Frozen Barriers (13 page)

Courtney hands me the bottled water and Emily’s purse and car keys, which Dave must have found in it. Glancing up at Courtney, I ask, “Quite the night out, huh? Are you all right to drive Sue’s car home?”

She nods back at me. “Yeah, I’m good. I only had two drinks ‘cuz I’ve got classes in the morning. Will you call me and let me know how Emily is when you get her home?” I sense the concern in her voice, but that’s how Courtney is. She doesn’t have to know the person more than a couple of minutes before she starts caring about them.

“Yeah, no problem, Court. I’ll see you this weekend at Sunday dinner.” I start to stand and gently drop Emily’s legs to the ground, hoping she’ll stand willingly. No such luck. I pull her up to my side by the waist and give Courtney a kiss on the cheek before starting to make my way out of the lounge. Looking back at the girls, I ask if the tab was settled as Sue nods her head with the bottle of water to her mouth. I’ll just assume that’s a yes. I give Dave a look that says I mean business when I hand him my keys to my truck. “Do not, and I mean do not, mess with my truck.” I trust Dave, but he’s still Dave, and he’ll be fine so long as he has Sue in the truck with him. It’s when he’s alone with his thoughts that I begin to panic.

It is much easier to get Emily to her car once I pick her up outside of the lounge. It would have been too much of a scene had I carried her out in my arms, so I did my best to get her legs to move with me. Hitting the
Alert
button on her key fob, I find her car easily. As I lower her into the passenger seat, she starts to stir just slightly. Her big blue eyes peer up at me, “Jeremy?”

Pushing some stray hair away from her face, I lean down toward her. “Hey, Em. How are you feeling?” She leans over the edge of the car and throws up all over the ground.

At the same time, Dave walks over and sees the situation unfolding before walking away, holding up his hands and saying, “Call me if you need me to come pick up your ass. I’m out of here.” Big help he is.

Grabbing the water from my back pocket, I kneel down to Emily’s level and unscrew the bottle cap, handing it to her. “Em, you need to drink some of this. Are you okay for a while, so I can try to drive you home?”

Nodding, she looks up at me with soft eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. You remember where I live, right?”

“Same house in Andover, right?” I ask as if I didn’t already know.

“Yeah, just when you get there, pull into the garage on the far right of the driveway. My place is over the garage,” she says as she starts to pass out again. Clicking her into the seatbelt, I shut the door and walk around to the driver’s side and hop in. After adjusting the seat and turning on the car, I pull out of the parking lot. Her iPod begins playing, and the song that comes on surprises me a bit, considering these are songs she chose herself. Another version of “House of the Rising Sun” fills the car. I would have taken her for more of a current pop or show tune chick, but never classic rock.

I glance down at the iPod screen to see the song is from the
Sons of Anarchy
soundtrack.
Oh, please, don’t tell me she’s a Charlie Hunnam fan and only watches that show for a sighting of his naked ass.
Scrolling through her menus of music, I see she has all the
Sons of Anarchy
seasons’ soundtracks and more hard and classic rock, very little pop, and only one Broadway musical called
Once
. Not a bad selection, chickie. She never ceases to surprise me.

Pulling up on her street, I turn down the radio and try to wake her just to make sure I brought her to the right place. “Em, hey, we’re home,” I softly say as her eyes open slowly. “Hmm?” she questions.

“We’re at your house. Can you tell me where you want me to park the car?” I whisper into her ear as she leans against the car door.

“The large garage over there. Just hit the button above the visor, and the door will open to pull in.”

Pulling down the driveway, I spot the garage and drive up slowly and hit the button. As the door finally slides all the way up, I pull in and kill the engine. Glancing over, I see Emily’s eyes have shut again. I quietly get out of the car and go around to get her out. She’s basically dead to the world. I grab all her belongings and pull her up in my arms, shutting the car door behind me. Looking around, I notice a stairwell at the back of the garage and head up, assuming that must be where she lives. Once at the top of the stairs, I set her feet down and pull her key chain out of my pocket. There are only a few keys, and on the second one, I manage to unlock and open the door.

As I feel around the inside wall for a light switch, I find one and flick it on. I pick up Emily and set her on one of the round kitchen table chairs before turning toward her cabinets and looking for a glass to get her some water. Locating them almost immediately, I fill the glass and place it onto the table in front of her. Her head rests on her arm as she keeps slipping in and out on me.

“Emily, can you try drinking some more water, please?” Her eyes open to meet mine as she grabs the glass and slowly takes small sips. Suddenly, her hand flies up to her mouth, and I watch her gag. “Em, are you okay?” Running for what I can only assume is the bathroom, she disappears and I immediately hear her throwing up in the toilet. I walk in her direction and stand in the doorway, not sure if she wants me to help or not. I grab a washcloth from the towel rack and run it under cold water. Once I’m near her, I run the cold towel over her neck and rub her back. Once she’s done expelling all the liquor it appears she consumed tonight, she stands and makes her way to the sink. Grabbing the mouthwash, she swishes it around her mouth before spitting it out into the sink. She turns around to face me, and her eyes meet mine. “You feeling better, Em? Can I help you or get you anything?”

She doesn’t respond, not even a word, as I continue to stare at her, looking for any kind of answer. What happens next is probably the last thing I would have expected from her. Tears well in her eyes as her entire face bunches up, and she lets go of all her emotions. Shit.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s with the tears? Why are you crying?” I ask as my thumbs run under her eyes to wipe away the tears.

