The Life Wish, page 26
“It’s nice.” He pulled my set of keys from his pocket after he turned off his truck. “Did you have a job? I mean—” Closing his eyes briefly, he winced and then glanced at me. “Do you have a job here in Westport?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s not much, though. I work at the printing store a couple of blocks away, making copies for people. But scholarships, grants, and the captain support me more than anything.”
Foster nodded, then heaved out a breath before opening his door and climbing from the truck. I popped out next to him just as he lifted the key fob in his hand and pressed the unlock button. When my Mazda honked back in greeting, I cocked my head curiously.
“What’re you doing?”
“Moving it,” he answered. “Just to a different parking spot so no one thinks it’s abandoned and tries to have it towed or anything.”
“Oh.” I nodded in appreciation. “Thanks.”
Foster merely bobbed his head in acknowledgment, and I started to wring my hands, not liking this silent thing he had going on. I had definitely asked too much of him, hadn’t I?
I glanced around for Kinsey’s car too, but it was gone. The captain must’ve taken care of it already.
Damn.
Refusing to think about that, I popped into the passenger seat of my car to sit next to Foster as he moved it.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he parked on the other side of his truck. Killing the engine, he glanced over at me, and I flailed my hand aimlessly. “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me. I’m sorry you’re the only person who can do anything for me. And I—I’m sorry you only got to know me long enough to lose me again.”
Wincing through a swallow, Foster held out his hand, palm up, offering for me to hold it. When I did, taking his fingers and squeezing them tight, he exhaled heavily.
“Don’t ever be sorry for that,” he told me. “I’m a better person for having gotten to know you. And I’m—I’m the one who’s sorry for not meeting you sooner.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for either,” I assured.
He dropped his gaze to our hands and watched me run my fingers over his for a few seconds before admitting, “I’m still disappointed the kiss thing didn’t work.”
I blurted out a laugh, only to tip my face up primly and answer, “Well, maybe you’re just not my one true love.”
His gaze cut to mine, and this sensation pierced through me so strongly that it almost felt as if I’d been electrocuted. But those blue eyes looked into me, and I knew…
If this man wasn’t my true love, then I didn’t have one.
“You tethered yourself to me,” he argued in a way that claimed ownership.
And I had to blink in surprise because I kind of relished this possessive side of him.
“That’s gotta mean something,” he insisted.
My lips moved and words tried to come, but it took me a moment before I was able to stutter, “S-so do you actually want us to be true loves?”
“I…” He blinked back as if startled to realize that he sort of had implied that. “I’m saying I want to be able to meet the real you.”
I shook my head, confused. “You don’t think this is the real me?”
Foster shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t have any physical limitations or social restrictions holding you back while you’re in this state. In person, you might be…different.”
Needing to understand what he was actually trying to say, I shook my head. “So… Do you want me to be different? Do you not like how I am now?”
“No, I love you this way,” he answered immediately. “I love your heart, your attitude, your sense of humor.” Hissing out a breath, he sent me an apologetic glance. “It’s probably just me being paranoid, but I guess I—I’m scared you won’t be so accepting of me. I’m just afraid it’ll be…different.”
“Different, how?” I pressed.
He only shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sure I’m just freaking out over something that may never happen. I just—I don’t want to lose this you.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest when he sent me a worried look as if afraid I would reject him right then and there. But all I could say was, “You’re not going to lose me.”
“Promise?” he begged.
“I pinky swear,” I told him before hooking my pinky around his and tightening my grip.
He grinned and kept looking into my eyes. “Good,” he murmured softly.
I nodded back. When an overwhelming pleasure filled me, I laughed, embracing it fully.
Foster just made me…happy.
Still smiling, I leaned over and smacked a quick happy kiss to his cheek before teasing, “Just make sure you get to my hospital room before your friend, Parker, does, if you actually want to ask me out.”
And laughing, I popped out of my car to land on the sidewalk in front of it.
Foster pointed at me in warning through the windshield, then opened his door, calling, “Don’t you dare say yes to him. Raina…”
As he climbed from the Mazda, I smirked and turned away to start toward the building.
“Raina,” he said again, hurrying after me, only to realize some guy was exiting the building and had heard him saying my name.
