Chapter 26
LUCY
Iwas drunk.
Not tipsy. Not toasted. Completely, utterly, floor- spinning-around, forget-my-own-name, happy-loud-funny-sad, drunk.
I was also at a bar in the middle of Nowheresville, New York, somewhere between the Finger Lakes and the city, without much cell service, or more than ten dollars and a very easily traceable credit card to my name.
I was an idiot, but I was having fun.
I mean, I was pretending to have fun.
Was I?
Right.
The guys on either side of me were clearly having fun. They’d started out buying me shots, then moved in closer, then closer still, playing it easy and lowkey at first as they asked me questions about myself.
Then the flirting started.
Then the touching.
I usually wasn’t this fucking stupid, but I was too drunk and pissed off to resist when one stroked the skin above my shorts and under my jersey, and the other rested a hand on my bare thigh.
I felt sick, disloyal, I didn’t want their hands on me, the man whose hands I wanted probably had them on someone else by now. And if I thought about Coach and Alison on that date, I’d either scream or puke.
So instead of ripping their hands off me, I sat and laughed at their dumb jokes while the room spun and I tried not to vomit all over the peanut-shell-covered bar floor.
“You okay, honey?” the bartender asked me for probably the fourth time that night, eyeing my empty shot glasses and my unwelcome companions.
Oh god, no.
I was going to puke.
“Nope,” I announced, practically falling off the barstool and not saying a word to either man as I passed them and headed down the hallway.
I barely made it to the bathroom before I was retching in the toilet, everything—all the alcohol, all my helpless anger, my loneliness and yearning—going straight into the toilet.
I think I puked tears, too, if that was a thing.
Because the alcohol had failed to fill in the hole in my chest where my heart had been, the heart that Coach had ripped out and stepped all over when he told Alison they were going to be late for their reservation.
When I was done vomiting—and believe me, it took a while before I got all of that sickness and sadness out—I felt marginally better.
Marginally.
I stood, shaky and lightheaded but at least planted on a solid ground, and made my way over to the sink. I washed my hands, rinsed out my mouth, and splashed water all over my splotchy, rose-hued face.
“What the fuck are you doing, Lucy?” I asked my reflection. “How did you sink this low?”
My reflection didn’t have an answer. She just looked confused. Disappointed. Broken. She didn’t want to have this conversation with me, she wanted to be back in Coach’s arms.
“Well tough luck, buttercup,” I told my reflection. “He doesn’t want us, and we know better than to go where we’re not wanted, don’t we?”
Time to blow this popsicle stand. I was in no shape to drive—I knew that much—so I’d have to sleep in Blake’s car for the night.
I grimaced. He was going to kill me when he realized I’d committed grand theft auto and stolen his prized Lexus.
But then, he was probably too busy with whatsherface to realize it was gone…
I pushed my way out of the bathroom, only to be blocked by the two men who’d been feeding me drinks all night.
Oh, fuck.
“Excuse me,” I said brightly, or as brightly as I could manage. “I appreciated the company, but I think it’s time I head out.”
“Ah, but the fun’s just getting started,” one drawled.
The other grabbed me by the wrist, gripping tight. “And you owe us for all the drinks…you aren’t going anywhere, are you, Lacy?”
Seriously? This was the last thing my drunk ass needed right now.
“I am,” I said. “Home.”
“Oh, we’ll take you home, alright” the first said as they pushed in closer to me.
I tried to shift around, to evade, but dread filled me. I opened my mouth to scream, only for one of them to cover it with his big, meaty hand.
It stunk. It was nothing like when Blake had covered my mouth with his hand to keep anyone from hearing me come.
Oh god, I wanted Blake.
I also wanted to puke again.
So I did, letting vomit soak the man’s hand.
“What the actual fuck, oh you drunk bitch,” he snapped as he wrenched his hand away. I used the distraction to get around them and run away, but the other hadn’t released my wrist, and instead I felt something twist.
I screamed in pain and anger, turning to punch one of those assholes with my other hand, somehow…
But my wrist was suddenly free, and I was free.
There was an unholy, almost animalistic roar and then the sound of fists on flesh. Yelps and screams. I cradled my wrist, trying to see in the dark. Had they been mauled by an animal? There were bears up here…but who let a bear into a bar?
Always choose the bear, right? Maybe the bartender knew.
Fuck, I was still drunk and confused as hell by what was happening, even though I was relieved to be free of those assholes.
