“On the floor,” Dash slurs.
Sure enough—they’re underneath the booth. I grab them, slide them on his face, and wrap an arm around him.
“C’mon… I’m driving.”
He mumbles something I can’t understand, and then we’re walking toward my car. I open the passenger’s side door and he plops down, his eyes rolling a little as I shut the door.
Good God.
By the time I get into the driver’s seat, he’s snoring.
He smells like alcohol and sweat. When I turn, en route to our building, he falls slightly to the left. I push his shoulder, and his head hits the window.
“Shit!”
When I park the car and shake him, he gives me a few dull blinks and then a small smile. “Ammy…”
“C’mon, D. We’re going inside…”
I help him out and watch his profile as I help him inside. He’s all eyes and a solemn, frowning mouth. In the elevator, he wraps his arm around me and leans on me—so hard I feel like he might take me down with him.
“We’re going to go to my place,” I tell him. I don’t feel entirely welcome at his place right now, and if I’m going to take care of him, I’d rather do it where I feel the most at ease.
By the time we reach my door, I’m feeling miserable and misguided. I shouldn’t have gotten him. I shouldn’t have. But now he’s here and… I don’t know. Maybe I could break into his phone and call someone. But who? If he has a drinking problem, would it be wrong to tell the studio he’s off the wagon?
Maybe it would be right.
I sigh and lead him in. I’m going to put him on the couch, but when we get into the den, he just keeps walking—into my bedroom, into the bathroom, where he shuts the door and then turns on the sink.
I hear the click of something falling onto the floor—as if he knocked something off the vanity—and then the door swings open. Dash is shirtless, eyebrows rumpled, his eyes blinking slowly.
“Am?” His head lolls back as his eyes scan my room. “Am I at your place?”
“Yes.”
He frowns, and in a hoarse voice says, “I drank too much.”
“I think you did.”
I stare at him, and he stares back. I wait for him to mention our date, but he just looks right through me, seeming tired and troubled.
“I’m gonna shower,” he says. Then the door is shut, and I’m in my room by myself. I hear the water run, and then I hear him getting sick.
Perfect.
I tell myself when he comes out, I’ll offer him my bath robe and some sweat pants and I’ll send him packing. If he can’t talk about the way he stood me up, he needs to get out of my place.
I feel a shot of guilt as I listen to him gag and groan, but I shove it aside. I’m not going in there and taking care of him. God knows I don’t have a lot of self-respect, but what I do have, I’m looking to hold onto.
It’s a while before he re-emerges, freshly showered, one of my plush towels hanging from his chiseled hips.
I notice, as he steps toward me, that he’s not wearing glasses. Then his arms are wrapped around me and his head is on my shoulder and he’s kissing my neck.
“Ammy—please.” The words sound gasped.
“Please what?” My arms hang at my sides.
Dash cups my head, kisses my throat. “I need you. I need you.”
“I can’t…”
“Please,” he moans.
“You didn’t come Friday.”
“I know.” His mouth is on mine, and I’m kissing him; not because it’s smart, but because I just respond to him. I close my hand around his nape and let him kiss me. I’m surprised he tastes so good and minty, that he’s coordinated enough to make me pant, to get me on my back on my bed, where he strips my clothes off and kisses up and down my inner thighs.
“I’m sorry… So, so sorry… I love you,” he breathes against my leg.
My body stills.
“I love you. I’m sorry…”
I can’t move as he licks his way up to my center, parts me with his tongue, and traces slow circles around my clit. He slides a finger into me, then adds another one…and then they curl and thrust as he laps at my clit, working me into a fervor, so I’m clutching his hair, moaning, arching up against him.
“God… oh God…”
I don’t just come—I come apart. When he gathers me in his arms, I drip tears onto his chest and Dash runs his fingers slowly through my hair. We stay like that forever, and he starts to whisper, “Sorry... I’m so sorry, Ammy… I’m sorry.”
His eyes are closed, I note when I look. He looks solemn, not quite conscious somehow. In a way I can’t describe, it feels like he is somewhere else. Like he is someone else. So when he spreads me out and moves between my legs, it’s this Dash I’m responding to. Dash with glowing, somber eyes, Dash with his body bathed in city light. Dash who whispers, “I love you” against my chest and pushes into me and holds my face while I gasp. This Dash fucks me hard and steady, almost gently.
He comes with a hoarse sound in his throat, and then he’s moving off me, handing me his towel; his eyes meet mine for one split second in the dark glow of my room, and then he’s stretching out beside me.
Passing out, I think. Except when I get back from cleaning up, I find his shoulders shaking.
“Dash…?”
I touch him cautiously between his shoulder blades and feel how damp his skin is. Then I hear his low sob, blunted by my pillow. I’m so stunned, I wait a few more beats, until it’s crystal clear that Dash is weeping. I scoot slowly closer, wrap my arms around him.
“Dash…?”
He turns toward me, so he can pull me up against him. With his arms locked tight around me, he rests his face against my neck.
“Am,” he groans, “my sister’s dead.”
Twenty-One
Amelia
His sister?
“Lex?”
Dash’s body shudders, and I realize what I’m hearing.
“Oh my God, for real? What happened?” My shrill words are out in front of me. As soon as I blurt these things, I lock my arms around Dash and push my head against his head, and whisper, “Oh my God, I’m so, so sorry…”
I can feel the punch of sobs before he makes a sound. His hand comes behind my neck and holds me up against him. After one big, jerky breath, Dash cries like I have never heard him cry: his sobs like bellows, his big body rocking mine. He clings to me, and my hand strokes his hair as my mind races.
What to say? What happened? This is why he stood me up. Oh God, he hasn’t even changed his clothes since Friday.