Fighting Solitude (On The Ropes #3)(40)

An hour later, when the video finally ended, I was sauced. We’d not only polished off the extra beers Quarry had put on the table, but also two I’d delivered from the fridge on my way back from my five millionth pee break.

“Stop,” I told Quarry without dragging my gaze from the credits.

“Nope,” he slurred, punctuating it with a loud hiccough

I burst into a fit of drunken laughter, rolling off the couch to continue on the floor.

“You’re obstructing my view! No fair.” He gave the table a quick shove to the side so he could see me again. “Better. Now, carry on.” He grinned around the mouth of his beer.

Quarry had been overtly staring at me for the last half hour. He’d informed me that it was payback for the show he’d put on while picking up the bottles. He noted that I hadn’t even tipped him. Since I’d refused to lotion my legs as he’d suggested as payback, he’d announced that an hour of gawking was my punishment. I knew he was screwing around because he’d occasionally use a napkin to wipe imaginary drool away. Had I not been too drunk to care, it would have been ridiculous. However, because I was too drunk to care, it was ridiculous and hilarious.

“If you only knew how many times I’ve ogled you. I’d owe you way more than an hour,” I confessed.

“Oh. Really? I think you should fully inform me of what a little perv you’ve turned into.”

I grabbed one of his shoes off the ground and chucked it at him.

He batted it away as if it were the Home Run Derby.

“Turned into? Ha! I’ve always done it. You’ve just never caught me before.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, God, yes. I had the biggest crush on you when we were kids. I mean, back then, I wasn’t checking out your ass. But you definitely made my little prepubescent heart flutter.” I clutched my chest and closed my eyes dreamily.

“Seriously?” he repeated a little quieter.

“Uh. Yeah.” I flopped flat on the floor, closing my eyes when the room began to spin.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Well, probably because I was twelve and terrified that you’d reject me.”

“Liv—”

“And there’s also that fact that you locked me in a closet. You weren’t all that attractive after that.”

“Shit. Liv—”

Keeping my eyes closed seemed to keep the french fries I’d eaten earlier from making an encore. However, nothing could stop my drunken mouth from vomiting my secrets.

“I got over that pretty quickly. I just accepted that I can’t trust anyone. After that, it didn’t hurt so bad. That’s when I really started perving on you.” I cackled until my stomach churned. “Ugh! Why did you let me eat that shit?”

“What do you mean that’s when you started perving on me?” he asked from somewhere surprisingly nearby, but I didn’t chance another stomach churn to open my eyes.

Dramatically lifting one finger in the air, I got back on topic. “Oh, right. I used to have this scrapbook of you that I kept hidden under my bed. It’s in my closet now. I’ll have to show it to you. You were one hot fifteen-year old. There was this one picture that seriously did it for me. You were only in a pair of boxing trunks…all muscly and stuff. Shhhhhiiiit.” I hissed at the memory. “That was the first time I ever touched myself—”

The front door creaked open before slamming shut.

I bolted upright, pried my eyes open, and found myself surprisingly alone.

“Quarry?” I called but got no response. Weird. I attempted to go after him, but with my baby giraffe legs in a spinning room, I fell right back onto the floor. “Oh well. He’ll be back.” I sprawled out spread-eagle and got lost in the stupid home screen music of the comedy DVD.





I needed space.

Air.

A cartoon-size brick of ice I could use to bash my head with before icing my balls.

My bedroom wasn’t far enough away to escape. I needed a quiet place where she wasn’t writhing on the floor in a tiny pair of shorts so I could convince myself that it was a bad idea to listen to her tell me how much she used to want me—all the while inching closer, hell-bent on showing her how much I currently wanted her.

That was exactly what I’d been doing not thirty seconds earlier.

Yeah. Bad. Fucking. Idea.

It was bad enough that I now knew she liked my ass, but I did not need the visual of her touching herself for the first time with me on her mind too.

God. She was so f*cking drunk.

So was I though.

And, right then, Drunk Quarry was about to make decisions Sober Quarry was going to have to answer for. Most of which started with my mouth on her neck and all of which ended with me emptying inside her.

What the f*cking f*ck is going on?

She used to like me?

Why did the idea of used to hurt so f*cking bad?

Oh, right. Because used to wasn’t now.

Something truly odd had happened that night during our conversation. And not just the fact that she had been overtly flirty. While that had been new, it wasn’t what had set me on edge long before her visit to the drunken confessional on the floor.

When Liv had brought up Mia, I’d experienced the stab of grief I’d come to expect from memories of her. However, it hadn’t been anything compared to the searing pain that had come from watching anguish etch across Liv’s face. That had killed. I would have walked through Hell to extinguish that for her. Luckily, it had only taken a joke.