Chapter 25
Vienna
Now
By the time Dante and Rachel found me, I had reached the enlightened conclusion that the floor of The King’s Arms was vastly underappreciated.
Not enough people spoke about how grounding a sticky pub carpet could be. How humbling. How textured. How rich in local history.
Granted, some of that texture was probably peanut shells, and at least one part of the local history smelled suspiciously like stale lager and vomit, but I was choosing to focus on the positives. Glass half full and all that shite.
“Tell me again,” Rachel’s voice said from somewhere above me, “why he’s face down on the floor instead of sat at a table like a normal alcoholic?”
“Because he’s Vienna,” Dante replied flatly.
That seemed unfair.
I cracked one eye open and found two blurry figures looming over me.
Rachel had her hands on her hips, her face split between concern and irritation, whilst Dante simply looked dead behind the eyes, which I felt was a bit dramatic considering he wasn’t the one having his spiritual crisis on a pub carpet.
“I’m not face down,” I informed them, lifting my cheek an inch from the floor and then immediately lowering it again when the room tilted. “I’m side resting. It’s therapeutic.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dante muttered.
Rachel crouched in front of me, her expression softening despite herself. “How much have you had?”
“What a rude question,” I murmured. “A gentleman never asks, and a lady with that much Botox in her forehead should know better.”
She gasped. “I do not have Botox!”
“That’s the spirit, hair buddy,” I said, giving her a thumbs up from the floor. “Never confess.”
Dante bent down, grabbed a fistful of the back of my shirt, and hauled me upward with considerably less care than I deserved. “Up.”
“You know,” I slurred as my feet dragged beneath me, “I don’t think you’re taking my emotional fragility seriously enough.”
“No one has ever taken your emotional fragility seriously,” he snapped.
“That,” I said, trying and failing to point at him without crossing my own eyes, “is exactly the kind of cruelty that drives a man to drink.”
Rachel looped one of my arms over her shoulders, Dante grabbed the other side, and together they half carried, half dragged me through the pub.
I made an honest effort to help for the first few steps, but somewhere between the jukebox and the door, I lost interest and let my feet skid along the floor instead.
Outside, the cold night air slapped me hard enough to pull a groan from my chest.
“Right,” Rachel said. “That’s good. Keep breathing. He’ll be fine.”
“I’m always fine,” I informed the pavement.
“You’re pissed as a fart and you smell like regret,” Dante replied.
“Regret is such a strong word. I prefer yearning.”
“I prefer silence,” he muttered.
The back door of the car was pulled open, and I was bundled inside with all the grace of a corpse being loaded into a van.
I sprawled straight across the back seat before either of them could order me to sit up properly, one leg bent awkwardly, my head pillowed against the door, my arm dangling down toward the floor mat.
Rachel twisted around from the front passenger seat once she’d climbed in, frowning at me. “Seatbelt.”
“I’d rather die.”
“That can be arranged,” Dante said, starting the engine, muttering all the while about hating driving “the cage” and how “that little fuckwit in the back” needed to get his drinking under control.
Well, with insults like that, how could I not?
Honestly, these people didn’t understand the word fragile.
As if it would come as a surprise to anyone that I had decided to drown my sorrows after leaving Gabriella. They weren’t even the slightest bit appreciative that I had taken my latest breakdown elsewhere instead of parking inside the clubhouse.
The car pulled away from the kerb, and for a little while I simply closed my eyes and listened to the hum of the road beneath us.
It should have been soothing. Usually, the rhythm of movement helped.
The engine. The turns. The low thrum beneath everything.
It reminded me of rides at night, of open roads and headlights and the brief illusion that if you drove fast enough, hard enough, long enough, you could outrun whatever was waiting for you when you stopped.
Didn’t work, obviously.
Gabriella still waited at the end of every thought.
At the end of every road.
At the edge of every bloody night.
I shifted against the seat and swallowed hard, trying not to let her face rise up again. Her hand on the glass. Her forehead bowed. The tear I hadn’t been able to wipe away. That one small shake of her head that had somehow managed to say everything and nothing at once.
Don’t come in.
Don’t leave me.
Don’t make this worse.
Don’t stop.
It was tearing me to fucking pieces.
The radio crackled, then settled on some old pop song, all bright synth and dramatic vocals. I tried to ignore it. Truly I did. But Rachel, being Rachel, was apparently incapable of letting any moment remain dignified for more than thirty seconds.
“Oh, I love this one,” she announced, already turning the volume up.
Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m just listening to the radio.”
“You’re never just listening to the radio.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Rachel inhaled deeply and belted, “I’M ALL OUT OF LOVE, I’M SO LOST WITHOUT YOU—”
“For fuck’s sake,” Dante snarled.
I opened one eye.
Rachel had turned fully in her seat now, one hand dramatically on her chest, the other outstretched towards the windscreen like she was performing to a sold-out arena instead of a miserable man in the driver’s seat and one drunk idiot rotting in the back.
“I KNOW YOU WERE RIGHT, BELIEVIN’ FOR SO LONG—”
“Rachel.”
“I’M ALL OUT OF LOVE, WHAT AM I WITHOUT YOU—”
“Rachel!” Dante barked, his voice cracking through the car hard enough that even I flinched.
The song kept playing, suddenly far too loud in the silence that followed.
Rachel froze mid-performance.
For a second, no one moved.
No one spoke.
Dante’s jaw flexed. His stare stayed fixed on the windscreen, both hands clamped to the wheel so tightly his knuckles looked pale even in the streetlight.
Rachel slowly turned back around in her seat. “Alright,” she said quietly. “No need to be a dick.”
I shut my eye again.
Bloody hell.
Now we were all trapped in a moving box full of tension and wounded feelings and unspoken apologies, and I hated that almost as much as I hated sobriety.
It lasted for maybe ten seconds.
Twelve at a push.
The next song clicked on, and I had to do it. Because I am a generous and community-minded individual, I decided to save us all.
From the back seat, with all the conviction of a man on the brink of spiritual collapse, I croaked, “I CAAAAAAN’T LIVE—”
Rachel whipped around so fast she nearly dislocated something.
“IF LIVING IS WITHOUT YOU!” I roared, throwing one arm into the air.
Her face lit up instantly. “YES!”
Dante made a sound low in his throat that can only be described as a death rattle.
Rachel joined in at full volume. “I CAAAAAN’T GIVE—”
“I CAN’T GIVE ANY MOOOOORE!”
And that was it.
The awkward silence died a swift and horrible death under the force of our singing.
Rachel twisted in her seat properly now, pointing at me like I was her long-lost duet partner.
Her hair buddy.
Fuck yes! We were back!
I pushed myself half upright in the back and pointed back at her, and together we absolutely butchered the chorus with the kind of passion that should have earned us criminal charges.
“Turn it down,” Dante snapped.
We ignored him, and Rachel flicked the radio to a different station, and I immediately got caught up in the song.
“Fuck yes! I hope you know, I will carry you home!”
“We’re literally carrying you home now!” Rachel shouted over the music, laughing.
“I know!” I yelled back. “It’s immersive!”
By the second chorus, Rachel was full Melissa McCarthy, drumming the dashboard, throwing herself into each lyric like her life depended on it.
I matched her beat for beat from the back seat, my voice shredded and theatrical, head tipping back against the seat as I howled about heartbreak to the roof of Dante’s car.
At one point, Rachel held her fist out towards me during the key change, and I slapped my palm against it in solemn solidarity.
“Both of you are unbearable,” Dante muttered.
“IN THIS AND EVERY LIFE, I’D CHOOSE US EVERY TIME!” Rachel and I screamed in unison.
When the song ended, Rachel and I were both breathing heavily, like we had just completed a stadium tour.
Dante looked ready to drive us into oncoming traffic.
“That,” I said hoarsely, sinking back across the seat, “was healing.”
Rachel laughed under her breath and turned the volume down a notch. “He started it.”
“He always starts it,” Dante replied.
I smiled to myself, but it didn’t last.
Because as the car kept moving and the music softened and Rachel settled back into her seat, the buzz from the alcohol dipped just enough to let reality back in.
By the time we got back to the clubhouse, the bar was in full swing.
Music pounded through the walls before we even got through the door.
Laughter spilled out from the back room.
Someone let out a shriek that sounded more delighted than injured, which in this place meant very little.
The whole building pulsed with life, with noise, with warmth, with the kind of chaos most people might find exhausting and I normally found comforting.
Tonight, it felt like somewhere I could disappear.
Dante killed the engine and turned in his seat to look at me. “You staying here?”
“No,” I said automatically.
Rachel turned around, too. “Where are you going?”
I pushed the car door open and forced myself upright, the ground swaying only slightly beneath me. “To war.”
“You’re going to bed,” Dante corrected.
“To Gabriella,” I said instead, because what was the point in pretending?