19. Chapter Nineteen #2
His eyes dropped to my mouth. "Neither do you."
"I'm not."
"No?"
"No."
"Then why did you give the bartender a fake number?"
My spine stiffened. "You don't know it was fake."
"Yes, I do."
"How?"
"Because the last four digits were 6969."
The bartender coughed. I closed my eyes for one second. Finn would never let me live.
Evan leaned closer, voice dropping low enough that no one else could hear. "You always think you're better at pretending than you are."
"And you always think noticing me gives you rights."
That wiped the almost-smile off his face. He stepped back, not far enough. The space between us filled with bar noise. The jukebox switched songs. Someone cheered near the mechanical bull. Harper shouted something that sounded like a threat or a toast.
Evan looked at me, and for a second all the fight fell out of his expression.
"I'm not trying to own you, Lila."
I swallowed hard. Wrong answer, right answer, too-late answer.
"Could've fooled me."
He nodded once, like he deserved that. Then he looked over my shoulder. His face changed.
I turned. Tyler had returned, because apparently self-preservation was dead and buried under the mechanical bull.
"You okay?" Tyler asked me.
Evan's body went still beside mine.
I should have said yes and walked away. Instead, I smiled at Tyler.
"Dance with me."
Finn, from somewhere behind him, muttered, "Oh, this is a felony now."
Tyler looked delighted. Poor idiot.
I let him lead me toward the tiny patch of floor near the jukebox, where the blonde in silver still lingered with her friends. Evan didn't stop me. He didn't have to. I could feel him watching. Every step, every stupid sway, every time Tyler's hand hovered too close to my waist and I let it.
I looked over once. Evan stood at the bar, drink untouched, jaw set, eyes on me. The blonde said something to him. He answered without looking at her.
That should have satisfied me. It didn't. Because now I was dancing with a man I didn't want to punish a man I did, and there is no version of that sentence that makes anyone sound sane.
By the end of the night, I had graduated from buzzed to absolutely not in possession of the steering wheel.
The jealousy war had gone nowhere good. Evan signed a girl's collarbone.
I took a selfie with Tyler's arm around my shoulders.
Evan let the blonde whisper in his ear. I told the bartender he had "nice beverage energy.
" Finn tried to mediate by ordering mozzarella sticks and loudly announcing that carbohydrates were the only ethical third party.
Harper won twenty dollars arm-wrestling a man named Dale.
Tour bonding, apparently.
Eventually the room tilted in a way I did not appreciate.
"Okay," Finn said, appearing beside me. "The queen has reached pumpkin mode."
"I am fine."
"You are holding a mozzarella stick like a microphone."
"Anything is a microphone if you try hard enough."
Evan was there before I saw him move. "I've got her."
Finn looked at him. For one second, the whole drunk universe paused.
"Do you?" Finn asked.
The question was not about walking. Evan heard it. So did I, even through the vodka fog.
His eyes stayed on Finn's. "Yeah."
Finn glanced at me. I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring nod. Based on his face, it may have looked like a minor exorcism.
"Fine," Finn said. "But if she cries, pukes, or starts reciting lyrics, text me."
"I can hear you," I said.
"Good. Hydrate."
Evan's hand hovered near my elbow, not touching yet. Consent even when I was drunk enough to consider mozzarella a sentient ally. Annoying, respectful, annoying because it was respectful.
"You okay if I help you?" he asked.
"Finn, I already said yes."
"I'm asking you."
"Yes," I said.
His hand settled lightly at my elbow. "Okay. Let's go."
"Can you believe what a jerk he was, Finn?" I slurred, leaning heavily against Evan's shoulder five minutes later in the hotel elevator.
Evan looked down at me. "Who was a jerk, Lila? One of the guys you were dirty dancing on?"
"Evan, obviously."
His mouth twitched, then flattened.
"He's such a jerk," I said. "Throwing his hotness in my face like it's not a public safety concern."
"Public safety concern?"
"Yes. Girls want him. They'd want him even if he weren't famous. But nooo, he has that whole broody rock-star-with-abs thing going. And that lip ring. Ugh. Like girls see him and wonder things, you know? And don't even get me started on the rumor about his other piercing."
Evan stared at the elevator doors. "Lila, you started that rumor. Anonymously."
"How do you know that, Finn?"
"I'm not Finn. And honestly, it's concerning you can't tell that."
"Whatever." I swayed, and he caught me with a hand at my waist. "It's true, by the way. And ugh, the feeling of it."
"Jesus."
"Do you think I'll ever find anyone like that again?"
His hand tightened for half a second, then eased.
"Lila."
"He played my body like an instrument," I said sadly. "A slutty instrument."
A noise escaped him that was half laugh, half pain. "You get horny when you're drunk."
"I am a complex woman."
"You are a drunk woman with a vendetta against my sanity."
"Evan's sanity."
"My sanity."
I squinted up at him. The elevator doors opened.
