Chapter 16 #2
I blink, and she’s gone, and the chair has moved and is between me and the door to the kittens again, and I just want to hug a kitten .
Theo angles into view.
He’s blurry, but I’m pretty sure he’s a deer in the headlights. And god knows I’ve seen deer in headlights.
And now pigs in headlights.
“I cry when I’m too drunk,” I sob. “I’m okay. I’m fine. I’ll be okay when I sober up. Tomorrrrroooooooowwww .”
“You wanna hold a kitten?”
“ Yeessssssss .”
“Do you need me to carry you there?”
I am not drunk enough to give him the incorrect answer, but I hear it come out of my mouth on another sob anyway. “ Yeeesssss .”
Okay.
Maybe I’m that drunk.
This has happened maybe four times in my life. Because I’m boring .
I can’t see Blurry Theo well enough to know if he’s still watching me like I’m a wounded mountain lion or if he’s looking forward to touching me again.
“I want to be fun like you,” I wail. “I want to drink without crying. I want to live . I don’t want to feel dirty and wrong and in trouble because I had a reaction to your body in the car.”
He doesn’t say anything while he lifts my arm and puts it behind his neck.
I can’t see him at all. He’s just a big blob of light brown hair and sun-kissed white skin. And solid warmth lifting me like I’m a china doll.
“Am I over your shoulder?” I ask.
“No.”
“I feel like I’m upside down.”
“That’s because your underwear is always too tight. Push the door handle if you want to see the kittens.”
He’s carrying me.
Theo Monroe, the bane of my existence in my school years, is carrying me into a room of kittens because I’m crying because I’m drunk.
“Why are you nice?”
“Because I like to like myself.”
He kicks the door shut behind us while a chorus of teeny-tiny meows goes up.
“They’re so cute,” I cry.
My eyes won’t open wide enough to let me see them. No matter how hard I try, I can’t pry my eyelids open far enough to see all the cuteness. Plus, Theo keeps making noises like I’m not supposed to squirm.
I can feel them against my chest. It’s like a nipple-tickling rumble.
But only one nipple.
Just the nipple closest to him.
“Why are you attractive?” I ask.
“Because I’m secretly a god sent down from Mount Olympus to test all of the women to see who’ll look past this awesome exterior to the super cool dude inside.”
I pry my eyelids wider apart and almost poke myself in the eye as I start to laugh while I’m still crying. “ I can’t see. ”
He heaves a sigh, sets me down, and then suddenly lightning flashes in all corners of the room.
“ Stop ,” I cry. “No thunderstorms! Make it—oh. Oh .”
He turned on the lights.
That’s why I couldn’t see. The lights were off.
It wasn’t my eyeballs.
“I’m so dumb,” I wail.
Theo takes my hand, turns it palm-up, and deposits a soft, fluffy, furry body into it before walking away.
I hiccup.
I am never drinking again. This is mortifying.
And if it’s mortifying while I’m drunk, I cannot even imagine how I’ll feel in the morning.
“Hi, kitty,” I whisper unevenly through the sobs that I’m desperately trying to stop.
“That’s Snaggleclaw,” he says from somewhere else in the room.
“ You named him after Snaggletooth ?”
“She named herself.”
This one.
I am stealing this kitty. She’s purring in my hand and her name is Snaggleclaw and I just dropped a tear into her fur, so she’s mine.
Theo returns and squats in front of me.
“More kitties?” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he wipes my face with a soft, damp cloth.
My whole face puckers. “Don’t be nice to me.”
“Been here a few times myself, Laney. You’ll pull through.”
“I said, don’t be nice to me.”
“If you want Asshole Theo, I wrestled him mostly into submission a few years back. Nice Theo is all that’s left. Personality flaw. Apologies, princess.”
He wipes the cloth over my cheeks again. It’s warm but not too warm. I can smell him too. Clean soap with a touch of salt and mystery.
“I liked you too but I wasn’t allowed to,” I whisper from behind closed eyelids.
“You’re a grown-ass woman. You can do anything you want.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I want to but I don’t know hoooooow .”
Snaggleclaw squirms in my hand, digging her little claws into my palm like pinpricks that startle me back to exactly where I am and exactly what I’m doing.
“Oh, god,” I whisper. “I made trouble for Emma.”
“Emma enjoyed the hell out of watching you have fun.”
My head hurts, and my dress is falling off.
My dress is falling off .
“That’s not how you do it, Jellybean.” Theo stops wiping my face. There’s another tug on my skirt, and then I have two kittens in my hands and my dress is no longer falling off. “Pet the kitties, Laney. They need you.”
“They need me.”
“Yep. They need you.”
He brushes the washcloth over my face one last time, and I close my eyes and lean into the cool sensation. My sobs are finally subsiding.
Yep.
Gonna be mortified tomorrow.
But not right now.
Right now, I just feel heavy. Rooted to this chair, but also light on top.
Clear.
Free.
Clean.
Happy .
It’s the alcohol. I shouldn’t drink. I shouldn’t drink ever .
But maybe it’s not all the alcohol.
Maybe it’s Theo too.
The kittens. His smile. His gentle touch.
Why can’t I be happy?
Why can’t I just choose to be happy?
“Can’t sleep in here,” he says quietly. “They’ll keep you up all night, and you’ll have to explain a bunch of scratches to Emma.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
“Laney.”
“Shh. This is just a dream. A very, very bad dream.”
“What makes it a bad dream?”
“Emma’s marrying Chandler and they think you’re the bad guy.”
“What’s wrong with Emma marrying Chandler?”
“She deserves somebody who asked her five years ago.”
“Who asked her five years ago?”
“Nobody. But he should’ve. And he didn’t. He doesn’t have balls.”
“You have photographic evidence of that?”
I smile behind my eyelids.
Theo is funny.
“Why did he make her wait so long?” I ask Theo.
“No idea.”
“Does he make her happy?”
“Fucking better.”
“Fucking better,” I agree.
Theo chuckles.
It’s warm and rumbly and it makes my belly tingle. And that’s not just the kitty cats on my lap.
They’re warm and rumbly and making my thighs tingle.
Not my belly.
Only Theo’s chuckle makes my belly tingle.
“Kitty time’s over, Laney,” Theo says quietly. “C’mon. I’ll put you to bed.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because drunk Laney likes you.”
“Sober Theo will keep his distance.”
“Drunk Laney doesn’t want you to.”
“Drunk Laney will thank me in the morning.”