Chapter 2
Chapter Two
August
A s Paisley fell into my arms, I had to wonder exactly how I had gotten there.
Then again, this seemed my lot in life. The one time I left my house to go on a date and enjoy myself, life literally fell into my hands. The memory I couldn’t escape blinked up at me, wondering what the hell it had missed.
And of all the bars in Colorado, of all the honky-tonks I could have gone to, of course my ex-wife had to be in this one.
The sarcasm slid through me quickly, even as I wrapped my arms around Paisley’s shoulders and side, keeping her close to me before she could hit her head on the floor.
I wasn’t about to let her get a concussion because I let her fall to the ground.
Of course, at the time when I had been angry over the world and had seen her again for the first time after so many years of not wanting to, maybe I would have been a little slower to catch her.
No, that was a damn lie.
Because the only person that was going to hurt Paisley…was me. And that was only emotionally. I would never actually let anything touch her.
Including the goddamn floor.
“Paisley?” I asked, pulling her up so she stood in front of me, blinking slowly.
“Oh. It’s you. That sounds about right. Of course it’s you .”
Dakota moved forward, placing her hand on my arm—her soft curves pressed against my side.
“Are you okay, miss? Let’s get you some water. August? Can you keep hold of her? I’ll go get her something to drink.”
“You’re really nice,” Paisley said, her voice only slightly high-pitched. She wasn’t even slurring. And if you didn’t know her, you wouldn’t realize that her words were coming out a little too quickly, a little too energetically.
Paisley Cassidy Renee was drunk off her ass.
I looked over her head, scanning the crowds to see if anyone was coming for her, but other than the few people who had given her a look of either concern or a roll of an eye that she had tripped and nearly fallen, nobody was even paying attention to our little tableau.
“Did you fucking come here alone?” I barked, and Paisley just lifted that chin of hers, a gesture I used to find sexy as hell, but now just saw the disdain and brokenness in it.
“I’m an adult, August.”
Dakota looked between us, confused. “You two know each other?”
“She’s a friend of my family’s,” I answered, not quite a lie.
Paisley just snorted, as Dakota smiled wanly. “I’m going to go get that water now.”
I held back my sigh, aggravated over circumstances I couldn’t change. “We have a couple bottles in the car. Let’s just get her home.”
Dakota stared at me for a moment, before nodding. “You’re right. That would probably be smarter. And honestly, the line is getting long. You have your purse?” she asked the woman in my arms. Dakota was so freaking nice—which helped in her job and why we’d gotten along so well, but I knew she’d have questions for me about this little encounter I didn’t want to answer.
Paisley nodded, before looking as if she regretted the action. “I do. Thank you. That is kind of you.”
My date smiled wanly. “No problem at all. Come on, let’s get you home.”
“No, I was just going to call a car. You guys can enjoy your date. I shouldn’t be out any longer.”
My arms tightened around Paisley, before forcing myself to relax marginally. She was still swaying, so I didn’t let her go completely, and thankfully Dakota didn’t look as if she minded.
Oh, this was a great date with my current girlfriend. One where I was literally holding my ex-wife up before she fell on her face because she’d had too much to drink.
Where the hell was her husband?
I gritted my teeth at that thought, hating the fact that she even had a husband. Though I didn’t know why it should bother me.
Paisley and I were exes for a reason. A reason I didn’t want to think about.
“I’m okay. I’m just going to call someone.”
“Let us help. We don’t mind.” Dakota smiled, before reaching to take Paisley’s hand. “Think you can walk?”
“Yes. Sorry. I was doing fine, until I sort of spun a little too quickly. The ceiling isn’t spinning anymore.”
I reluctantly let go of Paisley as she held my girlfriend’s hand, and the two of them walked toward the door.
“You’re really pretty though. And nice.”
Paisley was drunk. It wasn’t that she wasn’t complimentary. In fact, she was genuinely a nice person. She just wasn’t so gushing usually, so outspoken socially like this. I didn’t think I had ever seen Paisley this drunk, at least not since we had both been eighteen, and in college, drinking Smirnoff Ices behind the club.
That was a memory nobody needed to have on hand.
