Escort (A Standalone Romance Novel) (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (79 page)

It’s Dane. He’s in the
hallway.

He’s singing.

I throw the door open to
find him standing there with a palm full of loose change, fingering his way
through it.

“What are you doing?” I
ask.

“Leila!” he exclaims. “I’ve
missed you
so
fucking much. I was
just looking for my keys.”

“Come inside,” I tell
him.

He stumbles into the
apartment, bumping his hand on the countertop as he enters, spilling all but a
few coins from his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’m a little drunk.”

“No shit. Where the hell
were you? I was about to go out looking for you.”

“You see,” he says,
grinning and slurring his words, “this is why I love you so much. You care
about people. You’re a good person, Leila.”

“Yeah,” I tell him.
“You’re kind of an asshole. Where were you?”

“Now don’t be mad,” he
slurs.

“I don’t see much chance
of that,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says,
completely misunderstanding what I just told him. “I was with Wriggle—
Wriggsley
—
Wrig
—”

“Wrigley?” I ask. “Why?”

“After the way she was
following me today, I wanted to figure out a way to get her to leave me alone,
‘
cause
I don’t
like
her like that anymore.”

I really don’t see any
version of this story making things better.

“So I called her up,” he
says, “and I told her that I wanted to talk to her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “We
met up for drinks, and I told her that no matter what, she had to stay away,
‘cause
I don’t like the way she’s been following me around.
It’s not fucking cool.”

I’m getting pretty sick
of Drunk Dane, but maybe he actually accomplished something on his way down the
bottle.

“And?”

“And what?” he asks. “Oh!
Right,” he continues. “I told her that I wanted her to leave us alone, but she
said I was the one who called her. I guess that’s true, but she told me that
she was planting seeds and I didn’t want them to grow.”

“What the hell are you
talking about?” I ask.

“I think I—” he hiccups,
and I swear to all that is holy, if he pukes on the floor, I’m going to get
really pissed.

“You think you what?” I
ask.

He laughs. “That’s a
funny sentence.”

“How much did you have to
drink?” I ask him. “It doesn’t look like you two just got together for a casual
drink or two.”

“I’m not sure,” he says,
“but I think it was a lot.”

“I’d say that’s a strong
possibility.”

“You’re mad!” he
whispers. “I thought you said you weren’t going to get mad.”

“That’s not what I said,
you jackass, now did you figure something out or not?”

“She told me that she
wouldn’t follow me around anymore,” he says. “So that’s a good thing. She also
told me to pass along an apology on her behalf. She said the two of you talked
a while ago and she said she came across kind of pretty rude.”

“That’s it?” I ask. “It’s
over? She’s out of the picture?”

“She wasn’t in
my
picture,” he says. “I love you,
Leilal
.”

It’s close enough to a
kind moment that my urge to punch him in the nose slowly fades, but that
doesn’t mean I’m happy.

“But that’s it?” I ask.
“Did she say anything else?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She
told me that it’s not nice to call someone up just to tell them to leave you
alone.” He leans toward me, his hand to the side of his mouth as if there’s
anyone in the apartment for him to keep ignorant of the sloshing sound of his
words. “I didn’t care.”

Well, on the one hand, it
sounds like we might finally be free to actually start our relationship without
having to worry about his old one trying to creep back in. On the other hand, I
don’t think I could possibly be less attracted to him than I am now.

Hopefully, that feeling
passes pretty quickly. Otherwise, this has been a lot of effort for nothing.

“Do you still love me?”
he asks. “I still love you.”

“Why wouldn’t you still
love me?” I ask.

“I
do
still love you,” he says and loses his balance.

He manages to catch
himself before he falls all the way to the ground, but he knocks a stack of
plates off the counter in the process.

“Okay,” I tell him.
“You’re taking a shower and I’m going to bring you some coffee after I get all
this cleaned up.”

“You’re so good to me,”
he says. “You’re fucking amazing.”

“I must be,” I sigh as I
put one of his arms around my shoulders and walk him to the bathroom.