Foster cleared his throat and faltered a step before tipping up his face in greeting as the other guy sent him a leery look. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”
“That’s my neighbor, Linden,” I explained.
“Have a good day, Linden,” Foster said, and when Linden squinted in surprise, Foster saluted him.
Then Foster turned away and walked off, leaving poor Linden scratching his head in confusion.
“I think he gave my sister a joint the last night she was here. Which reminds me… I bet the butt is still lying on my balcony right now. Do you think you could pick it up and throw it away when we get up there? I really don’t want the captain to think it’s mine.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Foster assured as he slowed to a stop and glanced at the three different outdoor stairwells connected to the front of the building. “Which way?”
“Over here,” I pointed, leading the way to the middle one. “I’m on the second floor in 2G.”
“2G,” he repeated with a thumbs-up. “Got it.”
I led him up the stairs and straight to my door, where he held up one of my keys. “This one?”
“Yep.”
He slotted the key into the lock, and it turned with ease. But the moment he started to pull the door open, I held up a hand. “Wait.”
Foster glanced at me with lifted eyebrows.
I cringed. “Please don’t judge, but I’m not exactly neat.”
His features softened into a smile. “You’ve been bunking with me for the past two weeks. You’re fully aware that I can be messy too.”
“Yeah, but—” Whimpering as he pressed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, I fisted my hand into a ball and pressed it to my mouth.
Foster paused in the doorway. “Oh, wow.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I’m a freaking slob.”
But he only shrugged and stepped the rest of the way inside, shutting the door behind him. “It’s mostly just clothes,” he said as he walked through the front room. “Which makes sense with the way you can never decide what to wear.”
“Hey,” I cried in outrage.
Foster only grinned over his shoulder at me. “What? You change outfits, like, a dozen times a day.”
“Only because I can,” I argued. “And because I hate making fashion decisions.”
Picking up the first pile I had draped over a side chair, he answered, “Clearly.”
I narrowed my eyes but then followed him as he gathered all the clothing in my front room like some kind of mother hen and started to carry them into the bedroom.
“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this for me,” I said, biting my lip and feeling guilty all over again for asking so much of him. “I owe you so big for this.”
Winking at me, he answered, “I’ll take an hour-long back scratch in payment if you don’t mind.”
“Done,” I swore.
And he grinned. “Sweet.”
From there, he carried on, spending the rest of the evening cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, throwing out expired food, washing my laundry, folding it, putting it away, and taking out the trash. He watered my plant that thankfully wasn’t looking too shabby yet, probably because I had the nearly-impossible-to-kill kind. He even packed Kinsey’s things back into her bags and piled them neatly in a chair in the front room.
I cried as I watched that part.
On my bed, he found my Sol de Janeiro, Number 62 in the sheets as he straightened the covers, and he had to spritz it into the air, asking, “Is this what you smell like?”
“Usually, yes,” I answered as my eyes filled with tears all over again. “It’s my favorite scent.”
“Sorry,” he said when he saw my face. “I didn’t mean to—”
He started to set it on my dresser, but I waved my hand, saying, “No. It’s not that. I was just remembering that last night. I sprayed Kinsey down right before we left for Oaklynn’s party, trying to mask the scent of marijuana on her. It was probably still on her when she died.”
Sitting on the end of the bed, I hugged myself and shook my head. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Nothing’s going to be the same without her when I wake up.”
If I woke up.
Foster sat quietly next to me. “After Hayes died,” he said. “It was so hard for me to understand how each new day just kept coming. The sun would rise in the morning and set every night as if it was all business as usual. As if I hadn’t just lost one of the most important people in my life. I just—I didn’t get it.”
“You were forced to keep going without him,” I realized, glancing over sadly.
He lifted one shoulder. “You kind of have to. It feels all wrong, and yet there you go, waking up with the sun each day and growing another number older each year. But I think…”
Glancing down at his hands, he paused, so I leaned over to bump my shoulder into his. “You think what?”
When he looked up at me, he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he answered timidly. “I just think maybe, hopefully, he’d be happy to see what I became.”
“He is,” I assured. “Every night that he visits me, he brags so much about how good at football you are and how good you are with people, how well you help with your family, how loyal and dependable and caring you are. He loves seeing what you’ve done with your life.”