Pulling my phone out of my pocket with the hand that didn’t hurt, I thumbed on the flashlight and shone it…only to gasp.
Because the bear in question was Blake, beating the shit out of the two men who’d tried to hurt me.
“Coach?” I asked in a whimper through the pain.
He paused for a second. He was splattered in blood, and the men on the ground weren’t moving.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice guttural, almost inhuman.
“I—”
“They hurt you,” he said flatly, and then he was back to beating both of them to a pulp.
“Coach, you need to stop. You’ll kill them.”
He shook his head. “Oh, I’ll do much worse, sweetheart. Come here.”
I stumbled over to him, trying not to gag at how much blood was everywhere.
The men were moaning, gasping for breath. On death’s door.
I was grossed out by the blood, but I wasn’t worried for them, not at all. Instead, all I felt was satisfaction.
They’d planned to hurt me, they had hurt me, and now they were paying for their crimes.
“What’s wrong with your wrist?”
“I don’t know, I think he broke it.”
“Which one?”
I nodded to the one who was trying to crawl away.
And then shut my eyes when Coach stopped him with a shoe to the guy’s crotch, pushing down until a scream split through the air.
“You can’t kill them,” I said, a little drunk and a lot reluctant. “You’ll get sent to prison, and I’ll be all alone.”
Coach stopped, lifting his foot.
“You’re lucky,” he told the whimpering mess of a man on the ground. “That keeping her close matters more to me than sending you to hell. But I’ll be watching, I guarantee it. You try this with any other woman, I’ll have no remorse over finishing the job.”
Then, he was lifting me with his bloody hands and carrying me like a bride to the car.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
“You aren’t going to thank me when I take this out on your bare ass,” he muttered. “I’ll give you a reprieve because you’re going to have one hell of a hangover, but you have a lot of punishment coming your way.”
“Yum,” I mumbled, snuggling into his arms. “You smell good.”
He snorted. “I doubt it.”
“You smell like blood and rage and like you want to protect me,” I slurred the words. “You know what’s funny?”
He was still carrying me, and even though I could feel tension in his body, his arms were gentle.
“What’s funny?”
“Earlier, I thought you might be a bear attacking them. Guess I picked the bear.”
He pressed his lips to my hair.
“Guess you did.”
And then I was out like a light.
When I opened my eyes, it was to bright, glaring lights that hurt my head, loud beeps, and serious-sounding murmurs. Even though I wasn’t on my own two feet, I was moving, and I still wanted to puke.
I glanced up at the wall of chest holding me. I could smell peat and honey, and the familiar scent immediately put me at ease. Blake. It was Blake holding me, Blake carrying me.
“Blake, what’s going on? Where are we?”
He chuffed. “I brought you to the nearest hospital so they could take a look at your wrist…and make sure you don’t die from alcohol poisoning. Seriously, Lucy, how much did you have to drink?”
I tried to count, and failed.
“A lot?” I guessed.
He snorted. “Well, that’s helpful.”
I relaxed into his arms. I was tall, curvy, and had never been carried around by a man before. It felt good, being held this way, like I was delicate and needed attention and care.
What had Blake called me that day?
“The most important thing,” he hummed, like he’d heard my thoughts. “And I’ve done a bad job looking after you so far. I’ll do better.”
It sounded like a promise, the kind that made my chest warm and my feet tingle.
It was a good promise, even though he hadn’t followed through on many of his promises so far.
That thought sobered me up enough that when we reached the triage nurse’s desk, I didn’t seem as drunk as I actually was… hopefully.
The nurse looked up at us, and up, and up. She took my sorry appearance in, and I’m sure all the magnificence that was Blake, and sat up in her chair.
“What are you here for?”
“Some asshole twisted her wrist. Maybe broke it. And she’s been drinking and I want a toxicology report to make sure she doesn’t need her stomach pumped or to be observed overnight.”
Her brows shot up, and she looked immediately suspicious. “And are you the asshole who twisted her wrist?”
“No!” I said, shaking my head and hitting Blake’s chest with my hair. I stared down at the nurse. “I got into trouble with some gross dudes at a bar and they hurt me when I tried to escape. Blake rescued me.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she nodded at a clipboard with papers on it. “Fill that out, and make sure you give back the pen. Hospital’s short on funds, and even the pen budget could get slashed next year.”
With that, she dismissed us. Blake carried me over to a set of plastic chairs in the waiting area, carefully setting me down in one before sitting in the other.
I looked at my left wrist, completely out of commission.