Chapter 33
Marc
Ipulled my snuggle pillow tighter against me and lightly patted the bed in search of another body I already knew I wouldn’t find.
Grumbling to myself, I shoved the pillow I’d curled around toward the headrest and groggily sat up, then promptly dropped my head into my hands. Damn thing felt like it weighed a ton.
After a few seconds, I glanced at the nightstand, but instead of my phone, there was JD’s, dead as a brick.
That at least explained why part of me thought he should be in bed with me.
I flipped the covers back, briefly debating throwing on some shorts—and promptly dismissing it—before snagging his lifeless phone and heading out of the bedroom.
The second I opened the door, James smiled at me from behind the counter, and the fog shrouding my mind parted.
I swore I brightened like a sunflower turning to face the sun.
Setting aside my weird mood, I walked into the kitchen where all the caffeine goodness awaited.
And skimpy shorts, I was very pleased to note.
“Good morning,” I said, angling up for a kiss, and quite proud of myself for holding back from calling him honeysuckle, even if it meant I had to press my tongue against the back of my teeth to hold it in.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about holding it in for too long as James leaned down to graciously give me the kiss I was unashamedly asking for.
We were both smiling when he pulled back, and damn if that didn’t make my heart do all sorts of ridiculous things.
“Morning, baby boy. Sleep well?” he asked, passing me my coffee.
I set aside the dead device to accept the steaming cup and took a sip, then hummed in appreciation. Perfect. “Well enough,” I finally answered before taking another hearty drink of the divine goodness. Man really knew how to make a cup of coffee.
James chuckled. “Am I allowed to say I’m glad you’re letting me make you coffee again?”
I glanced up at him over the rim of my now nearly empty cup. Right, so that had been less than subtle. “Uhh…”
“How about we call it what it was?” I braced myself for the callout of my shitty behavior undoubtedly coming my way. “A really busy week, and you let me keep making you coffee when it makes sense,” he said, gently taking my cup to refill it.
I stared at him in disbelief as he poured the coffee and stirred sugar into the dark liquid. He was giving me a pass—which, okay, great and all—but why? I’d been a total asshole about it. My “pretending” to be okay hadn’t really been stellar. Then we’d gone out last night—
“Oh!” I snatched his phone from the counter.
“Yes?” He looked at me with such concern I nearly dropped the damn thing.
“Uh, seems you left this in the room? It’s dead now.
Thought you might want to plug it in.” I tilted my head and frowned as I reassessed what he was wearing and factored in the time on the microwave behind him.
It was early, but later than we typically went for a run.
Except his hair was kind of damp, like he had been for a run, and he was wearing my favorite skimpy shorts that he didn’t know were my favorite.
But he couldn’t have gone for a run because his phone was dead, and if he had, he’d have taken it and he’d have already showered.
And while I was on this rollercoaster going nowhere, why was his phone in the bedroom in the first place?
I didn’t remember us hooking up or even fooling around.
Not that I wouldn’t be one hundred percent down for it.
But I’d have definitely remembered… right?
“Marc? You look like you’ve got some serious thinky thoughts happening over there. Care to share?”
I met his worried gaze. “Why don’t I remember going to bed?” He licked his lips and, much as I didn’t want to name it, fear flickered behind his eyes, which had fear instantly licking up my insides. “James… what happened last night?”
“Why don’t we sit down?”
My fear crystallized. “Why don’t you tell me what happened first?”
He blew out a harsh breath. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
I wasn’t a fan of his counter-question, but I’d let him have it… for now. “We closed up the shop and then… then we drove to a restaurant out in the bayou.” I huffed a laugh. “A restaurant called Bayou’s Basin.”
“That’s good, baby boy. What else?” he prompted, gently running his hands over my arms.
“Umm.” Everything seemed clear up until that point, then things got fuzzy.
Let’s see, the restaurant had been totally kick ass—ten-outta-ten would be going again—and the red snapper was amazing, even the wine was pretty good and I wasn’t a wine guy.
“We ordered wine, a whole bottle.” I looked at JD with wide eyes as a possible explanation for my lack of memory came to me. “Holy shit, did I get roofied?”