Foster nodded slowly and then sent me a soft smile. “I bet your sister would like seeing you move on too.”
“Oh, I know she would,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “She’s made a list already of things she wants me to try as soon as I wake up.”
“Really? What’s on it?”
“Well, there’s you, for one.”
“Me?” He pressed a hand to his chest and then grinned. “She wants you to try me?”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Stop looking so shocked. Of course, she does. Then she wants me to skydive and climb a mountain and visit all these places. Mostly it’s extreme sports stuff that I have no interest in whatsoever.”
“Your sister sounds like quite the adventurer.”
“Oh, she was. She was something else.” Spotting the bottle of cinnamon schnapps that we’d drunk together the night she died, I sighed. “I wish I could drink that in honor of her. Right now.”
Foster glanced over, and when I motioned to the bottle, he studied it a moment before pulling his phone from his pocket and sending off a text.
Tipping my head in confusion, I asked, “What’re you doing?”
“Texting my mom,” he answered, slipping the phone away again. “Just to let her know I’m not going to come home tonight.”
“What? Why not?” I stood when he did, and I followed him in confusion as he crossed the room to my dresser. “Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere,” he answered as he lifted the bottle. “I’m going to stay here and drink for you—in honor of Kinsey—since you can’t.”
26
FOSTER
“But you don’t drink,” Raina argued with me as I picked up the liqueur. “Foster…”
I sent her a funny look as I twisted off the cap. “What makes you think I don’t drink?”
“Because I’ve spent the last two weeks stuck to your side through every hour of the day, and you haven’t imbibed once. Not even last weekend when you were hanging out at Archer House, and everyone else there was drinking.”
“I only drink in safe, controlled environments, and I still had to drive home that night,” I answered before I took a slug straight from the bottle, only to wince and gasp as I pulled it away. “Holy shit. That’s like drinking straight syrup, isn’t it? Bleh.”
I smacked my burning lips as cinnamon fire spread through my belly.
Raina was still stuck on what I’d said, though. “A safe, controlled environment,” she repeated, shaking her head. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that everyone present has to be settled in at that location for the rest of the night with no apparent dangers around for anyone to get hurt.” With a shrug, I lifted the bottle to my lips again. “I’m a worrier, okay?”
The next swallow wasn’t so awful.
No, scratch that. It was just as bad as the first.
With a grimace, I glanced at Raina. “I can’t believe you drink this shit.”
“It’s not that bad,” she argued with a scowl. “And besides, Kinsey brought it.”
“Ah. Kinsey,” I answered. “That makes more sense.”
“What does that mean?”
I shook my head. “No idea.” And I took another gulp. “Just that she’s not you.”
“Seriously,” she warned. “You don’t have to chug it like that. Are you trying to get drunk?”
“I’m hoping it won’t taste so awful if I am drunk,” I argued as I began to wander around her apartment.
The place was small, but now that it was clean it was pretty charming.
I could actually see myself living here with Raina.
Our own little love nest.
Spinning toward her, I suddenly realized I hadn’t asked if I could stay over the night. “You don’t mind if I sleep in your bed, do you?”
She blinked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “I mean, I’ve been sleeping in yours; it’s only fair.”
“Good.” I strolled my way back into her bedroom and plopped down on the mattress. “I like your bed. It smells like...”
Falling back onto the mattress, I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent, and Raina dryly answered, “It smells like me.”
I smiled. “Yeah…”
It was nice to finally get to smell her. I rolled to bury my nose in the covers.
A second later, she gasped in surprise. “Oh my God. Are you drunk already?”
I laughed and rolled back onto my spine to face her. “I am a lightweight,” I warned. “But not quite that much of one.” Kicking off my shoes, I got comfortable on her bed.
Watching her, I took another drink, only to hiss, “Okay, maybe I am that much of one.” But my head was seriously beginning to feel buzzy. “Damn, how long has it been since I last drank anything?”
As Raina slumped down next to me on the mattress, I took another drink and studied her, remembering exactly how long it had been since I’d last had sex.
Longing rippled through me as I ran my gaze over her legs that she’d tucked in a crisscross fashion under her as she settled beside me.
My fingers wanted to reach out and smooth their way up her thigh so badly that I swear they started to cramp.
