Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(57)

“I’m as good as good, Andrew. I’m so good, I’m like double good. If you had to order me at Starbucks, you’d have to order a double shot of good.” She nods. Once. Twice. Three times. Then giggles.

Jesus. How much did she drink tonight?

I spotted her with an occasional glass of champagne, but that was it.

Did she manage to sneak off and down a bunch of liquor when I wasn’t looking?

I narrow my eyes and search her face again. “Did you drive here, Birdie?”

“No sirree Bob.” She shakes her head. Snorts. “I mean, no sirree Bill. That’s my driver. Bill. But he’s a human driver. He’s not a bill. That you pay. Just a driver. Who also gets paid for driving. Ha!” She reaches out and smacks her hand on my chest. “How crazy is that? Bill drives for bills. Cash money bills. That’s Bill.”

Holy fucking shit.

I can’t stop myself from reaching out and placing a gentle hand to her cheek. “Birdie, honey, how much did you have to drink tonight?”

“Not much. Like, three glasses of champagne, I think?” She shrugs one lazy shoulder and leans her cheek into my hand at the same time. She shuts her eyes and nuzzles her cheek against my palm before she decides to put the entire weight of her head in my hand. “This feels nice.”

Nice? Birdie is rubbing her cheek into my hand and saying it feels nice?

I think I’ve officially entered the twilight zone.

“Oh!” she exclaims, and her eyes pop open as she lifts her head off my hand. “And a brownie! I had a brownie!”

“That’s nice, Birdie.”

“It was the nicest brownie I’ve ever met in my whole life,” she rambles on. “And I ate it. Which maybe wasn’t such a nice thing to do, but holy macaroni salad, it was delicious.”

I’m about two seconds away from trying to figure out if some fuckface roofied her drinks when the word brownie finally registers in my mind.

Oh fuck.

Birdie takes it upon herself to wrap her arms around my shoulders and rest her head on my chest.

“Birdie?” I question, and she nuzzles her face against me.

“Mmhmm?”

“Where did you get your brownie from?”

“A guy.”

Oh, that’s helpful.

“Did you happen to get his name?”

“Nope,” she says, her voice vibrating against my chest. “But he was with another guy and they were watching TV and they had a whole bunch of brownies on a plate. They gave me one, and I ate the whole thing because it was delicious… Wait… Oh no…” She pauses and looks up at me with a big pout on her lips. “Do you think the brownie is mad at me for eating it? God, I hope it’s not.”

Son of a bitch.

Instantly, I know who gave her the brownie. Fucking Howie’s stoner nephew Larry and his loser friend Carl.

Those two bastards have been living with Howie for the past year because my best friend is way too nice of a guy and likes to give people way too many fucking second chances.

But that’s the least of my concerns.

Right now, my priorities revolve around the fact that Birdie Harris is high as a kite, and I don’t think she realizes the brownie she ate was a fucking pot brownie.

“Funny question, Birdie,” I say quietly, more than thankful the party has wound down so much that most of the crowd has left, but also mindful that you never know whose ears are listening. “Have you ever tried pot?”

“Pot?” Her pout morphs into confusion. “Like pot roast?”

“No, sweetheart, like marijuana.”

“The drug?”

“Yeah, the drug.”

“Nope. I don’t like drugs. Just brownies.”

Man, oh man, this is quite the fucked-up situation right here.

“So, you’ve never tried any drugs?”

“Not once in my whole life!” she exclaims. “I’m drug freeeeeee!”

The irony isn’t lost on me.

While Birdie rests the majority of her body weight on my shoulders and against my chest, I lean my head back and try like hell to figure out the best way to handle this situation.

I feel weird putting her in the car with some random guy named Bill and trusting him to get her home safely.

And when I think about calling Luca and Billie, I decide it’s all kinds of cruel to call a pregnant woman at nearly three in the morning to tell her that her sister ate a pot brownie.

I also have the odd inkling of guilt for not keeping a better eye on Birdie tonight.

“I’m so sleepy, Andrew,” she whispers, her face now pressed into my chest. “And I wanna take these shoes off so bad. I feel like I’m walking on pencils.” She giggles. “Pencils. P-E-N-C-I-L-S. If you take off the C and the L, it spells penis. It’s like we first learn how to write with penises.” She giggles again.

I can’t help but grin.

Dear God, she’s pretty damn adorable right now.

Really fucking high, but adorable, nonetheless.

“I need to go to bed,” she whispers once she stops giggling. And she starts to remove her arms from my shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m just gonna find a place to sleep.”

“Here? At Howie’s?”