A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(21)

I chug the rest of my beer, toss the empty in my recycling container, and reach into the cabinet for reinforcements, finding a bottle of Scotch from my parent’s house. I don’t drink hard liquor.

I do now.

“It’s personal.”

“More than personal.”

We bathe in the silence between us. The only sound is the trickle of amber fluid from the bottle into a shot glass. I pour two and shove one at him. He holds up a palm.

“No way. I need to get back to Carrie tonight in one piece. Beer’s good for me.”

I slam back one shot. “Liquid courage.”

“You need courage to talk?” Mark’s eyebrows shoot up. “This must be bad.” He pulls his phone out of his back pocket and starts tapping on the screen.

“Who you texting?” The room is a warm cocoon suddenly, and Mark is my best friend.

“Carrie. Looks like I need to stay here after all.”

“No. Go back to your woman. She’s waiting in your bed. Go make love and have fun. Smell her neck. Run your hands up her thighs and open them like she’s a honeycomb and -- ”

Mark grabs my arm with more force than he has any right to use. “Don’t talk about Carrie that way.”

“Wasn’t talking about Carrie.”

His grip softens.

“This is about Lindsay,” he says under his breath.

“It’s always about Lindsay,” I say, like someone’s ripped my vocal cords in two. “Always. But what I did to Blaine today was as much about me as it was about her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The words are on the tip of my increasingly numb tongue. I want to say them. Need to say them. I’ve only ever spilled my guts to one person, and she has a Ph.D. and an M.D. after her name and can write a prescription to help me with the obliteration.

My hands shake as I pour a second shot.

“It means I’m a f*cking fool.”

He puts his hand on mine and carefully removes the shot glass from me with a look that says enough. “That was established long ago.”

“Then my foolishness expands.” The word foolishness sounds slurred.

“Man, I’ve watched you get shitfaced before. After we found that bombed-out village with the kids in the school building...” His voice trails off and he gets the thousand-mile stare I know all too well, except right now, I don’t give a f*ck about anything.

I tear off onto my deck, where a giggle greets me.

“Drew!” It’s Tiffany, my fifty-something cougar neighbor who is wearing a gold bikini at midnight, with a bucket of makeup on her face and a huge pitcher of margaritas on her table. She’s smoking a clove cigarette. A gust of wind blows hard just as Mark stomps after me, coming up short when he realizes she’s here.

“Oh!” she purrs. “Who’s your friend?” Tiffany stands.

She’s wearing high heels. Gold ones. They match the string bikini. For a woman my mother’s age, she’s in great shape.

But definitely not my type.

Mark does that thing with his voice that guys do when they’re surprised, but are trying to hide it.

“I’m Tiffany!” she chirps, shuffling over on stilettos and holding out her perfectly manicured hand.

“Mark. Hi.”

“Hi there,” she says back, giving me a wide-eyed glance. “Drew! You look like a bear ate you and spat you back out.”

Mark’s lip twitches as he tries not to laugh.

I have to say, normally Tiffany is a fun neighbor to kick back with and have a few drinks, but she’s a stereotype of a stereotype.

Tonight, though, the edges of the world are fuzzy and my body’s full of adrenaline.

She’s still not my type, but that pitcher of margaritas is looking damn fine.

“Been a long day,” I say, rubbing my stubbled chin with my hand, then wincing. The knuckles ache from connecting with Blaine’s facial bones.

I grin at the memory.

“That’s better!” Tiffany giggles. “You look so fierce when you frown!”

“So fierce,” Mark mutters.

I glare at him.

“Like that!” Tiffany gushes.

“Smile, Drew,” Mark says with a laugh. His eyes dart from me to Tiffany, asking a pretty big question without saying a word. I shake my head no imperceptibly, except he catches it.

She doesn’t.

“Drew and I hang out all the time. You might call us pitcher buddies!” She shuffles into her apartment suddenly.

“You’re nailing her?” Mark asks under his breath as I grab his beer and finish it off. Suddenly, our serious conversation from before is so boring.

A door slams shut inside me.

Good. Let the demons pound on it from the inside. I’m done.

“No. She wishes.”

“She’s, um...”

“Well preserved.”

“You always were the one with tact.”

“If I’m tactful, you’re Miss Manners.”

He guffaws, the sound carrying on the blast of wind that pushes against my t-shirt, making me realize I’m sweating. One more shot and I’m close to snoozing out. I need to hold off.

I shouldn’t care.

An image of Lindsay in bed flashes through my blood, hot and coursing through me at a million miles an hour. Naked, wrapped in my arms, her sweet skin against me.