I swallowed and balled one hand into a fist as I used the other to lift the bottle back to my lips.
When I lowered the alcohol to my side, Raina reached out and started to play with my hair.
With a groan, I closed my eyes and grumbled, “Not fair. I can’t touch you back.”
“Just lift your hand,” she encouraged. “I’ll take your wrist and touch myself with your fingers. Wherever you want.”
Opening my lashes, I looked into her eyes and swallowed. “Now there’s a dangerous game.”
“And there’s no nurse here to catch us this time.” Raina eased closer, her gaze practically daring me to say what I really wanted. “Just name the place, darlin’.”
I shuddered and took another drink.
Raina eased back as if I’d just rejected her, and I bit down on the back of my teeth in regret, wishing I could explain how hard this was for me, wishing I could somehow show her all my insecurities and concerns without her thinking I was weak and lacking.
I wished I knew how to be better at this.
Tearing my gaze from hers, I glanced around the room, feeling stupid until I noticed the pair of horseshoes she had tacked over her doorway that led out onto the balcony.
After taking another drink, I motioned toward them. “Why do you have two horseshoes above your doorway?”
Raina glanced over and sighed. “Because I heard two superstitions about them. If you hang one with the prongs pointing down, the good luck is able to pour out and surround that home, protecting it from evil, and if you hang it with the ends up, it will catch all the good luck. I wasn’t sure which was right, so I just put up two to hedge my bets.”
I glanced at her, and my vision blurred, telling me I was fully feeling the effects of the alcohol now. “So you’re superstitious?”
She shrugged. “Not really, but this was horseshoe country, and everyone hangs them in Westport, what with the Stallions being our school mascot and everything. So I thought...” She shrugged again, leaving the sentence unfinished.
I laughed. “Might as well go all out if you were going to go all in, huh?”
Raina nodded and then sighed. “If it actually works, I can’t tell if it’s served me with good luck or bad. I mean, I lost my sister, I’m in a coma, and my soul is currently severed from my body. Then again, I was the only survivor of that accident—so far, anyway—and I get to spend every day with you.”
“Sounds like you got a little of both since you hung them both ways,” I mused, glancing up at the two horseshoes.
I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s not much, though. I work at the printing store a couple of blocks away, making copies for people. But scholarships, grants, and the captain support me more than anything.”
Foster nodded, then heaved out a breath before opening his door and climbing from the truck. I popped out next to him just as he lifted the key fob in his hand and pressed the unlock button. When my Mazda honked back in greeting, I cocked my head curiously.
“What’re you doing?”
“Moving it,” he answered. “Just to a different parking spot so no one thinks it’s abandoned and tries to have it towed or anything.”
“Oh.” I nodded in appreciation. “Thanks.”
Foster merely bobbed his head in acknowledgment, and I started to wring my hands, not liking this silent thing he had going on. I had definitely asked too much of him, hadn’t I?
I glanced around for Kinsey’s car too, but it was gone. The captain must’ve taken care of it already.
Damn.
Refusing to think about that, I popped into the passenger seat of my car to sit next to Foster as he moved it.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he parked on the other side of his truck. Killing the engine, he glanced over at me, and I flailed my hand aimlessly. “I’m sorry you’re stuck with me. I’m sorry you’re the only person who can do anything for me. And I—I’m sorry you only got to know me long enough to lose me again.”
Wincing through a swallow, Foster held out his hand, palm up, offering for me to hold it. When I did, taking his fingers and squeezing them tight, he exhaled heavily.
“Don’t ever be sorry for that,” he told me. “I’m a better person for having gotten to know you. And I’m—I’m the one who’s sorry for not meeting you sooner.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for either,” I assured.
He dropped his gaze to our hands and watched me run my fingers over his for a few seconds before admitting, “I’m still disappointed the kiss thing didn’t work.”
I blurted out a laugh, only to tip my face up primly and answer, “Well, maybe you’re just not my one true love.”
His gaze cut to mine, and this sensation pierced through me so strongly that it almost felt as if I’d been electrocuted. But those blue eyes looked into me, and I knew…
If this man wasn’t my true love, then I didn’t have one.
“You tethered yourself to me,” he argued in a way that claimed ownership.
And I had to blink in surprise because I kind of relished this possessive side of him.