All things considered,
the only thing he really did wrong was got too drunk.

I’ve done that.

I don’t know why I’m so
angry with him, but the feeling’s not going away.

We get into the bathroom
and I stuff him in the shower and tell him to take off his clothes.

“All right,” he says, a
grin working its way up his face. “Hey,” he whispers.

“What?” I ask, leaning
toward him.

“If you jump in the
shower with me, we can pretend it’s a waterfall.”

With that, I’m done
talking to him.

I turn on the shower,
hoping that the jolt of the cold water brings him back to a more tolerable
version of himself, and I walk out of the room.

It’s a miracle that
neither of us got cut on the shards of ceramic plate scattered all over the
kitchen floor.

The dishes were nothing
fancy, but that doesn’t make me any less angry. My only consolation is that it
doesn’t take long to pick up the remnants.

I can hear Dane in the
bathroom.

It’s unclear whether he’s
singing or just talking really loud, but I could do without hearing that voice
for a little while, so I walk over to the television, fully intending to crank
the volume up and drown his voice out entirely.

That’s when I hear what
he’s singing.

I step into the bathroom.

“…Leila, Leila, Leila,
Leila…”

The guy’s a mess, but
damn it, he’s my mess.

He’s drenched and I know
how cold the water is, but he’s just sitting there on the shower floor, arms
open wide, eyes closed, singing my name.

It’s pretty hard to stay
mad at him.

Chapter Twenty

Rough

Dane

If the eyes are the
windows to the soul, then the sunlight creeping through my window is hell.

I don’t think I’ve ever
been that drunk in my life.

My only comfort from this
massive hangover is the soft, warm body lying next to me.

With my eyes as near
closed as I can keep them while still managing to see what I’m doing, I lean
over and kiss Leila on the forehead. She takes a deep breath and continues to
sleep.

I remember meeting with
Wrigley yesterday.

To say that I’m confident
in trusting her to leave us alone would be a lie, but at least she put forward
the lip service.

I get up and stagger my
way into the kitchen. Now would be the perfect time to have one of those coffee
machines that starts brewing at a preset time, but that’s a luxury for a
different morning.

There’s a bottle of
ibuprofen on one of the shelves in the cupboard, but I’m not ready for the
physical effort it’s going to take to reach for it just yet.

For now, I remove the old
filter from the coffee maker and replace it with a new one. I don’t bother
measuring the grounds I put in the filter.

It’s a minute before I
realize that a coffee maker requires water.

I open the cupboard and
grab the ibuprofen.

There’s a stir in my
bedroom, and I have wild and wondrous fantasies of Leila coming out here and
offering to make the coffee while I’m allowed to lie down on the couch, but it
doesn’t happen that way.

As it happens, Leila
comes out of the room, her hair beautifully messy and her eyes hardly more open
than my own.

“Morning,” she says and
plops down on the couch.

The television is on a
moment later, and I’m left with this herculean task to conquer alone.

Somehow, I manage to put
all the ingredients in all the right places and get the pot of coffee going,
but there’s no way I’m going to be able to do much else if I can’t reign this
fucking hangover in a bit.

There’s a bottle of vodka
in the freezer, but I have a feeling Leila’s not going to be particularly
understanding of my situation. The last thing I clearly remember is the icy
shower she dumped me into.

Things must have worked
out all right, though. Last night was the first night she slept in my room.

“Hungry?” I ask her.

“Meh,” she answers. I
know that’s a clear signal one way or another, but I left my decoder ring in my
other pants.

“How about waffles?” I
ask.

It’s the perfect crime: I
get to take a few swigs of vodka to dial back my hangover and Leila’s pacified
and distracted by waffles.

“Meh,” she answers again.

Oh well.

I open the freezer and
grab the vodka bottle before I even dream of touching the waffles.

This is a covert
operation.

If I took the waffles out
first, she’d be bound to suspect that I was up to something when I didn’t
immediately close the freezer.

