Room for You (31 page)

“Did I do anything stupid?”

“Nope, not at all.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “But you’re one hell of a dancer.”

I groaned and dropped my head back onto my hands, harder than I intended to. “Ow. Did you put me in bed?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Did you change me?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Did we…” My eyes darted over to make sure the girls couldn’t hear us.

He laughed. “No. I’m not exactly into necrophilia—you were passed out before the first stoplight. You did say one interesting thing though.”

“What was that?” I asked, without lifting my head to look at him.

“You said you loved me.”

I stopped breathing, as panic filled my chest and made my head pound harder. Slowly, I lifted my head and looked at Brody who was smiling contentedly, blowing on his own mug of coffee.

“I did?”

He nodded slowly, his eyes searching my face.

“Sorry about that.” I cringed.

He pulled his brows together and frowned at me. “Sorry? Why would you apologize?”

“I was drunk, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you love me?”

Oh God, oh God. I wanted to puke and it didn’t have anything to do with my hangover. My head hurt, and now my heart hurt. Looking at Brody’s soulful eyes, knowing he was waiting for an answer I couldn’t give him was hard. Too hard.

I did love him. I loved him so much I sometimes couldn’t breathe around him, but I couldn’t tell him that. I would never let those words leave my mouth; that would make all of this too real. It would give him all the power.

I wanted to get up and leave the room, but Alexa’s voice nagging me to ‘stop running’ kept ringing through my head. Her voice wasn’t the only one in my head. Blaire’s was there too, cackling and warning me that I was nothing but a summer fling. If he was just going to throw me away, there was no way I was going to tell him the truth.

“Kacie.” Brody’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

My eyes traveled around his face … the face of the man I loved, the face I had to lie to in order to protect myself.

I took a deep breath.

“No.”

“You have ten new voice messages. To play these-” I shut off my phone and tossed it, not giving a shit when it tumbled off the bed and hit the floor with a cracking sound. None of those messages were from Kacie and that pissed me off.

Lauren and Tommy’s wedding was two weeks ago, and Kacie and I hadn’t talked since the morning after when she told me she didn’t love me. Hell, I’d barely left my condo in that time. Gym and back. That’s about it. I talked to my mom every few days so that she didn’t call in a missing person’s report, but I still hadn’t told her about Kacie. I didn’t want to say it out loud; it just made me angry.

After she said ‘No,’ we sat at that kitchen table for a long time, not saying a word. She didn’t know what else to say and I only wanted to call her a liar. I’m one of those people who believe when we’re drunk, we say what we really mean. I think that liquid courage helps you get out what you really
do
want to say, when we don’t know how to just
say
it. There’s nothing I could do though, whether she loves me or she doesn’t, I had to take her for her word.

That left me here, wallowing in self-pity, dirty bed sheets and the Classic College Football Network for two weeks, not giving a shit about the world outside of my house. I reached over and opened the canister on my nightstand, pulled out another Slim Jim and shoved it in my mouth before throwing the wrapper on the floor.

Fuck it.

Just then I heard my condo door open. For a fleeting second, my head went somewhere it shouldn’t have gone, but reality set in when Andy called my name.

“In here,” I yelled back.

He appeared in my bedroom doorway with a disgusted look on his face. “Dude, what the fuck?”

“What?” I glared at him defensively.

“I’ve been calling you for a week and haven’t heard back. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing, I’m just chillin’.”

“Chillin’?”

“What do you want, Andy? I have things to do.”

“Oh, what—like call a heart surgeon and schedule your bypass appointment now because of all these?” He walked over and picked up my Slim Jim canister. “I talked to Viper, he told me what happened.”

“It’s not a big deal, whatever.” I waved him off.

“If it’s not a big deal, why are you drowning your sorrows in sodium and reality television?”

“Don’t forget beer,” I joked.

“Listen, why don’t you come over this weekend?” he asked.

“Fuck. That.”

“Let me finish, ass wipe. Blaire and all her obnoxious friends are headed to a weekend getaway in Napa Valley. It’s just me and the kids. I’ll invite Viper and a few of the guys over. We’ll smoke expensive Cuban cigars and drink too much, so plan on crashing at my place.”

“No.”

“Come on, if worst comes to worst, you can go up and play with Logan and Becca.”

“If I say yes, will you leave?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Fine.” I sighed as I rolled over. “Now get out. And leave the Slim Jims!”

Andy laughed as he walked toward my bedroom door. “I’m holding them for ransom.”

I pulled up to Andy’s house and sat in my truck, contemplating turning around and going home. I just wasn’t feeling this. As I had just about talked myself into driving home, Logan appeared on Andy’s porch, waving at me to come in.

Crap.

“What’s up, buddy?” I scooped up Logan as I made my way up the porch.

“I got a new PS3 Lego game, wanna come see?” he asked excitedly.

“You know what? Let me say hi to your dad and I’ll be right there, okay?”

Andy was in the kitchen, taking pizza out of the oven when I walked in. “Hey, glad you made it.”

“Me too, I guess.”

“Have you talked to her?”

I glared at him. “No, and I’m not talking about it tonight.”

“Okay, okay.” He put his hands up in front of him. “I won’t ask anymore.”

“Where should I put this?” I held up the bottle of tequila and rum I’d bought on my way over.