"You look like Evan," I said.
"Yeah. I get that a lot."
I gasped. "Don't say that. He says that."
"I know."
"Oh no." I grabbed his hoodie. "Did I summon you?"
"Unfortunately."
"I have to puke."
That announcement ended the conversation with excellent efficiency.
Evan got me into my hotel room and then the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before the night made its dramatic exit.
Evan didn't leave. He knelt beside me, pulled my hair back, and rubbed circles between my shoulders while I made noises no woman should ever make in front of her ex unless she wanted to be legally barred from romance.
"I hate this," I groaned.
"I bet."
"I hate you."
"I know."
"I don't." My forehead rested on my arm against the toilet seat, which was disgusting, but dignity had left with the mozzarella stick microphone. "I don't hate you."
His hand stilled for half a second, then kept moving. "You should drink water."
"Bossy."
"Currently necessary."
He helped me rinse my mouth, got me sitting on the closed toilet lid, handed me water, made me take Tylenol after I squinted suspiciously at the pills like he might be trying to poison me with responsible choices.
Then he helped me to bed. The room spun less when I lay down, which felt like a miracle performed by cheap hotel carpet and poor decisions.
He set a trash can beside the bed. Water on the nightstand. My phone plugged into the charger. Shoes off. Blanket pulled up. Gentle, efficient, familiar in a way that made my chest hurt even through the alcohol.
I blinked up at him. The bedside lamp made his face blurry around the edges.
"Finn?"
Evan sighed. "Still not Finn."
"Oh."
He sat on the edge of the mattress, careful to leave space. "Go to sleep, Lila."
"I still love him," I whispered.
The room went quiet. Even the air conditioner seemed to reconsider participating.
"Love who?" he asked softly.
"Evan."
His hand tightened around the water bottle.
"I still love him," I said again, because drunk me apparently had zero loyalty to my survival instincts. "I wish I could get over him, but what if I never can?"
He looked down at me. I wouldn't remember the look clearly later. Only pieces. His mouth opening, then closing. His eyes too bright. His thumb rubbing once over the water bottle label until it wrinkled.
"He still loves you too," he said before he could stop himself.
It was selfish. He knew it the second it left his mouth. I didn't know how I knew that. Maybe because I knew him. Maybe because drunk me was weirdly psychic. Maybe because love made ghosts out of common sense.
I reached for his sleeve and missed the first time. He shifted closer so I could catch it.
"Don't tell him, okay?" I whispered. "I can't let him know."
His face broke in some quiet place. "Okay," he said.
I closed my eyes.
The next time I opened them, morning was attacking me through the curtains. I groaned, shielding my eyes from the sun like a vampire with unpaid debts. My mouth tasted like cranberry regret and fried cheese.
I stumbled into the small hotel kitchenette where Finn sat at the counter with a smoothie and a very satisfied smirk.
"Finn," I croaked. "Thanks for taking care of me last night."
He blinked. "What are you talking about?"
I froze. His smirk widened.
"I went home with that couple from the bar," he said. "Pretty sure what we did last night means I'm married in certain countries."
My blood ran cold. "What?"
Harper, sitting at the tiny table with sunglasses on and a coffee clutched in both hands, muttered, "He brought them back at four. I threatened legal action."
Finn looked proud. "They loved you."
"They feared me."
"Same thing if you're charming."
I gripped the edge of the counter. "Then who took me home last night?" I swallowed. "Who did I tell everything to?"
Right on cue, because the universe had a taste for slapstick cruelty, Evan walked in holding two coffee cups.
"Hey," he said, casually. Like he had not held my hair while I worshipped the porcelain Gods. Like I had not confessed my entire heart to him while mistaking him for Finn. Like I didn't mention his piercing.
"How are you feeling?"
I stared at him. He held out one of the cups. "Coffee. Two sugars. How you like it."
I took it because my body needed caffeine more than my pride needed dignity. My fingers brushed his. He did not smirk, did not tease, did not say a single thing about last night.
That almost made it worse.
I couldn't take this anymore. How did he act like he was okay?
How did he get up there and perform songs about us, look at me like that, play private songs in public, smile at other women, take care of me like nothing had happened, and stand here with coffee like he was not slowly dismantling me one kindness at a time?
Maybe I hurt him first. But he hit harder. And it was prolonged.
I looked down at the coffee cup. Two sugars, exactly right. Of course he remembered. My chest went hot with anger because heartbreak had too many entrances and I was tired of guarding all of them.
"Thanks," I said. My voice sounded calm, that was new.
Evan's gaze sharpened. He heard it too.
I lifted the coffee, took one sip, then set it down.
"But I've got work to do."
Finn's smirk faded. "Lila."
I ignored him, because I had an idea. One that would make Evan feel exactly what I was feeling every night.
I left the kitchenette, grabbed my notebook from my bag, and shut myself in the bedroom.
This time, I wasn't going to cry over one of his songs.
I was going to write back.