Chapter 46
The more vodka I consumed, the easier the alcohol slid down my throat, wrapping me in its numbing embrace.
My pride wasn’t as bruised. My shoulder hurt less.
My heart stopped splitting apart at the thought of losing Sophie.
Did I believe she’d walk away from me? No.
Did I plan on walking away from her? I didn’t even want to answer my own question because I didn’t know what I was going to do where she was concerned.
My only focus for the foreseeable future was draining the bottle sitting in front of me, then repeating until I either stopped thinking about what happened or passed out. My bet was on the latter.
An incessant pounding on my front door interrupted my blissful detachment. “Go away,” I slurred, failing to raise my voice above a whisper. Another hard knock. Then another. “Go away,” I said once more, this time shouting my demand.
“Open the fucking door, Jax,” Lance yelled, banging once more.
“Leave me alone.” I attempted to stand but lost my balance and toppled over on the couch, coming down hard on my left side. “Fuck!” I screamed, the pain in my shoulder briefly lifting the veil of the drunken haze I’d lost myself to.
“If you don’t open this door right now, I swear I’ll break it down.” He hammered my door repeatedly. “Jackson!”
My second endeavor to stand was successful, although I swayed the entire walk to the door. I flipped the lock and turned the handle but never opened the door fully. Lance stepped inside, shaking his head when he saw the state I was in.
“Welcome,” I said in the most sarcastic greeting I could fathom. “What brin… what brings you by?” I barely understood what I’d said, so I doubted Lance did. My entire body was now numb, my legs like stone as I stumbled back to the couch. I plopped back down, careful of my shoulder this time.
“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours.”
“You found me.” After swallowing a mouthful of my new favorite drink, I rested my head against the back of the sofa and closed my eyes. They’d suddenly become too heavy to keep open. “Here I am,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, here you are,” Lance said, “in the sorriest state I’ve ever seen you in.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” he retorted. “I haven’t seen you this drunk in years.”
“I’m making up for lost time.” My voice stuttered on the last word. “Now that I do… don’t have anything left.”
Lance kicked my feet off the coffee table, and I toppled over, this time on my right side.
“What the fuck?” I griped, barely able to straighten myself.
“I know you’re pissed. Disappointed. Maybe even embarrassed, but that fucker went after your arm because he knew it was your weakness. You fought a good fight.”
“She’s my weakness,” I corrected, ignoring his last statement. “Not my arm. My heart.” I smacked my lips together, my mouth suddenly like sandpaper. “She did it.”
“Did what?” he asked, the seat next to me dipping with his weight.
“She killed me.”
“What does that mean?” I was drunk but could still detect his annoyance.
“She anol… anol… aaaa… annihilated the man I was. With her face, and her body, and the way she scrunched her nose at me,” I said, tapping my nose for emphasis.
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I do.” I clapped my hands together. “I am. Sophie Delaney killed the man I was. I was happy before her. Now I lost it all. You see?” I pried my eyes open, struggling to focus on Lance’s face, his image blurring before splitting into three.
“She did this to me,” I said, accidentally poking myself in the eye.
“No, she didn’t,” he argued, slapping my hand away from my face. “Trevor warned you not to get involved with her. We all did. We told you it wasn’t a good idea, but you let your dick take over. But if you want someone to blame, blame yourself, not Sophie. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
I summoned the meanest face I could muster in my current state and pointed at him. “I told her to stay put.”
“She couldn’t stomach seeing you fight, Jax.”
“She wasn’t supposed to move. He’s still out there.”
“Her ex?”
“I couldn’t protect her.” An ache swirled in my chest as my eyes glassed over. “She wasn’t supposed to move.”
“Fine. She wasn’t supposed to move, but don’t blame her. You can blame me for not going after her.”
“Yup.” I threw my hand in the air, as if I high-fived an invisible person.
“Yup what?”
“Exactly,” I answered.
“Okay, I think we’re done here. Sleep it off, and we’ll talk tomorrow when you make sense.”
“Good day,” I shouted after him as he walked out, slamming the door behind him.
“I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone. I got my trusty new friend, Grey Goose.
” I reached for the vodka, but the bottle wasn’t on the table.
Or on the couch next to me. I leaned forward to check the floor and lost my balance, toppling over and smacking my head on the ground.
“Fuck me,” I mumbled as the darkness stormed in and stole me from consciousness.