Alcohol You Later (16)

“I’ve got to get out of here.” I pass the kid off to Lyle, my limbs shaking as I make for the door.

“Wha—why?”

If I never again see the pitying look on Raven’s face for as long as I fucking live, it’ll still be too soon.

“I said, I’m not doing this, Raven. My relationship with them is off limits.”

“What relationship?” she shouts as I storm out of the room.





“I’m sorry,” I whisper, entering his room with my heart lodged somewhere deep in my throat. “I overstepped.” It’s pitch dark. Everyone else in the suite has been asleep for hours. It’s taken me this long to work up the courage to confront him.

I’m not even sure Nick’s awake until the lump in the bed shifts in my direction.

“I don’t want this.”

His soft-spoken words are said with such finality that I have no choice but to accept that he believes them to be truth. There is not a doubt in my mind that he will come around. But if I’ve learned anything tonight, it’s that I have got to back off and allow things with him and his children to progress naturally.

“Okay.” Shutting the door behind me, I proceed with hesitant steps in his direction. “I won’t push you anymore.”

“I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?” It cuts me to my core to see him this way.

Straightening my spine, I steel my own fractured feelings and set out to repair the damage I’ve caused. However unintentional, his current state is my fault. There’s one way I know to make him feel better, and we could both use the serotonin boost after this godawful day.

Without another word, I crawl in from the foot of the bed, not stopping until I’m wrapped in his familiar embrace. He’s tense. I can feel the veins bulging in his forearms.

“I think you’re being way too hard on yourself.” I brush the hair away from his forehead, planting a kiss right in the middle. “You’re not the first to get someone pregnant, Nicholas.”

“I could give a fuck less about that right now.”

He’s been drinking—and from the smell of this room, smoking—but his tone suggests it wasn’t enough to even take the edge off. He’s pissed, but I was mistaken in my belief that his anger was directed at me. The person he’s disgusted with is himself.

“Tell me what it is you think you’ve done.”

He scoffs. “I don’t think…I know.”

“Okay…” I hedge, trailing my nails up and down his massive bicep. “How did you fuck up?”

He jerks out from my hold, smacking his palm against his temple as his frustration boils over. “I can’t get it out of my head!”

“Stop it.” I grab his hand, hoping to calm him. Then I press my lips to his knuckles, kissing each one softly until he visibly relaxes under my touch. “Don’t do this to yourself. Please.”

He sighs, deflating a little, and I decide to take things a step further, sucking his index finger into my mouth.

His features soften, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear those were tears shining in my big sexy drummer’s eyes. “I. Hurt. You.”

“No,” I whisper, crawling between his spread legs. He watches me with a sort of detached expression that simultaneously breaks something inside of me and ignites this urgent need in me to fix this…to take away his pain, whatever the cost.

“You’re lying.”

“Nick.” His name is nothing more than a breathless whisper as I kiss and lick my way down his rippling abs.

I’m nearly to the promised land when he flips me to my back, eliciting a gasp as he straddles my waist with his knees.

My whole body quakes as he leans forward, pressing in on me until his face is so close to my own that we’re sharing air. “Don’t lie to me, pretty girl. We promised.”

Fuck my feelings.

Fuck these tears.

Fuck every bad thing that has happened to this beautiful man to damage him this way.

“Okay,” I whisper, preparing myself to hit him with the cold hard truth. “Today was hard.” I bite back a fresh bout of tears, refusing to let them fall. If it kills me, I will refrain from showing him just how deeply today’s little surprise wounded me. I won’t make him feel any worse than he already does. I couldn’t bear it.

“Show me,” he growls, his eyes taking on an almost feral look as he peers down at me. “Show me where it hurts.”

“Right here.” I move his hand over my heart.

He leaves it there for a moment, his brow furrowed and fingers twitching as he attempts to reign in his emotions. “Why are you even here…with me?”

“Because you asked me to be,” I rasp. “And because there’s no place else I’d rather be.”

He shakes his head in disgust, and just when I’m sure he’s about to leave the room, he barks out an order. “Lift your arms.”

Overcome with relief, I do as he asks, never taking my eyes from his as he lifts the Rhett Taylor band tee I borrowed from Korie over my head. “You’re too good for the likes of me, pretty girl.”

“I’m not.” I meet his stare head-on, begging him to see just how much I mean those two words.