Chapter 20
PEYTON
Avery
Any chance you can give me a lift home?
To say the text startled me would be an understatement. As much as Avery and I had tried to iron things out, the air between us hadn’t been the same. Now he was texting me? Jesus, how many of the other guys weren’t responding or weren’t available that he had to resort to reaching out to me?
Either way, I was up off my couch and heading for the parking lot even as I wrote him back.
On my way. Where are you?
He responded with the name of what looked like a club and a downtown address. I punched it into the GPS, then told him I’d be there in about twenty minutes. No response, though he did read the message.
There was a good chance I’d be there in less than twenty, and not just because traffic was light at this hour. I had no doubt he was drunk, but was there more going on? Did something bad happen? Why did he need me of all people to come get him at 12:30 in the morning?
I tapped my thumbs on the wheel as the engine whined, and I prayed there weren’t any speed traps between here and there. I needed to get to that club immediately and make sure Avery was okay.
I doubted he was okay. I just didn’t know how bad he was.
After the tribute to Erlandsson on his birthday last night, I’d known it was only a matter of time.
Oh, Avery had tried to hide it. He’d tried to stay strong, and he’d played his balls off the whole night.
In the locker room, he’d been his usual chatty, chirping self, even if he’d been bummed by the loss, but I’d seen right through it.
I’d seen how much he was forcing it; how the fatigue would crack through when he didn’t think anyone was looking.
Or maybe I was projecting because I was so convinced he had a problem.
Maybe I saw something that wasn’t there, and he was just being responsible tonight and getting a ride because he’d had too much to drink.
Maybe he’d gone with someone and they’d bailed, so he needed a Plan B.
Maybe it was a complete coincidence that this was just hours after he’d missed practice this morning. After he’d allegedly been sick.
I wouldn’t know until I got there.
So I floored the gas and got there as fast as humanly possible.
I drove up to the front of the building first just to make sure I knew where it was before I went and parked. I fully expected to then go into the club and find Avery a staggering, slurring mess like he’d been that night in the hotel bar.
To my surprise, though, he was waiting outside, leaning against the wall and looking at his phone.
When I pulled up to the curb, he glanced up, and he immediately pushed himself off the wall and crossed over to the car.
As he moved, he was definitely intoxicated, but he was more or less steady on his feet.
As he dropped into the passenger seat, he didn’t look at me. “Thanks. I, um… I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it.” I pulled away from the curb onto the mostly deserted street.
As I eased to a stop at a traffic light, I turned to him.
God, it was mind-blowing how someone could look so good and so terrible at the same time.
The snug jeans and dark blue shirt clung to his sculpted body like a dream.
He’d styled his hair into an artful version of the messiness that was usually left after he took off his helmet.
That man had come here looking to get laid, no doubt about it.
But his face… Jesus Christ, he just looked lost. He stared straight ahead, his beautiful eyes dim and his shoulders slouched a little beneath his jacket.
“You okay?” I asked.
When he spoke, somehow his voice came out both flat and slurred. “Yeah. I’m just too drunk to drive.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, alternately glancing at him and looking for the freeway onramp. Once I was accelerating onto I-279, I asked, “Why are you this drink?”
I braced for him to snap at me and tell me to mind my own damn business. Instead, all I got was a tired, “I’m just in a bad space tonight. I—” He cut himself off, and I was about to press for more, but then he murmured, “I came here because I didn’t want to be alone.”
My stomach dropped. Oh, shit. He’d been drinking and trying to hook up while he was depressed. That had a habit of not ending well.
Avery exhaled. “What?”
“What?”
“You’ve got that look on your face.” He twisted toward me, leaning against the door, and the words came out sharp-edged this time: “Let me guess—you’re worried about me, and you think I’m a jackass who can’t hold his liquor.”
It took a lot of work to keep my voice and expression neutral. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
The laugh that escaped his lips was near-silent, but still dry and caustic. “I haven’t been all right since August.”
Ooh. I wasn’t surprised—I’d known Leif’s death was at the root of most everything going on with Avery—but I was startled to hear him make the connection. Or at least acknowledge it.
Pressing back against the seat this time, he chuckled, but it was a heartbreakingly brittle sound. “Christ. Leif is probably laughing his ass off somewhere right now.”
I glanced at him. “Why’s that?”
“He was so sure I was going to end up hooking up with you.” Avery pressed his elbow beneath the window and rubbed his forehead. “Bet he never thought I could blow it like this.”
I damn near swerved. What the hell? Was I hearing what I thought I was hearing? Or was it just wishful thinking? He was, after all, drunk.
Just like he’d been in Detroit. When he’d kissed me.
Kissing me once was a drunken lapse in judgment. Blurting out that he thought he’d blown it with me—that he’d thought there was anything to blow—was a pattern.
Was…
Was Avery Caldwell into me the way I was into him?
I chewed my lip, driving silently for a mile or so. Then I decided, what the hell, and I said, “You haven’t blown it.”
“Hmm?”
I glanced at him, and I found him watching me, brow furrowed as if he were struggling to understand me. Facing the road again, I quietly repeated, “You haven’t blown it. With me.”
“I…” The leather seat creaked as he shifted. “I haven’t?”
“No. You’re…” I tapped my thumbs rapidly on the wheel. “I like you, Avery. A lot. And yes, I’m attracted to you. I… have been for a long time. And I still am.”
The response to that was silence.
Long silence.
Conspicuously long silence.
I hazarded a glance at him.
And then my heart dropped—he was asleep.
Probably passed the hell out.
I laughed to myself and shook my head as I kept driving. Eh, maybe it was just as well. This probably wasn’t the best time or place to be pouring my heart out to him. Now was definitely not the time for us to be doing anything about this apparently mutual attraction.
I’d just… wanted him to know. I couldn’t completely explain why. Because he’d been so heartbreakingly vulnerable in that moment? Because he was just so deep in depression and despair that I wanted to give him hope of something?
I didn’t know.
But it didn’t matter anyway.
Because he was passed the hell out beside me.