Elect - Dyken Rachel Van. Страница 49

It was me and Trace, stuck in a time warp. I reached for her face and sighed when my hand came into contact with her cheek. A single tear met my fingers. I pulled back and rubbed the tear between my thumb and forefinger and then got up.

“Chase, wait…”

“No.” I grabbed the bottle from the table. “It’s fine.” I managed a tight smile. “This was always how it was supposed to be, Trace. Believe me, we’re better off as friends.”

“Can we still go there? After… everything?” Her eyes were hopeful.

“Sure,” I lied and stumbled away from her, seeking the darkness of my room and the bottom of the bottle in my right hand.

The minute I walked into my room, I slammed the door behind me and locked it. Shit, did everything have to smell like her? Numbly, I walked over to the bed, the same bed we’d shared less than forty-eight hours ago. Her smell was so deeply etched into the fibers of the sheets that I couldn’t bring myself to do anything except take a swig of whiskey and allow her scent to overwhelm the pain.

I don’t know how long I sat there on the bed. Drinking and sniffing like some lunatic.

That’s the thing about love—you’d do anything to secure it—except when you finally have it, you’re so damn worried about losing it that your choices are no longer selfless but selfish. That’s what happened to things with Trace and in the end that was how I lost her.

I refused to pack away the memories of her kiss.

The way we fit together perfectly.

I held on to those memories because in that moment I was pretty damn sure that no girl would ever be able to fully wipe them from my consciousness, and hell if I’d let them to begin with.

I drank half the bottle.

Not a proud moment for someone who doesn’t normally drink. Shit, she’d turned me into an alcoholic over the course of two weeks! What the hell did that say about my self-control?

The room spun. I put the bottle down and rubbed my eyes.

It was late.

You’d think I’d be too drunk to even think.

Clearly, I had a way higher alcohol tolerance than I would have preferred for the current situation.

Someone knocked softly on my door.

I refused to answer.

The knock came again.

With a curse I stumbled to my feet and opened the door. Mil stood on the other side. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun and she was wearing really short black workout shorts and a tank top.

“Shit, Mil, I’m not in the mood.” I moved to close the door but her hand stopped me. She pushed against my chest.

“Chill. I’m not here to take advantage of your drunken state.” Rolling her eyes she stepped past me into my room.

“What part of I’m not in the mood don’t you get?” I slurred and stumbled over to my bed.

Mil held up her hands. “Again, not here to steal your virtue and I’m pretty sure if the opportunity did present itself you’d be asleep in a pile of your own puke within thirty seconds. So, thanks but no thanks.”

I groaned into my hands and lay facedown on the bed. “What the hell do you want?”

Muttering a curse, she walked over to my bathroom and turned on the shower. I heard a few things clattering around before she was back, standing in front of me.

Somehow my shoes were off, then my jeans. Damn, it was cold. Mil pulled me to my feet and lifted my shirt over my head. I swayed against her.

“Chase Winter, I swear if you puke on me or try to hit on me in any way, I will cut you. Clear?”

“Am I in Hell?” My teeth chattered as the cold from the room seeped into every bone in my body.

“Close.” She muttered, grabbing my hand and walking me into the bathroom. The steam billowed out from the shower. “Get in.”

“Why?” I croaked.

“Because you smell like whiskey.”

“Maybe I like smelling like whiskey.”

She didn’t say anything, just stood there, arms crossed.

“You checking me out?” I took a step closer to her and stumbled. I steadied myself on the granite countertop and cursed.

Mil snorted. “Believe me, you couldn’t be any less attractive to me right now if you tried.”

“Is your plan to make me suicidal?” I closed my eyes so the room would stop spinning.

“Nope, although I think at one point it was yours. You do know that drinking that much vintage whiskey could get you killed?”

“I have a stomach of steel.” I belched and then ran over to the toilet and began showing her just how steely-like my stomach could be.

A cool cloth was placed on my neck as I continued to puke. “Why the hell are you being so nice to me?” I wiped my mouth with the same cloth and cursed.

Mil helped me to my feet and managed to look at me in the eyes as I stripped off the rest of my clothes and stumbled into the shower. She was behind me, helping me, like I was some sort of elderly person.

Apparently she wasn’t going to answer the question.

I don’t remember much of the shower, just that somehow I managed to get back into my bed—and that I was dry. Weird. Had she toweled me off?

Hello rock, meet bottom.

“I’m helping you…” Mil whispered as she pulled the covers over my shoulders and patted my head like a small child, “because even though I think you’re an asshole… getting your heart broken sucks. Besides, I have a proposition for you.”

“Okay.” I turned over and lifted the cover. “But make it quick.”

“Yeah, you need to stop flashing me.” She put the blanket back on me. “Drink some water and we’ll talk in the morning.”

“Why talk when we can—”

She placed her hand over my mouth. “I don’t think I like drunk Chase.”

“Me either…” I grumbled.

“Go nighty-night, sleeping beauty. The morning will come soon enough.” Mil left the room and I fell into a peaceful darkness.

Chapter Fifty-four Nixon

“How did it go?” I asked once Trace was back in my room. Her eyes were red from crying. Shit. I didn’t think it would go that badly. I mean… what am I supposed to do with that? Comfort her for loving someone else? Say it’s going to be okay even though my own damn heart was on the verge of breaking?

“Awful. Pretty sure he’s passed out drunk somewhere.” Trace walked past me and sat on the bed.

I opened my mouth to speak but she interrupted me. “If you say it’s going to be okay I’m going to stab you.”

I backed away from her. “I’ll just keep standing over here then and pray you don’t find my knife,” I joked trying to lighten the mood.

“You suck.” Trace refused to look at me. “Both of you suck. I feel like a plaything. Old, dirty, used…” Her breath hitched. “Damn it, Nixon!”

Whoa, when did she go from sad to pissed? I backed up again, and was against the door when she charged toward me, beating my chest with her fists. “Damn you!”

“Trace—”

“I give you everything and you have the audacity to go and ask to be killed! Who are you? Romeo? What the hell is wrong with you!”

“I—”

“No!” She pushed against my chest again. “What if it had been me?”

“Trace.” I shook my head. “That’s hardly the same thing…”

Her hands froze in midair as her face contorted. “But it is, Nixon. How can you not see it? I understand why you did it, but you…” She turned away from me and crossed her arms. “I gave you my heart… What if you would have truly died? Do you think I would have recovered from that? Ever?”

I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. “I knew you had Chase, knew if I pushed you toward him, you’d be fine. Sooner or later you’d forget me, Trace. You would have been fine.”

“Amazing.” Trace shook her head.

My arms tightened around her. “What is?”

“You can outsmart even the nastiest of mafia bosses and yet when it comes to love you have the intelligence of a flea.”

“Ouch.”

Her body slumped against mine. “I feel lost.”

“Let me find you.”

“I feel sick.”