In between sobs, she says, “I ruined the whole night. I was so nervous about hanging out with Sue and Courtney. Then, I went and ruined her birthday, and you had to come to help me. I’m so embarrassed and sorry. I ruined your night, too. Didn’t I?”

“Hey, listen. You probably won’t remember this conversation in the morning, but I can certainly tell you that you didn’t ruin my night or the girls’ night either. I’m happy to help you. If you ever need help, you can call me anytime. I’d rather know you’re safe than not.” More tears start falling, and she reaches out to hug me. I circle my arms around her and rub her back, trying to soothe her. I start to make my way out to the living room, but she grabs my hand, stopping me. “Jeremy, please don’t leave.”

“I’m just going to the kitchen to grab some water for you, and I’ve got to check on everyone else.” She follows me into the kitchen and grabs the water from the table, taking small sips again. I grab my phone and send Dave and Court a text.

Emily isn’t doing well. Not leaving her alone. I’ll call you in the morning. Everyone else get home ok?

Ding.
Damn, that was fast. I see from the icon that it’s from Dave.

Everyone is home. Sue is still with me, but don’t get pissed. She’s sleeping on your sofa. Be careful with Emily. TTYL

Why do I not want to know exactly why Sue is on my sofa? Dave can be quite the playboy sometimes, but I don’t think he would cross that line with her, or maybe he would. I’ll address that later. Right now, I’ve more pressing matters, like the girl across the room from me who just asked me to stay with her. Her eyes are glued to me right now, and I know I need to tread lightly.

“Okay, Em. Let’s get you to bed, so you can sleep this off.”

She stands and walks backward toward her four-poster bed while giving me a seductive eye.
I will not take advantage of her; she’s drunk, and she’ll never remember a minute of this.
I need to keep telling myself that. Before I can repeat it, she slowly removes her top, revealing a lace bra and then kicks off her heels.

“Em, what are you doing?” As she finally bumps into the bed, she makes a move to remove her bra, and that’s when I move swiftly across the room and engulf her with my arms. “Not like this, Em. You will regret doing anything right now when I know you won’t remember this in the morning. You’re so much more than that to me. Okay? But, trust me when I say, it is taking a lot of effort to keep my hands off of you right now.”

Reaching up, she wraps her arms around my neck and brings her lips up to within an inch of my face. She looks into my eyes and slowly places her lips unto mine and then pulls away. “Thank you,” she says.

I hold her close to me and look her in the eyes. “I told you before, and I’ll tell you again, Emily, you’re totally worth fighting for.” Reaching behind her, I pull her fluffy comforter back, lift her up and tuck her back in. “I’ll be sleeping on the sofa if you need me at all.” She nods and yawns as I reach over to grab one of her extra pillows and the throw blanket from the bottom of the bed. Before I even make it to the sofa, she’s already asleep.

I strip off my T-shirt and unbuckle my belt, kicking off my sneakers by the heels and tossing my jeans onto the other chair before curling up on the sofa. Before I slip off to sleep, the last things I think of are how on Earth am I sleeping in Emily’s house and please don’t let her mom catch me in here, because I’m quite fond of my balls, and I’d like to keep them attached to my body.

As the sun screams its ugly head into my room, my head feels as though a jackhammer is going off in it. Holy shit. How much did I drink last night? Rolling over to face away from the demon light, I see my heels kicked off randomly onto the floor and my shirt thrown next to them. What. The. Hell? Pulling up the sheet, I notice I’m wearing only my bra, and my jeans are still safely attached to my legs. How did I get home last night? Why can’t I remember anything after seeing Jeremy at Eavesdrop? Oh. My. God. Please don’t tell me last night really happened. I hear movement from my bathroom. No. No. No! Now I feel as though I’m going to vomit, and there’s only one place for me to go running. Aww, shit!

Throwing back the blankets and rushing toward the door, I have no idea who or what’s on the other side, and right now, I don’t even care that I see guys’ clothes thrown over my sofa. As I open the bathroom door with one hand and cover my mouth with the other, the last person I think about seeing is Jeremy. He’s standing there dripping wet from a shower and completely naked. My eyes shoot from the floor up to his face as he senses me coming in and removes the towel from drying his hair. I zone my eyes away from his penis and six pack abs. I rush for the toilet to expel the remaining demons in my stomach. As I continue to dry heave, I see Jeremy swiftly wrap the towel around his waist and rush to my side.

Chuckling a bit, he says, “It’s not every day a girl sees me naked and throws up afterwards. Way to make a guy feel good about himself.”

I glance up at him to see he’s smiling and still rubbing my back. “Can you get me some water from the fridge, please?” Shaking his head, he stands and walks out of the bathroom. While he’s gone, I can’t help but picture him as I just saw him standing there dripping wet with it all hanging out. I’m no prude. I’ve seen my fair share of photos from various book blog sites on Facebook and videos, but to see it all for real the first time, I’m in shock.

Jeremy comes back into the bathroom with a bottled water and hands it to me as I sit up and lean my back against the wall. It’s at that moment I realize I’m still in my lace bra, and he can basically see everything. I make to cover myself with my free arm, and he crouches down to my eye level.

As if sensing my nervousness, he says, “We didn’t do anything last night, in case you were worrying about that. I’m going to get dressed and then make some toast for you. And, we’ll talk, okay?” I nod back at him, and he smiles and walks back into the other room. I finish my water, throw on my pajamas that I had hanging on my bathroom door before brushing my teeth and fixing my hair. I don’t look good, but it’s better than nothing.