“You’re very pretty as well. And I think you’re nice too. Come on, August’s SUV is over here.”
“So you got rid of the truck?” Paisley asked, as Dakota gave me a look.
I sighed and followed the two women through the parking lot.
“A few months ago. It had over a hundred thousand miles on it and was getting too expensive to keep up. So this is my new pride and joy. An SUV. Look at me, an adult.”
I had bought it new since used prices right now were astronomical, and it made more sense to just buy new, even with a loan.
I wasn’t like Paisley who would probably snap her fingers and buy three Mercedes SUVs without even worrying about her bank account. Hell, even both of my brothers could probably buy a car without stressing as much. But I was a high school chemistry teacher. I didn’t really know what not worrying about money felt like. I had student debt, a decently paying job, at least decently as far as being a teacher. And I was nothing like the millionaire businesswoman and tycoon in front of me.
No, I was much more like Dakota, the high school English teacher who made me laugh, made me smile, and made me think about things that I hadn’t thought about in a while.
Dakota was safe.
Paisley was not.
And why the hell was I even thinking about comparing the two? It wasn’t fair to either one of them. Dakota was nice. She always had a kind thing to say about someone, could recite song lyrics from every Top 100 song from her senior year in high school, and could outrace most people if there were coupons involved. She was also one of the most caring people I knew. Hell, she was helping a drunk woman I clearly had some connection to while we were supposed to have been on our date.
It was the one night a week where we didn’t worry about grading papers or parent-teacher conferences or what the administration wanted us to do. Instead we would go out, dance, eat, and then come home and make love before going to our separate houses. Because we didn’t live together and worked far too many hours, we couldn’t spend too much time together, but it was something. It was steady.
My brothers and my sister each had marriages that worked and were starting families that thrived. They had lives that didn’t revolve around me, and I was grateful for it. They had a steadiness that just made sense. And I didn’t know if the kind of life they were living was exactly for me. After all I had been the first one of us to get married, and the first one of us to go down in flames. And I didn’t want to be like my parents.
My parents were the epitome of selfishness. They had been married to each other not once, but twice. And they had gotten divorced the same number of times. Now they were together again, having dated each other this time for over two years. They had broken up a few times within those two years, but as far as I could tell, this was the longest they had been actively together without being married.
I had a feeling it had more to do with the grandkids than anything. They never cared about what they did to my siblings and me, they only cared about each other. Whether it was love, hate, or anything in-between.
After all, every time they had gotten divorced when we were kids, they had split the family up. And not in a way that made any sense.
No, they had decided to Parent Trap us. Dad had taken me and my brothers, and Mom had taken Greer, our sister. So for years at a time we didn’t get to live with Greer. We barely got to see her, and visitation meant our parents got to see the other kid—or kids—but they rarely brought us along.
So when Greer had moved out to Colorado to start over with her best friend, falling in love with not one, but two men in the process, we Cassidy brothers had followed. We had watched her walk down the aisle and marry the two loves of her life, and we had been there for her.
Now all four siblings lived in Denver and had created a family and connection we hadn’t been able to enjoy in our younger years because of how our parents acted in the past.
I pulled myself from the memory and looked on as Paisley and Dakota were talking to one another—Dakota being patient and Paisley doing her best to be the same despite the booze in her system.
“I’m really okay. I can just call a rideshare.”
“No, August is going to take you home.”
“He is nice like that. Sometimes.” Paisley rolled her eyes, and nearly fell again. I reached out and gripped her hips, keeping her steady. But the moment I touched her, something familiar washed over me, and I set her straight again before dropping my hands.
“You’re swaying, I’m not letting you get in some stranger’s car.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Yes, because you’re making so many good decisions right now.”
“August, why don’t you take care of her, and I will head home. You’ve got this. And I don’t want her to be embarrassed by having a stranger watch over her.”
I turned to Dakota, confused. “What do you mean? You’re going to leave me with her?” Why did I sound so panicked right then?
“Take her home. I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay? We can grade papers together.” She went to her tiptoes and kissed me softly, her hands on my chest.
