Chapter 32
Grayson
If hell has a waiting room, I’m pretty sure it looks a lot like the back room of this bar.
Low lighting, too-loud music, a private section roped off for a group of men who want to pretend they're important enough for a red carpet. The smell of whiskey and fried food hangs heavy in the air, and Aaron is across from me with his arm slung over the back of his chair like he owns the place.
I hate everything about tonight.
I’ve had one drink in the last two hours, partly because I want to be able to drive home after and partly because I don’t want to be drunk around Aaron or his friends.
I don’t trust any room full of men who keep trying to clap me on the shoulder and say shit like, “Didn’t think you’d actually show, man,” like I’m here for the fun of it.
I’m here because Carly asked nothing of me, and somehow, that made me want to do everything.
That thought sits with me right up until one of Aaron’s friends starts telling a story that ends with everyone at the table howling like it’s the funniest thing ever said.
Jesus.
My phone vibrates against my thigh. I glance down, and I pause when I see it’s an incoming call from her phone. I’m already pushing back my chair before I think too hard about why she’d be calling instead of texting me again.
“Excuse me,” I mutter.
Aaron looks up. “Everything good?”
I don’t bother responding. I step out into the hallway beside the bathrooms and lift the phone to my ear.
“Carly?”
A woman’s voice comes through instead. “Uh, hi. Sorry. This isn’t Carly.”
Every muscle in my body goes tight. “Who is this?”
“Erica. I’m one of Sarah’s bridesmaids. Carly gave me her phone.” There’s noise in the background — a bathroom hand dryer roaring to life, a cough that sounds suspiciously like a gag. “She’s throwing up. Had way too much to drink.”
Fuck. I rub a hand through my hair, glancing at the exit. “Did she ask you to call me?”
“Yeah. I got her some water, but she said she needs to go home.”
My chest squeezes at that. “All right. Where are you guys?”
“Uh.” She goes quiet for a moment again, the background noise changing, muffled words and loud music turning tinny down the line. “Tinsel Shack? I think that’s what they said. I’m sorry, I didn’t look at the name when we walked here. It’s like two blocks south of Papaya’s.”
“Okay. I’ll find it. Tell her I'm only ten minutes down the road.”
Her voice turns quieter. “Carly? He’s only…”
I hang up and swallow down the worry blooming in my chest. I should probably tell Aaron I’m leaving, and I consider not bothering, wanting to just bolt out the door and drive to her immediately, but I know damn well that causing a scene by disappearing and turning up over there will only make things harder for Carly later.
I step back through the doors quickly and find Aaron near the bar, taking a shot with two of his friends.
“Hey. I’ve got to go,” I say.
Aaron lowers the glass, squinting at me. “Wait, seriously?”
“Yeah, man.”
He laughs like I’ve made a joke. “Night’s just getting started.”
“Yeah, well, my girlfriend needs me.” The words come out sharp enough to cut, and his smile slips a little.
For one satisfying second, nobody says anything, but then Aaron lifts his chin. “Everything okay?”
I hold his gaze. “Not your problem.”
I leave before he can come up with another smart-ass response, walk through the bitter cold to where I’d street-parked, and slip into the driver’s seat.
The drive to the bar the girls are at takes minutes, but it feels like an hour. I spend most of it trying not to imagine every possible scenario — Carly pale and shaking, Carly crying, Carly throwing up, Carly cornered in a bathroom by women who would love a front row seat to her humiliation.
By the time I pull up outside, I’m wound so tight that I don’t give a shit if my barging in would mean things might be harder for her down the line.
The place is exactly the kind of nightmare I expected.
Pink neon in the windows, bass thudding through the walls, a bouncer on the door.
I get past the bouncer without so much as a single question, which is one of the few perks of being recognizable in Boulder.
He waves me through before I can even tell him why I’m here.
Inside, it’s worse.
Sticky floors. A packed dance floor. Too many people and not enough oxygen.
I head straight for the bathroom, following the glowing overhead signs. I don’t stop to think about the fact that it’s the women’s bathroom — I simply do not care. I push through the door and am immediately hit with bright lights, perfume, and the sharp chemical smell of cleaning products.
A blonde woman stands near the hand dryer, her brows lifting, but then she points me toward the last stall, and I follow her direction without questioning.
Carly’s sitting on the floor, her bare legs bent and to one side of her, her head and shoulder resting on the partition, one hand on the toilet and an abandoned glass of water beside it.
Her heels are off and lying beside her, her hair a mess, lipstick mostly gone, face pale. My stomach sinks immediately.
“Hey,” I say, dropping into a crouch in front of her, cupping her cheek to turn her face to me. “Hey, sweetheart, look at me.”
Her eyes blink open a little, unfocused. Christ. I’m immediately hit with the fact that there is only one situation in which I enjoy her looking at me like that, and it is not half-conscious and trashed on a bathroom floor. “Gray?”
I brush a piece of hair back from her damp cheek. “Yeah. It’s me.”
She stares at me for a second like she’s trying to make sure I’m real. Then her mouth pulls into the smallest, drunkest smile I’ve ever seen. “Missed you.”
