“Jamie,” she said. “Please. We need to talk, but not like this. I need to see you. Call me back. Or…or come to my room. Room 460. Just talk to me, okay?”
She wouldn’t admit defeat. Not yet. Brynn rode the elevator to the fourth floor and found her way back to room 460. If Jamie wasn’t going to listen to her, she would find a way to make him hear.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One swig was all he allowed himself before getting in the shower to rinse away the day—this week—all of it. Jamie knew that if he finished that pint (and he planned to finish that pint) first, he ran the risk of passing out before the whole showering thing, and that didn’t bode well for having to wake up early to get to the fest for setup. He just needed enough to dull the edges, but even now, as he braced his arm against the tiled shower wall and let the hot water pelt his skin, he still felt raw.
In a way he always expected the week to end up like this, but Amarillo and Annie let him cling to that shred of hope. He blamed himself, not Brynn. He pushed her away when he finally got what he wanted, too scared to believe he could keep it.
All the shower managed to do was make him wish Brynn was there with him. Fuck, she almost was. She was in the same building. It was just the whole with situation that wasn’t what it should have been. He sent her here to see Spencer and then lost his mind when she did what he’d asked her to do.
Not until he was sure he’d most likely depleted the hotel’s hot water reservoir did he finally turn off the shower. He plopped back down in his chair, towel wrapped around his waist, and unscrewed the bottle again. Tipping it back against his lips, he let the spicy heat of the liquid pour down his throat and warm his insides. The edges of the day’s activities were getting duller by the minute. Since he really had nothing else to lose other than his body’s ability to metabolize his intake at a speed fast enough not to give him a hangover, he let his next sip be the one that drained the bottle. Jamie hissed a breath through his teeth. For a guy who slow sips a pint in an effort to savor a brewer’s craftsmanship, a pint of Jack in one sitting was stronger than expected, to say the least.
He stood when, honestly, he should have sat for several more minutes, or at least until he got used to his slowly blurring vision.
He laughed. This must have been what it was like to be Brynn in Tulsa, but at least her vision cleared the farther away things got. For Jamie it only cleared if he pressed his eyes shut.
Yes. That’s what the back of an eyelid should look like.
He decided brushing his teeth would make things clearer because—because—shit, he didn’t know what came after because. But he remembered his errand when he got to the bathroom, so he took to brushing his teeth.
Somewhere between the bathroom and the bed, Jamie’s towel fell off, so he climbed naked into the sheets after grabbing his phone.
When the hell had that voicemail notification popped up?
He swiped the lock on his screen, grateful he didn’t have a lock code, and opened his voicemail. Even though the alcohol had made the day’s events sufficiently fuzzy, his gut still twisted when he heard Brynn’s voice—recognized its plea.
She gave him her room number, which was all well and good, but he wasn’t going to barge in on her and Spencer. Again.
Jamie wasn’t a drunk texter, but coherent speech felt beyond his capacity at the moment. Plus he was both drunk and naked this evening, a new combination, which he thought called for a new experience. Drunk texting.
Only because Brynn’s number was the last to send him a message did he choose the right one. Otherwise, the message could have gone to his brother Ben as he would have looked for Brynn in the Bs rather than under S for Sleepy Jean because, dammit, he was drunk, which is why, thankfully, he did not text his brother.
Jamie: Dr. Unk
He tried three times to get rid of the period, but damn Autocorrect won this round. He hit send without typing anything else, figuring he shouldn’t be drunk texting her, but that was the thing about drunk texting. You did it even though you shouldn’t. Because of the whole drunk part of the scenario. Somewhere in his cloudy brain he rationalized that letting her know he was drunk would also explain to her why he was drunk, that it would somehow say all the things he should have said before Amarillo and not waited for complete strangers to light the fuse that he’d been trying to douse for years.
He closed his eyes and laid the phone on his bare chest. The vibration came seconds later, which was a good thing because a few seconds more and he probably would be asleep.
He sat up and rallied, rubbed his eyes, and then read.
Sleepy Jean: Dr. Unk?
Crap. She hadn’t cracked his code. He was about to reattempt the word sans extra space and autocorrect assholery when she texted again.
Sleepy Jean: You’re drunk? I just left you thirty minutes ago.
Even in his state, Jamie had to laugh at the irony of this.