I kissed her back, oddly confused what was going on, before she pulled away and waved, and got into her car which she had parked next to mine. We were supposed to be dancing right now, before heading to her house, enjoying the night, and then I would head home. It’s what we did.
But of course, my poor decision changed everything.
“She’s truly pleasant,” Paisley said, before sighing and resting her head on my passenger-side window.
With a groan, I got Paisley in the car and buckled her in. She looked slightly green, and I certainly hoped the hell she didn’t vomit in my new car. I closed the car door, and she pressed her head to the glass, snoring through the window.
What the hell had gotten into her? Why weren’t my sisters-in-law with her? Because of course my ex-wife would become best friends with the two women my brothers had married. Hell, she even hung out with Greer, even though they also had a past since everything having to do with my family seemed to be complicated. Nothing made any sense anymore, and I was way too confused right then.
I got into my seat, turned the car around, and realized that I had no idea where my ex-wife lived. I could investigate her little purse on her wrist, and hope for the best, but hell, I wasn’t in the mood to figure it out.
“I guess you’re coming home with me,” I grumbled, and pulled out of the parking lot.
Paisley slept the entire way, snoring loudly—something she only did when she was sick or stuffy headed. The only times I had seen her drunk in the past, I had been equally as such so I hadn’t noticed before.
Hell, something was wrong. I probably should call Addison or Devney, my sisters-in-law. They might know. They could probably handle this for me. If I had been a smart man, I would’ve just dropped her off at one of my brothers’ houses and washed my hands of it. But no, they were probably doing the things that new dads did, and spending time with their families. They had lives, lives that didn’t need to involve me, or me literally foisting my problems onto them.
With a sigh, I made my way to my house, took the Herculean effort of getting Paisley out of the SUV, still woozy, and got her inside. When she made a hiccupping sound, I cursed and picked her up, cradling her to my chest, before dashing to the nearest bathroom.
I set her down in front of the toilet as she emptied her stomach.
Cursing, I pulled her hair back from her face, not liking how clammy she felt.
She heaved mostly liquid into the basin, and I let go of her only for enough time for me to get a washcloth and soak it with cold water. When I pressed it to her forehead, then the back of her neck, she let out a groan that was a little too familiar.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” I grumbled.
This wasn’t exactly how I thought I’d be spending my date night—helping my sick ex-wife empty the contents of her stomach. Contents that seemed to be just alcohol.
“Did you not eat?” I snapped.
“I meant to. I just wanted to forget.”
Forget what?
But I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t want to know anything else about Paisley. Because if I did, every single regret would come back, and I didn’t have it in me to breathe through those anymore.
When she got sick again, I took care of her, and when it seemed like she was finally done, I used another washcloth to wash her face, and then I carried her to the guest room.
With a sigh, I stripped her out of her clothes, not because of anything nefarious, but because I knew she wouldn’t want to sleep in them, no matter how tight those jeans were. And she probably felt as disgusting as I felt just then.
She helped me pull on one of my old shirts over her head, and a pair of old shorts that barely stayed tight around her waist. She drunkenly stumbled into bed, and I tucked her in, pushing her hair back from her face again.
“I’m going to get you some water, and some ibuprofen. Okay?”
“I’m sorry.”
I frowned, pulling back. “What for?”
She licked her dry lips, her eyes filling with tears before she did the most Paisley thing ever and blinked away any sense of sadness. “I’m sorry for ruining your night.”
I shook my head, annoyed with myself. “It seems like you wanted to do that on your own first. At least to yourself.”
She pressed her lips together, and I was afraid I had been too mean just then, but I didn’t know what else to say. Instead she blinked again and swallowed hard. “I just wanted to be somebody else. Just this once.”
That didn’t make any sense to me. Paisley was remarkable. Despite the fact that we fought all the time, she was a powerhouse. And I loved watching her soar. She was brilliant, amazing, and married .
“Why, Paise?”
She was silent for so long I thought she had fallen asleep, but then she opened her eyes, and I sighed. “Why do you want to be someone else?”
“Because nobody wants to stay when I’m me. Maybe they’ll stay if I’m someone else.”
And then she closed her eyes, and promptly fell asleep, her words daggers right in my fucking heart.