Crap. I’ve worried everyone. And what if Matt called about Emma and found my cell phone off? Smart, Zane. Very smart.
Breaking through my thoughts, she moves away, and I reach after her, not sure what I’m trying to do. Not sure what happened, why I let her hold me. I let very few people inside my guard, and they know not to surprise me.
But I’m slow and dizzy, and I don’t catch her. She walks to the sofa and picks up one of my drawings, then another. When she turns to look at me, her eyes are wide, and she looks pale.
“Zane…”
“What?” I draw skulls and skeletons, monsters and roaring lions, more thorns than roses. More death than life. That’s how my mind works. Then again, I’m so drunk I might have drawn just about anything. “What is it now?”
“Nothing. Just…” She looks again at the drawings, then places them on the coffee table.
“Just what?” I take a step in her direction, and shit, everything is spinning. “Fuck.”
She’s at my side immediately, pulling me toward the sofa. “You need to drink lots of water and eat something. I’ll make you some breakfast. Something greasy is good.”
“Why?” I sink against the cushions and rub my hands over my face.
“To absorb the alcohol. It really helps.”
“Dammit, not that. Why are you here, making me breakfast and all this shit?”
“Because I want to make sure you’re okay?” She shrugs, then grins. “And because I’m going to prove to you that I’m a roommate worth having. Where can you find better than me, huh?”
She winks and saunters to the kitchen.
I shake my head a little, wondering if I’m hallucinating or dreaming. But her sweet scent lingers, and my head hurts too fucking bad for it not to be real. Even weirder, a smile is tugging at my lips. Here I am, feeling as if I’m sinking in quicksand, as if I’m dying, and my face hurts from smiling like an idiot.
“Coffee?” she calls from the kitchen.
“Yeah.” I sit up straighter. “Coffee sounds good.”
That’s when I catch sight of the drawing sitting on top of the pile Dakota has gathered from the couch. My smile slips. I lift the drawing, gripping it so hard the edge of the thick paper is dented.
I’ve never done anything like this before. This is worse than skulls and death. There’s none of the harsh lines and rough cross-hatching I usually use for shadowing.
Soft curves, bare lines.
Shit. I let the paper drop back on the table and groan out loud.
It’s a portrait of Dakota.
“Breakfast’s ready!”
I start. Emma, I think blearily. I’m at her house now. I’ll be late for school.
Then my surroundings sink in—the living room, the drawings on the table, the pictures on the walls. My apartment.
Fuck, I dozed off on my sofa. It still takes me a moment to remember whose voice that is and why she’s making me breakfast.
Large blue eyes, a teasing grin. ‘Where can you find better than me, huh?’
Hell. I snort. It shouldn’t amuse me so much, but I guess I’m relieved she jokes about it. Probably means she’s not serious about moving in with me, like she’s not serious about the dragon tattoo. She’s a happy person with no need of saving.
No need of me to save her.
And that’s good, that’s fucking awesome, and it lifts a weight off my chest. So it’s odd that, as I stand up with a groan and stagger around the sofa, aiming for the kitchen, I feel a pang in my chest.
She has no fucking need of me at all.
Suck it up, Zane. That’s good. Good for her.
Then I enter the kitchen and lose my train of thought. I just stare. The table is laid with fried eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee.
“Shit. You brought all this with you?” I glance back at her handbag lying on the armchair. “In that?”
She giggles and covers her mouth with her hand. “They were in your fridge. Don’t you even know what food you have in your house?”
Obviously not. “Erin must have left it.” The smell of the food brings bile to my throat. The kitchen spins slowly, and I grab the back of a chair not to fall.
“But surely you’ve opened the fridge since then… Didn’t you?” She frowns. “Damn, Zane, when was the last time you ate?”
Good question. “You brought me a chicken salad sandwich the other day.”
“That was days ago. Zane…”
“I ate more stuff.” I sink in the chair and wave a hand back and forth. “Too fucking drunk to think right now, okay?”
I remember eating a ham sandwich the day after, and during the weekend… Did I eat anything? Driving between the house and the hospital, sitting by Emma’s bed, taking care of the kids… I must have. I just can’t remember.
In fact, I don’t remember much from the weekend, and it’s not because of the whiskey. The memories are already fuzzy, covered in haze. My mind tends to erase stressful times. Hell, I’m missing substantial chunks of my childhood. There’s a reason I avoid therapists. I guess I just don’t wanna fucking know what I’ve forgotten.
“Zane?” She’s staring at me with those wide blue eyes.
Crap, I’ve spaced out. I draw the plate of eggs toward me, grab a fork and dig in. “This is good.”
Her cheeks color again. “Does that mean I’ve passed my first test?”
“Test?”
She rolls her eyes. “To be your roommate, of course.”
Of course. I snort and wash down the eggs with orange juice. “You think it’s that easy?”
“What else do you want?”
Fuck, is that a trick question? I look across the table at her. She sucks her bottom lip between her small, white teeth, and I forget to chew for a second. Breakfast is great, but what I really want is to get down-and-dirty with her, rip her already ripped jeans, shred her T-shirt, lick her everywhere, taste her pussy.
“Nothing,” I lie. I scrub my hands over my face. My head is killing me. “I’m good.”
“So can I move in with you?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll change your mind.” She grins and takes a sip of her coffee. “I want another chance.”
I look down at my plate and drag the bacon closer. She’s teasing me, joking about, and still not a word about the state she found me in, or the fact I didn’t answer Ash’s, Rafe’s or Erin’s calls and texts.
“I was at my sister’s,” I hear myself say and clench my fingers around the fork. “I visit almost every weekend.”
Why the hell am I telling her this?
“Emma is my only family.” The words spill out without my permission. “She took me in. Looked after me. Now she’s sick, and I can’t help her. I try, but in the end, there’s fucking nothing I can do.”
Dakota pales. “I understand—”
“The hell you do. This is all fucked up. I’m fucked up.” I bang my hand on the table, and the fork smashes into the plate. I get up and stumble away.
“Zane, wait.”
I stagger into my bedroom. It’s dark, the curtains drawn over the small window. The air smells stale.