“Uh-oh, tequila? Someone means business tonight, huh?” Andy raised an eyebrow at me and sighed. “Why don’t you put them in the blast chiller down in the basement?”

By the time I came back upstairs, the unmistakable sound of Viper’s bellow sounded throughout the house. “The party can now begin, the king is here!” He went through the kitchen with one arm up in the air, a case of beer tucked under the other.

“The King?” I teased, coming up behind him. “You sure do like yourself, huh, V?”

“I do, I do.” We shook hands and he set his beer on the table.

“Big Mike, how are ya?” I went over and shook the giant paw of one of our defensemen. Andy represented both Viper and Big Mike, so it came as no surprise that they both came over too.

“I’m awesome,” he said with a big, goofy grin on his face. “Guess what? Michelle is pregnant.”

“That’s excellent. Congratulations!” I said as sincerely as I could, though right now I don’t think I could truly be happy for anyone about anything. Selfish, yes, but it was the truth.

Before we even got the night started, there was more commotion at the front door, except this time it was the devil’s voice I heard.

“What are you guys doing back here?” Andy’s mouth hung open, his face frozen in shock at Blaire and her friends standing in the doorway.

“Our flight was canceled because of storms over the Valley, so we’re all gonna have a giant sleepover here. The limo is coming back super early in the morning and we’ll be on the first flight out.” She looked around the room, turning up her nose as she went. “What’s going on here, Andrew?”

If there was one person in this world Blaire hated more than me, it was Viper.

“What does it look like? I had the guys over for dinner and drinks,” Andy responded defensively.

“Hi, Brody.”

A head peeked out from behind Blaire.

Shit, Kendall
.

“Hey, Kendall,” I said dryly, suddenly wishing I were a tiny girl in a blue dress from Kansas and I could just click my heels together and be home. Actually, anywhere other than this kitchen would be just fine with me.

There we stood, Blaire’s group and ours, the East and the West, the Crips and the Bloods, staring each other down to see who was going to head where.

“We’re gonna head to the basement and watch some baseball. You guys do whatever you want.” Andy finally broke the silence.

“Ok, Andrew.” She slid over and kissed him on the cheek, almost making me hurl in the process.

Kendall walked over and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a hug. I leaned down and embraced her back as loosely as I could. She smelled good. Pulling back, she looked up at me from under long, fake lashes, a suggestive little grin playing on her lips. For a moment I wondered if I could lose myself in her, at least for one night. Lord knows I needed a distraction.

“I need to talk to you, but I want us to be alone. Too many people here,” she purred.

“Come on, Murphy,” Viper called as they headed out of the kitchen.

“I’ll catch you later, okay?” I pulled away as Kendall pouted.

“Thanks, bro.” I patted his back as I caught up to the rest of them.

“Dude, she almost had you. The claws were out, she just hadn’t implanted them yet,” he joked.

We migrated downstairs to Andy’s theater room and claimed our couches for the evening while Andy put the Twins/Cubs game on the big screen and passed cigars out to everyone. Before I got too comfortable, I wanted a drink. A strong one.

“I’ll be right back, anyone want anything?”

Viper and Big Mike didn’t turn around, they just held their beers up. Andy shook his head.

I walked across the basement to the bar and grabbed a glass out of the cabinet before heading into their enormous wine room with the blast chiller inside. If I was gonna drink tonight, might as well go big, right? I grabbed the tequila out of the fridge and turned to leave, freezing when I heard Kendall’s voice in the hall. I backed up against the wine rack, not wanting to be seen.

“You didn’t tell me Brody was gonna be here,” she whispered.

“I had no idea, I didn’t even know Andrew was having people over,” Blaire defended herself. “We were supposed to be on a plane right now, remember?”

“He looks sad.”

“Yeah, Andrew said he’s been sulking for a couple weeks.”

“About that girl?”

I caught Blaire’s reflection in the glass. She was leaned up against the wall, her arms folded over her chest.

Shit, they aren’t moving. I’m trapped.

“Kacie.”

Hearing Kacie’s name come out of Blaire’s mouth annoyed me, but I didn’t want to go out there and get stuck talking to Kendall again.

“He liked her that much?” Kendall asked.

“Who the fuck cares?” Blaire laughed.

“Shhh.”

“Oh, they can’t hear us, they’re in the theater room with the door shut. Really though, I could care less who the fuck he likes or how much. That boy needs to be concentrating on hockey and nothing else. I know that makes me a bitch, but so be it. The minute Andrew told me how crazy he was getting about her, I had to do something.” She laughed softly. “She was already so insecure, it wasn’t even hard to chase her off. I knew the minute I said
summer fling
, that was it, the seed was planted. Fucking priceless.”

I couldn’t fucking believe what I was hearing. When did Blaire talk to her again? Oh my God … the charity dinner
.
That’s why Kacie has been so weird with me ever since. Fuck, how could I have been so stupid not to figure this out sooner?

My blood was boiling, but I didn’t move an inch, I had to hear what else was said in that bathroom.

“You were behind her, did you see her face when I walked in?” Kendall giggled. “Classic.”

Holy shit, Kendall was in that bathroom too?

“No, but I wish I could have, I bet she almost shit her pants.” Blaire could hardly talk because she was laughing so hard. “Tough shit. Little Mommy can go find a meal ticket somewhere else. Maybe she’ll scoop up a nice baseball boy this time.”