The vodka is cold enough
that I don’t taste it for a couple of seconds, just long enough for the worst
of it to pass.

I leave the bottle on the
countertop. There’s no reason to put it back before I’m done with the waffles.

“Butter? Syrup?” I ask.

“I’m not that hungry,”
she says.

Myself, I’m fairly
certain that if I were to try and eat something right now, I’d just refund it a
few minutes later.

“Okay.”

The coffee’s done, but I
take another swig of vodka before I bother doing anything with that
information.

“Hair of the dog?” Leila
asks.

I don’t know why I still
try to get away with anything with Leila around.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m
dying over here. This hangover is murder.”

“I would imagine,” she
says inscrutably.

One more swig and the
vodka goes back into the freezer, right along with the unopened box of waffles.

“So,” Leila starts, “do
you remember anything from last night?”

“Yeah,” I tell her.
“After the shower it’s a little fuzzy, but I’m sure with some minor discussion
the rest of it will come back.”

“Well,” she says, turning
around on the couch to face me, “you begged me not to move to New Jersey.”

“That sounds like
something I’d do,” I tell her, pulling two coffee mugs from the cupboard. “That
sounds exactly like something I’d do. I both love you and hate New Jersey.”

“Yeah, that came up
during our discussion,” she says. “Do you remember where the conversation went
from there?”

I’m right in that
in-between area where the alcohol is starting to hit, but the hangover’s still
overpowering it and I want to stick my hand into a running garbage disposal
just to take the focus away from my throbbing head.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“It hasn’t come back to me yet.”

“Do you think it’s going
to, or do you just want me to tell you?”

“Tell me.”

I have both mugs filled
with coffee before she considers responding.

“It seems that you have a
bit of a problem with Mike,” she says.

This can’t be a good turn
of events.

“Really?” I ask. “What
did I say?”

“You said it was kind of
messed up that you’re doing everything to keep your past relationships away
from ours while I’m still hanging around with Mike.”

“I said that?” I ask, not
sure whether to be proud or nervous.

“Yeah,” she says. “At one
point, you called him a douche nozzle. It was a mean sentiment, but I have to
admit it did get me to laugh.”

“Sorry about that.”

“I think we need to
talk,” she says.

I bring her coffee as a
peace offering, but it doesn’t seem to have the magical powers with which I had
so intently tried to imbue it.

“Mike is my best friend,”
she says. “I get that you’ve got a little jealousy going on, but he and I have
known each other for a really long time, and I can’t just stop being friends
with him because you’re feeling threatened.”

“Now it’s coming back to
me,” I say.

“We’re still talking
about it,” Leila rejoins and my devious plan to get out of having this
conversation falls on its face.

“All right,” I tell her.
“Do you understand why I might be a little uncomfortable with that? Of the two
times I’ve met the guy, the first time, I walked in on the two of you making
out, and the second, he ignored my existence while engrossed in looking for a
place for you to live.”

“I get why you’d feel
that way, but it’s not what you think,” she says.

She explains how he was
feeling self-conscious about the way he kisses and that he badgered her into
giving him a capsule review. I just happened to walk in at the wrong time.

The story, despite its
vague familiarity, doesn’t do much to ease my concerns.

“Let’s not fight about
this,” I tell her. “I get that he’s your friend. I’m uncomfortable with it, but
I’ll just have to deal with that for now.”

“Yeah,” she says, “you
will.”

And with that, we’re
about to have our first fight.

“How would you feel if I
told you I wasn’t going to stop hanging out with Wrigley, despite your
feelings?”

I think it’s a pretty
fair point.

Leila disagrees.

“It’s not the same thing
and you know it,” she says. “I never had sex with Mike. That was the first and
only—”

“You’ve never had sex
with him, but I guarantee you have stronger feelings for him than I ever did
for Wrigley.”

“I don’t find that hard
to believe in the slightest,” she retorts. “I’m surprised you have any feelings
at all the way you treat women.”

