Seven Days in June(40)

Groaning a little, he felt his usual morning tremors, the uncontrollable shaking that alerted him he’d need a drink. Soon. But not right now. Right now, he needed to bury his entire face in the coconut-scented warmth of Genevieve’s hair. The way she had become so important to him in just a day was inexplicable.

But inexplicable things happened to him, and Shane accepted life’s oddities. He didn’t know if this made him an adventurer or an idiot, but one thing was true—nothing interesting ever came from a clear path of rationality.

On the bleachers, all he’d wanted to do was enjoy his vodka-and-ketamine buzz while reading a book he’d already read fourteen times. It was comforting to Shane, knowing what words were coming next. And that was what was inexplicable about Genevieve. It felt like she was supposed to come next. Like the chapter had already been written, and they were just taking their places. Like he already knew her by heart.

Shane inhaled her scent again, savoring her. Nothing’s better than this, he thought sleepily. That was when he noticed the vodka on the nightstand.

Suddenly wide awake, Shane gazed from the bottle to Genevieve’s perfect almond-brown shoulder and then back to the bottle. With clarity, he decided that the two most urgent things in the universe were (a) keeping her in his arms and (b) procuring the vodka. How he would get from here to there without waking her up was a question of logistics.

Carefully, his good arm still trapped under Genevieve, he reached over her with his casted arm, fingers still inches from the bottle. He scooted her forward a bit and, with Herculean effort, lunged across her and grabbed at it. Shane twisted off the cap with his teeth and downed three huge gulps.

As he took a breath and another swig, the shaking slowed, and he started to feel normal.

Shane reached over Genevieve and placed it back on the nightstand. He stared at the ceiling. Then he rolled her over and reached for it again.

“How many times we gonna do this?” asked Genevieve, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed. “You’re awake?”

“I am now.” She grabbed the bottle and handed it to him, turning so they were face-to-face. God, she looked adorable in his T-shirt, with her wild hair and sleep-creased cheeks.

“Hi,” he said, with a face-splitting smile.

Genevieve smiled back—but then her expression grew dark.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, I’m just…I’m confused,” she stammered, looking lost. “What happened? Where am I? And…who are you?”

Shane’s eyes widened. Had Genevieve’s head hit the floor after she got punched? Did she have concussion-related memory loss? No. No. He wouldn’t panic.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.

Genevieve squeezed her eyes shut. “Cincinnati.”

“Cincinnati?”

“It’s in Ohio,” she said.

“You serious?” Shane sat up, propping himself against the velvet headboard. He dropped his head into his hands. “No, no, no, no…”

Genevieve’s mouth trembled and then her eyes crinkled, and she burst out laughing. “You’re so shook!”

“Fuck me,” he breathed. Despite himself, his mouth curved into a grin, and then he chuckled shakily. “I really thought you had amnesia.”

Looking proud, Genevieve sat up next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “Convincing, right? I grew up watching Days of Our Lives.”

“You’re a very strange person,” he said worshipfully.

Nodding in agreement, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

“No, but for real. You remember how we got here, right? You’re not scared?”

“Nothing scares me,” said Genevieve with confidence. Shane didn’t quite believe her, though, because just then, the phone in her backpack buzzed. And she tensed against him. It buzzed and buzzed, but she made no move to answer it. He wondered who was calling her. Slipping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her closer, wanting to obliterate her worry (or at least cuddle it out of her). Genevieve let out a small, contented sigh that ended in a slight moan. And it took all he had not to kiss her.

Shane couldn’t. He couldn’t make it about that. With everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, kissing should’ve been nothing. But with Genevieve, it’d be something. With her, it’d be a promise.

“I don’t even know you,” murmured Genevieve, tracing an old scar on his chest with her index finger. “Why don’t we feel like strangers?”

“Don’t ask,” said Shane. “You pull a loose thread and the whole shit unravels.”

Her phone buzzed again. This time she looked over at her backpack, which was flung across a wicker chair. Her face was cloudy with worry and dread, but she continued to ignore it.

She bit her bottom lip. “Hey. Wanna go somewhere and be bad?”

“Youthful-indiscretion bad? Or arrested bad?”

“I can’t get arrested. My face is all bruised up. How would my mug shot look?”

“Authentic.” Stretching a little, his leg hit something cold. Shane dug underneath the sheets and unearthed a bag of defrosted peas. “We slept with peas? These yours?”

“No. Everyone hates peas.”

“Huh.” Shane took an indulgent swig from the bottle. Something oxidized in his brain, and he was starting to feel properly drunk. “This is good vodka.” He studied the bottle with a quizzical expression. “Whose is this?”