I huff a very slightly amused breath and glance at the blonde woman outside the stall. “You the one who called me?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“How long has she been like this?”
“Maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes? I'm not sure. I saw her stumble in here and followed her in.”
I nod once. “Thank you for staying with her.”
“Of course.” She hesitates. “Do you need help?”
“No, I’ve got her.” I turn back to Carly, gathering her heels by the strap on one finger. “Can you stand for me, sweetheart?”
She considers this with utter seriousness, her hands clutching an unused paper towel. “Mmm... maybe. Prob’ly bad idea.”
“Okay.” I slide one arm behind her back and the other under her knees. “Then I’m carrying you.”
Her hands slide clumsily around my neck as I lift her. She makes a tiny, surprised sound, then melts against me, her forehead resting against my throat.
“Got your shoes,” I grunt.
“My hero,” she mumbles into my collar.
“Yeah, yeah. Are you missing anything else?”
The blonde laughs softly under her breath and places Carly’s purse on her stomach. “Think that’s all she came with.”
“Thank you.”
The walk to my car feels longer than it should. Every few steps, she drunkenly says something that hits me square in the chest, and I keep finding myself stopping.
“M’sorry,” she murmurs first, words blurring together. “Didn’t mean t’be gross.”
“You’re not gross.”
“I threw up s’much.”
“I gathered that.” I readjust her slightly as I push the exit door open with my hip and shoulder.
“Tried t’be normal.” Her forehead presses into my neck. “Sarah’s so annoying.”
A breathy chuckle escapes me. “Aaron, too.”
“She talks t’much.”
“I know.”
“And I really—” she hiccups, “—like you.”
My grip tightens on her. “Yeah?”
Carly keeps going like she doesn’t even realize what she’s saying. “Like... a lot. M’sorry m’drunk in public and y’had t’come rescue me.”
I look down at her. Her eyes are closed again, face tucked into my shoulder, trusting me completely. Every part of me softens at that. “You don’t ever have to apologize for calling me, sweetheart,” I say quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
She hums like she hears me, but I’m not sure she does.
By the time I get her to the car, she’s nearly asleep. I’ve truly never been so grateful for the self-opening doors on my Aston Martin. I ease her into the backseat carefully, setting her shoes on the floorboard before I help her get her legs inside. She blinks up at me, lashes heavy.
“You’re pretty,” she mumbles.
I snort. “Thank you.”
“So grumpy, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. Go to sleep, Carly.”
She smiles faintly. “Okay.”
And then, like someone flipped a switch, she’s out.
I stand there for a second, one hand on the door, making sure she’s breathing evenly before I shut it and slide back into the driver’s seat.
Relief hits me the moment I shut the door behind me.
She’s okay.
Drunk as hell, but okay.
I pull away from the curb and start the drive home, checking the rearview mirror every few seconds. She’s fully laid out, dead to the world.
The city slides past outside in red, green, and white lights.
My jaw starts to unclench by degrees. I’m searching my mind for what kind of greasy food I could whip up to sober her up a little so that she isn’t as hungover for the wedding tomorrow when her phone alerts in her purse on the passenger seat.
At the next red light, I slide it out of her purse, worried Aaron or Sarah or both have messaged her.
But it’s a text from a number that isn’t saved. The preview shows on her lockscreen. Hi Carly, good news. The apartment is ready a little…
I stare at it. Apartment?
A horn blares behind me, and I jerk my attention back to the road, pulse suddenly thudding for an entirely different reason.
At the next light, I pick up the phone.
I know I shouldn’t. I know exactly how shitty it is. But curiosity gets its hooks in and sinks them deep.
I open the message.
Hi Carly, good news. The apartment is ready a little early. Cleaning is finished, you can move in anytime. Lease is finalized, just let me know when you want the keys.
For a second, I don’t understand what I’m looking at.
I read it again. And again. Then drop the phone.
Lease is finalized.
Move in anytime.
The apartment is ready.
Something cold slides down my spine.
Carly signed a lease? When? Why?
The answer comes fast and brutal, snapping into place so neatly it makes me feel sick.
She was planning to leave. After the wedding, maybe right after, maybe the second she didn’t need me anymore.
My hands tighten around the steering wheel.
No. No, that doesn’t fit. Except it does. It fits too well.
She took the nanny job when she needed somewhere to stay. She needed a date for the wedding. She got both.
And all this time — these last five weeks, the sneaking around, the nights in my bed, the way she looks at me, the way she says my name—
I grip the wheel harder.
My chest feels like it’s being split open with something blunt.
Anger gets there first, hot and immediate. Hurt follows so close behind it might as well be the same thing.
In the mirror, she’s still asleep, curled on her side, soft and defenseless and looking nothing like someone who could gut me.
But the text is right fucking there.
I keep driving through the dark with my jaw locked and my pulse hammering, her phone face-up on the seat beside me, shining like an omen.
She’s using me. She’s fucking using me. And worse, yet again, she’s planning a departure from my daughter’s life without a second thought.
It’s Halsey all over again.