine,” I call out loud enough for him to hear through the half-closed bathroom door. “Asshole.”
The sound of running water drowns out whatever retort he might have had.
If I leave now, I can still make it, maybe salvage this with some excuse. But if I do leave now, he won’t come. And he needs to show up, for himself, if not for anyone else.
Six months have passed. He seemed fine at first, but then… Why do I stay? I fumble the key from my purse, turning it overin my fingers. Elijah said I could keep it and that Brandon would want me to have it. But would he? I’m not so sure.
The shower stops, and hope flares in my chest like a match struck in darkness.
No. He’s just washing off the sweat and stink. He’ll crawl back into bed if I let him.
“Brandon?”
No answer. Figures.
How do I convince this stubborn asshole? It’s useless, isn’t it? The silence stretches, uncomfortable, and just as I turn to leave, the bathroom door swings open.
A towel is slung low around his hips, water glistening on his skin like he’s stepped out of some movie. A far cry from the disheveled mess he was moments ago. He looks… better. More like the Brandon I remember. A droplet of water escapes from his hair, trailing down his neck, and my eyes betray me, tracing the lines of his chest, down to his abs, to where the towel clings precariously. I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.
“What?” he asks, and I snap back to his face.