Of course, there was no putting that particular cat back in the bag, but Lawson figured the tabloids would soon latch on to something else, and it would die down. It might not die down for Tessie though until she found out if she was going to be kicked out of college. And then her expulsion could only stir up the paparazzi again.
That was on Lawson’s mind, too, as he kept pacing. So was Eve. And even Kellan since the man was still rankled at Eve and vice versa. But the thing that was weighing heaviest right now were the pieces of the nightmare that were still with him.
Especially the different pieces.
Normally, the nightmares were all the same. Various fragments of the party. Eve. Always Eve. And then assorted versions of them discovering Brett unconscious. Not so much of an actual nightmare but the real memories that ate away at him.
This one had been different though.
This time, Lawson had gone down the stairs, alone, and he’d seen Brett on the sofa. Not unconscious—yet. But still drinking. Still alive. The dream was still a dream in that things weren’t as they’d been. Furniture in odd places. The blurred edges of the images.
It had felt real.
Was it?
Had he actually gone down those stairs in time to stop what was about to go wrong? Until tonight, Lawson would have said no, that he had no memories in between sacking out with Eve and finding Brett the following morning. That’s why most folks had blamed Eve. She had seen Brett. She had gone down those stairs. But maybe Eve had gotten a bad rap. Maybe he was the person solely to blame for this.
Lawson groaned, pressing his hands to the sides of his head, wishing for some peace that wouldn’t come. Well, it could come with the whiskey, but it would be only temporary. Still, temporary seemed pretty damn good right now, and Lawson was losing his battle with his willpower.
Until someone knocked on his door.
His gut tightened even more than it had with the photo that Lucian had sent. Because a wee-hours-of-the-morning knock was almost certainly going to be worse than a text arriving at that same time.
Or not.
He opened his door to find Eve on his porch. She was wearing a robe over a nightgown, both short, and she had a pint of Ooey Gooey ice cream and a spoon in her hand. A pint and spoon that she thrust at him.
“I was up and pacing and looked through the binoculars to see you doing the same thing.” She walked in, her body brushing against his. “Maybe you should invest in curtains because I clearly have no willpower when it comes to spying on you. Sorry about that.”
Lawson wasn’t sorry—though he should consider curtains. He’d needed something but wasn’t sure what until he saw Eve. And no, this wasn’t about sex. It just eased the nightmare to have her there. A first. Because usually coupling her with the memories of Brett only made things worse.
“How did you get here?” he asked. “I didn’t hear your car.”
“I walked, using the flashlight on my phone.” She put the ice cream and spoon in his hand and tipped her head to the whiskey. “I saw that, too,” she added. “Saw how you were eyeing it. And I came up with an idea. You eat my vice, and I’ll drink yours. That way, neither one of us will be giving in to the demons.”
Leave it to Eve to come up with something like that, but Lawson couldn’t help but smile. He shut the door, following her into the living room, but she made a detour into the kitchen to come up with a shot glass.
She did indeed pour herself a drink, took a sip, grimaced. Then gagged. “My coping mechanism tastes better than yours.”
He had a bite of the ice cream and agreed. But unless he ate enough to put him in a sugar coma, the whiskey was going to work better at shoving aside those memories. Shoving aside common sense though, too. But at least the Ooey Gooey wouldn’t leave him with a hangover.
“So, why were you pacing?” Lawson asked, sitting on the sofa next to her. “This isn’t about the condom, is it?”
She shook her head, had another sip of the whiskey. Another grimace followed. “No. That all worked out. I was right about it being the wrong time of the month. Hortense came.”
He was going to assume that Hortense was what she called her period and that some other person hadn’t come into this crazy episode that was their lives. But at least now they wouldn’t have to add an unplanned pregnancy on top of everything else.
“I was pacing because of bad dreams,” she said. “You?”
Lawson nodded. “A nightmare about Brett. I thought I came down the stairs and saw him. I thought I could have saved him.”
She looked at him, lowering the shot glass that she’d had right against her mouth. “You didn’t come downstairs.”
He looked at her, too. “Are you saying that to try to make me feel better?”
“No. Nothing will make us feel better about what happened to Brett that night. This is always going to suck, and it’s never going to heal.”
There it was, all in an ugly little nutshell. Whiskey and ice cream wouldn’t fix that. Apparently, neither could time.
“I said you didn’t go downstairs because you didn’t,” she went on. “You sleep like a rock, especially after sex, and I don’t. If you’d gotten out of bed, I would have known it.” She turned away, staring down into the glass. “I was the only one who could have saved Brett, and I didn’t.”
That wasn’t completely true. And maybe it was the sugar rush or the exhaustion from lack of sleep, but Lawson suddenly had a light-bulb moment. “Brett could have saved himself by not drinking. No way though could we blame him because we feel so guilty about losing him.”
Suddenly, there were tears in Eve’s eyes, and while he could be clueless sometimes about emotions, he knew these weren’t of the happy variety. On a heavy sigh, he slipped his arm around her and pulled her to him.
“Maybe we’re not supposed to forget,” he went on, wishing he knew the right thing to say. “Maybe that’s the price of loving and losing someone. It’s always with us. Always there. Always bittersweet.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder, their gazes connecting. “Like us?”
“Like us,” he agreed.
Lawson didn’t kiss her though their mouths were only inches apart. He held back not because he didn’t want to kiss her—he did—but because the timing was definitely wrong. She hadn’t come here for kissing and sex but rather to soothe some of their raw edges from grief.
The silence crawled on for a few long moments before she had another sip of the whiskey. While she grimaced, she motioned toward the ice cream. “If you eat a big spoonful, the brain freeze will help chase away the images. Of course, you’ll get a bad headache, too.”
Pain. Something Lawson hadn’t considered for coping. He tried it. It worked. But now he was the one grimacing.
“How’s Tessie?” he asked, hoping it didn’t cause her eyes to tear up again.
“Moody and moping. A lot like what I’ve been doing. I suppose you’ve seen the pictures of Kellan and his injured nuts?”
He settled for a nod. “I’m sure he deserved it. And more. He didn’t fess up to the lie he told about being Tessie’s father.”