His abrupt laugh and head shake should have put me at ease—you know, because I hadn’t been lowkey drugged—but the tightness around his eyes hadn’t diminished, nor had the shadow of fear lurking in their blue depths. “Do you remember anything else? Anything at all?”
“You’re really freaking me out, James.” His suggestion to sit down didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.
“I know, and I’m sorry about that. I really am.” His hands slid down my arms once more, but this time, instead of travelling back up, he laced his fingers with mine. “Any chance I could convince you to reconsider that seat?”
“Um, sure.”
Relief splashed across his face, and he leaned forward to press a quick kiss to my forehead. “Go ahead and have a seat. I’ll fix us each a fresh cup and join you in a moment. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered, already moving to comply.
As I sank into the sofa, I felt suspended between the verge of a total freakout and oddly okay because James was here and he wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
Upside, I wasn’t drugged, but something had clearly happened last night, and whatever had happened was enough to shake JD.
“There you go.” He passed me a fresh cup, though I was positive I’d never finished the second, and this one was in a to-go tumbler for some strange reason. “Were you able to remember anything else?”
I frowned at the tumbler before setting it on the coffee table. “Was there a pier at the restaurant?”
“There was. We walked onto it, chatted a little about you renaming or not renaming the flower shop.” His slight smile helped lift some of the heavy atmosphere that’d settled over the morning.
“We… made out?” My pause almost wasn’t even noticeable, but when his smile brightened significantly, I worried I might have given the wrong impression.
“I, uh, don’t actually remember. It just seemed like,” I ducked my head, not that it would help to hide the burning on my face he’d totally already seen, and cleared my throat, “a pretty safe bet.”
To his credit, his smile didn’t fall so much as become a little sadder. “It’s okay, Marc.”
“James, why can’t I remember anything? It’s just a big… big blank. I remember the restaurant—mostly—then it gets fuzzier and fuzzier until nothing.”
“Easy, baby boy. I need you to breathe.” His calm voice washed over me and I wanted to do what he said so badly, but somewhere between trying to remember and finding a black fucking hole, my brain started screaming.
I gulped for air, but it was as if my lungs had forgotten how to expand, which, of course, only made me panic more. “James,” I pushed out, the sound so pitiful it was a wonder it was audible.
“I’m going to touch you, okay?” His hand came into my periphery, and I nodded vigorously.
He placed it on my chest and mirrored the movement by taking my hand and placing it on his.
“I want you to breathe with me. Feel how the air expands my chest. Hear the sound it makes. Just breathe in and breathe out. Nice and slow.”
My breathing was mostly back to normal when I shoved James’s hand out of the way and moved to sit on his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck and straddling him. “Is this okay?” I mumbled into the side of his neck.
He released a shaky breath, then tentatively wrapped his arms completely around me and held tight. “Whatever you need, baby boy. Whatever you need. Green all the way.”
I relaxed more heavily against him and focused on the sound of our heartbeats syncing up like our breaths had. “What happened?”
He gave my body a brief squeeze, then began rubbing my back.
“We went out to Bayou’s Basin, where we split a bottle of wine and neither of us was roofied.
Afterward, we walked out onto this little pier they had lined with twinkle lights.
All the way to the end, so it felt like it was just us and nature. ”
I could almost picture it. There was still a hazy quality to it, though. “Sounds romantic,” I commented without thinking. “Then what?”
“We talked a little about the name of the shop. You’re still on the fence and beating yourself up about not considering it sooner, even though you shouldn’t.
” I huffed into the side of his neck, but he stoutly ignored my interruption.
“You guessed right that we ended up making out. When that got a little out of hand, we opted to come back to the apartment. You were a tease the whole way back.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” I inserted cheekily.
He made a sound in his throat that said he didn’t buy that for one second. “Anyway, we got back, somehow made it up the stairs without dying.” I snickered because I could all too easily imagine what that had probably looked like. “Then...” His voice faltered and his hands stalled.
I tried to pull away enough to look at him, but he wrapped me tighter. “Then what, James?”
“Then I fucked up,” he said thickly.
“I don’t think—”