“That’s gotta mean something,” he insisted.
My lips moved and words tried to come, but it took me a moment before I was able to stutter, “S-so do you actually want us to be true loves?”
“I…” He blinked back as if startled to realize that he sort of had implied that. “I’m saying I want to be able to meet the real you.”
I shook my head, confused. “You don’t think this is the real me?”
Foster shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t have any physical limitations or social restrictions holding you back while you’re in this state. In person, you might be…different.”
Needing to understand what he was actually trying to say, I shook my head. “So… Do you want me to be different? Do you not like how I am now?”
“No, I love you this way,” he answered immediately. “I love your heart, your attitude, your sense of humor.” Hissing out a breath, he sent me an apologetic glance. “It’s probably just me being paranoid, but I guess I—I’m scared you won’t be so accepting of me. I’m just afraid it’ll be…different.”
“Different, how?” I pressed.
He only shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sure I’m just freaking out over something that may never happen. I just—I don’t want to lose this you.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest when he sent me a worried look as if afraid I would reject him right then and there. But all I could say was, “You’re not going to lose me.”
“Promise?” he begged.
“I pinky swear,” I told him before hooking my pinky around his and tightening my grip.
He grinned and kept looking into my eyes. “Good,” he murmured softly.
I nodded back. When an overwhelming pleasure filled me, I laughed, embracing it fully.
Foster just made me…happy.
Still smiling, I leaned over and smacked a quick happy kiss to his cheek before teasing, “Just make sure you get to my hospital room before your friend, Parker, does, if you actually want to ask me out.”
And laughing, I popped out of my car to land on the sidewalk in front of it.
Foster pointed at me in warning through the windshield, then opened his door, calling, “Don’t you dare say yes to him. Raina…”
As he climbed from the Mazda, I smirked and turned away to start toward the building.
“Raina,” he said again, hurrying after me, only to realize some guy was exiting the building and had heard him saying my name.
Foster cleared his throat and faltered a step before tipping up his face in greeting as the other guy sent him a leery look. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”
“That’s my neighbor, Linden,” I explained.
“Have a good day, Linden,” Foster said, and when Linden squinted in surprise, Foster saluted him.
Then Foster turned away and walked off, leaving poor Linden scratching his head in confusion.
“I think he gave my sister a joint the last night she was here. Which reminds me… I bet the butt is still lying on my balcony right now. Do you think you could pick it up and throw it away when we get up there? I really don’t want the captain to think it’s mine.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Foster assured as he slowed to a stop and glanced at the three different outdoor stairwells connected to the front of the building. “Which way?”
“Over here,” I pointed, leading the way to the middle one. “I’m on the second floor in 2G.”
“2G,” he repeated with a thumbs-up. “Got it.”
I led him up the stairs and straight to my door, where he held up one of my keys. “This one?”
“Yep.”
He slotted the key into the lock, and it turned with ease. But the moment he started to pull the door open, I held up a hand. “Wait.”
Foster glanced at me with lifted eyebrows.
I cringed. “Please don’t judge, but I’m not exactly neat.”
His features softened into a smile. “You’ve been bunking with me for the past two weeks. You’re fully aware that I can be messy too.”
“Yeah, but—” Whimpering as he pressed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, I fisted my hand into a ball and pressed it to my mouth.
Foster paused in the doorway. “Oh, wow.”
“I know,” I groaned. “I’m a freaking slob.”
But he only shrugged and stepped the rest of the way inside, shutting the door behind him. “It’s mostly just clothes,” he said as he walked through the front room. “Which makes sense with the way you can never decide what to wear.”
“Hey,” I cried in outrage.
Foster only grinned over his shoulder at me. “What? You change outfits, like, a dozen times a day.”
“Only because I can,” I argued. “And because I hate making fashion decisions.”
Picking up the first pile I had draped over a side chair, he answered, “Clearly.”
I narrowed my eyes but then followed him as he gathered all the clothing in my front room like some kind of mother hen and started to carry them into the bedroom.
“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this for me,” I said, biting my lip and feeling guilty all over again for asking so much of him. “I owe you so big for this.”
Winking at me, he answered, “I’ll take an hour-long back scratch in payment if you don’t mind.”
“Done,” I swore.