“The way I treat women?”
I seethe. “In what way have I ever treated you poorly?”

“I’m not talking about
me,” she says, “I’m talking about all the other ones that you drug in here in
the middle of the night, never to return with the same one twice. Do you really
think women appreciate that? How deluded are you?”

“I never brought anyone
home under false pretenses,” I snap. “Everyone involved knew exactly what it
was before it ever happened.”

“Yeah?” she asks. “Well,
what is
this
?”

I take a breath and
steady myself.

There are two options
here. I could go for the quick, sharp response and I have no doubt it would
feel pretty great right about now, but on the same token, that approach would
probably blow up the relationship.

My other option is to try
to calm this whole discussion and tell her that, despite how angry I am right
now, I see my relationship with her as the most promising thing I’ve ever
known.

What I really need to do
is say something, because she’s just staring at me now, forming her own
opinions on how I really feel and the longer I go without saying it, the less
she’s going to believe whatever comes out of my mouth.

I’m still not talking.

“I don’t know,” I tell
her.

“Well, that’s good to
hear,” she says, getting up from the couch and trying to make a break for her
bedroom.

“I love you!” I shout.
“But you’re leaving and it’s not like we’re talking about some far off
possibility, you’re leaving next week. How is that supposed to work? I don’t
even know if I’ll be able to swing this place on my own. I want us to be
together. Even sloshed out of my mind I was begging you to stay. That’s where
I
want this relationship to go. How
about you?”

The bad news is that
she’s crying now. The good news? There is no fucking good news.

“You’re right,” she
bawls. “We should just end it.”

And shit just got real.

“That’s not what I’m
saying,” I tell her. “I want to make this work. More than anything, I want to
make this work.”

“But you’re right,” she
says, “it can’t. I’m taking that job. I have to. It’s what I’ve always wanted
to do. You’re here, doing what you’ve always wanted to do.”

“Leila, don’t do this. We
can’t just give up on everything now. We’ve only been together for a couple of
days and we’ve already fought more for this than most people do in an entire
relationship.”

She pushes past me and
slams the door to her room behind her.

I don’t know what else to
say.

I don’t know that there’s
anything else I
can
say.

I’m starting to wonder if
I just conjured up my feelings for Leila as a way to distance myself further
from Wrigley.

Even though I know it’s
not true, the thought takes its toll and by the next breath, I’m walking back
to the freezer.

*
                   
*
                   
*

Okay, so I’m not drunk,
but I’m sure as fuck not sober either.

I’ve been lying on my
bed, pissed off and torn up for I don’t know how long.

This isn’t how I want to
spend what little time I have left with Leila, but I don’t know if there’s
another option. She’s closing me out.

I get it. Really, I do.

It’s easier to leave if
things aren’t going so well, but that doesn’t mean this has to be the end of
anything.

That’s when it hits me: I
should probably be talking about this with her.

I get up from the bed and
take a moment to find my balance. I may be a little more inebriated than I
thought.

At least I’m nowhere near
as drunk as I was last night.

I set the bottle which,
up until this point, had been welded to my hand, on my dresser and I open the
door to my room.

Guess who’s sitting on
the couch, talking to Leila as she wipes tears from her eyes.

I’ll give you one hint:
it’s not me.

“Hey, Mike,” I say.
“Leila, are you all right?”

“Maybe I should give you
two a few minutes to talk,” Mike says and gets up from the couch.

“Thanks, Mike,” I tell
him. “I appreciate that.”

He nods and walks to the
kitchen. He’s hardly giving us privacy, but now really isn’t the time for me to
say anything about it.

“I know what we’re both
doing,” I tell her. “We’re finding reasons to be mad because we’re afraid of
losing each other.”

“It doesn’t seem like
either one of us have had to look very hard,” she says, wiping her nose on her
shirtsleeve.

I smile at her.

“I guess you’re right,” I
say. “A lot is happening with both of us right now. Maybe this wasn’t the right
time to start a relationship, but I don’t regret that we did.”