And he grinned. “Sweet.”
From there, he carried on, spending the rest of the evening cleaning my apartment from top to bottom, throwing out expired food, washing my laundry, folding it, putting it away, and taking out the trash. He watered my plant that thankfully wasn’t looking too shabby yet, probably because I had the nearly-impossible-to-kill kind. He even packed Kinsey’s things back into her bags and piled them neatly in a chair in the front room.
I cried as I watched that part.
On my bed, he found my Sol de Janeiro, Number 62 in the sheets as he straightened the covers, and he had to spritz it into the air, asking, “Is this what you smell like?”
“Usually, yes,” I answered as my eyes filled with tears all over again. “It’s my favorite scent.”
“Sorry,” he said when he saw my face. “I didn’t mean to—”
He started to set it on my dresser, but I waved my hand, saying, “No. It’s not that. I was just remembering that last night. I sprayed Kinsey down right before we left for Oaklynn’s party, trying to mask the scent of marijuana on her. It was probably still on her when she died.”
Sitting on the end of the bed, I hugged myself and shook my head. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Nothing’s going to be the same without her when I wake up.”
If I woke up.
Foster sat quietly next to me. “After Hayes died,” he said. “It was so hard for me to understand how each new day just kept coming. The sun would rise in the morning and set every night as if it was all business as usual. As if I hadn’t just lost one of the most important people in my life. I just—I didn’t get it.”
“You were forced to keep going without him,” I realized, glancing over sadly.
He lifted one shoulder. “You kind of have to. It feels all wrong, and yet there you go, waking up with the sun each day and growing another number older each year. But I think…”
Glancing down at his hands, he paused, so I leaned over to bump my shoulder into his. “You think what?”
When he looked up at me, he shrugged. “I don’t know,” he answered timidly. “I just think maybe, hopefully, he’d be happy to see what I became.”
“He is,” I assured. “Every night that he visits me, he brags so much about how good at football you are and how good you are with people, how well you help with your family, how loyal and dependable and caring you are. He loves seeing what you’ve done with your life.”
Foster nodded slowly and then sent me a soft smile. “I bet your sister would like seeing you move on too.”
“Oh, I know she would,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “She’s made a list already of things she wants me to try as soon as I wake up.”
“Really? What’s on it?”
“Well, there’s you, for one.”
“Me?” He pressed a hand to his chest and then grinned. “She wants you to try me?”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Stop looking so shocked. Of course, she does. Then she wants me to skydive and climb a mountain and visit all these places. Mostly it’s extreme sports stuff that I have no interest in whatsoever.”
“Your sister sounds like quite the adventurer.”
“Oh, she was. She was something else.” Spotting the bottle of cinnamon schnapps that we’d drunk together the night she died, I sighed. “I wish I could drink that in honor of her. Right now.”
Foster glanced over, and when I motioned to the bottle, he studied it a moment before pulling his phone from his pocket and sending off a text.
Tipping my head in confusion, I asked, “What’re you doing?”
“Texting my mom,” he answered, slipping the phone away again. “Just to let her know I’m not going to come home tonight.”
“What? Why not?” I stood when he did, and I followed him in confusion as he crossed the room to my dresser. “Where’re you going?”
“Nowhere,” he answered as he lifted the bottle. “I’m going to stay here and drink for you—in honor of Kinsey—since you can’t.”
26
FOSTER
“But you don’t drink,” Raina argued with me as I picked up the liqueur. “Foster…”
I sent her a funny look as I twisted off the cap. “What makes you think I don’t drink?”
“Because I’ve spent the last two weeks stuck to your side through every hour of the day, and you haven’t imbibed once. Not even last weekend when you were hanging out at Archer House, and everyone else there was drinking.”
“I only drink in safe, controlled environments, and I still had to drive home that night,” I answered before I took a slug straight from the bottle, only to wince and gasp as I pulled it away. “Holy shit. That’s like drinking straight syrup, isn’t it? Bleh.”
I smacked my burning lips as cinnamon fire spread through my belly.
Raina was still stuck on what I’d said, though. “A safe, controlled environment,” she repeated, shaking her head. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that everyone present has to be settled in at that location for the rest of the night with no apparent dangers around for anyone to get hurt.” With a shrug, I lifted the bottle to my lips again. “I’m a worrier, okay?”
The next swallow wasn’t so awful.
No, scratch that. It was just as bad as the first.
With a grimace, I glanced at Raina. “I can’t believe you drink this shit.”
“It’s not that bad,” she argued with a scowl. “And besides, Kinsey brought it.”
“Ah. Kinsey,” I answered. “That makes more sense.”
“What does that mean?”
I shook my head. “No idea.” And I took another gulp. “Just that she’s not you.”
“Seriously,” she warned. “You don’t have to chug it like that. Are you trying to get drunk?”
“I’m hoping it won’t taste so awful if I am drunk,” I argued as I began to wander around her apartment.
The place was small, but now that it was clean it was pretty charming.
I could actually see myself living here with Raina.
Our own little love nest.
Spinning toward her, I suddenly realized I hadn’t asked if I could stay over the night. “You don’t mind if I sleep in your bed, do you?”
She blinked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “I mean, I’ve been sleeping in yours; it’s only fair.”
“Good.” I strolled my way back into her bedroom and plopped down on the mattress. “I like your bed. It smells like...”
Falling back onto the mattress, I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the scent, and Raina dryly answered, “It smells like me.”
I smiled. “Yeah…”
It was nice to finally get to smell her. I rolled to bury my nose in the covers.
A second later, she gasped in surprise. “Oh my God. Are you drunk already?”
I laughed and rolled back onto my spine to face her. “I am a lightweight,” I warned. “But not quite that much of one.” Kicking off my shoes, I got comfortable on her bed.
Watching her, I took another drink, only to hiss, “Okay, maybe I am that much of one.” But my head was seriously beginning to feel buzzy. “Damn, how long has it been since I last drank anything?”
As Raina slumped down next to me on the mattress, I took another drink and studied her, remembering exactly how long it had been since I’d last had sex.
Longing rippled through me as I ran my gaze over her legs that she’d tucked in a crisscross fashion under her as she settled beside me.
My fingers wanted to reach out and smooth their way up her thigh so badly that I swear they started to cramp.
I swallowed and balled one hand into a fist as I used the other to lift the bottle back to my lips.
When I lowered the alcohol to my side, Raina reached out and started to play with my hair.
With a groan, I closed my eyes and grumbled, “Not fair. I can’t touch you back.”
“Just lift your hand,” she encouraged. “I’ll take your wrist and touch myself with your fingers. Wherever you want.”
Opening my lashes, I looked into her eyes and swallowed. “Now there’s a dangerous game.”
“And there’s no nurse here to catch us this time.” Raina eased closer, her gaze practically daring me to say what I really wanted. “Just name the place, darlin’.”
I shuddered and took another drink.
Raina eased back as if I’d just rejected her, and I bit down on the back of my teeth in regret, wishing I could explain how hard this was for me, wishing I could somehow show her all my insecurities and concerns without her thinking I was weak and lacking.
I wished I knew how to be better at this.
Tearing my gaze from hers, I glanced around the room, feeling stupid until I noticed the pair of horseshoes she had tacked over her doorway that led out onto the balcony.
After taking another drink, I motioned toward them. “Why do you have two horseshoes above your doorway?”
Raina glanced over and sighed. “Because I heard two superstitions about them. If you hang one with the prongs pointing down, the good luck is able to pour out and surround that home, protecting it from evil, and if you hang it with the ends up, it will catch all the good luck. I wasn’t sure which was right, so I just put up two to hedge my bets.”
I glanced at her, and my vision blurred, telling me I was fully feeling the effects of the alcohol now. “So you’re superstitious?”
She shrugged. “Not really, but this was horseshoe country, and everyone hangs them in Westport, what with the Stallions being our school mascot and everything. So I thought...” She shrugged again, leaving the sentence unfinished.
I laughed. “Might as well go all out if you were going to go all in, huh?”
Raina nodded and then sighed. “If it actually works, I can’t tell if it’s served me with good luck or bad. I mean, I lost my sister, I’m in a coma, and my soul is currently severed from my body. Then again, I was the only survivor of that accident—so far, anyway—and I get to spend every day with you.”
“Sounds like you got a little of both since you hung them both ways,” I mused, glancing up at the two horseshoes.
