28. Day Three The One Thing That Could Ruin All Things
Day Three: The One Thing That Could Ruin All Things
Jase washed the pickled feeling from his mouth with a cup of coffee and a piece of toast from the continental breakfast bar in the hotel lobby. His mind wasn’t right today.
He blamed New Orleans. The heat. So much bourbon.
Last night, after dropping Lindsey and his brother at the hotel, he had gone back to the pub across the street to stifle the thoughts buzzing around his brain like flies looking for a meal—particularly how for one lousy bourbon-soaked second, in the throes of the music and her body in his arms, he had forgotten who Lindsey was and why he shouldn’t dance with her.
One, two friendly songs were fine. The last one…with the rhythm that imitated sex, his hips following that rhythm, his hands clutching her dress over her hips following the rhythm of his hips, her breath on his neck for one hot second before his brother showed up and thoroughly staked his claim.
Another shot of bourbon and a bottle of beer at the pub only set the flies—and his guts—on fire, so he’d packed it in while he still had the sense not to bring the large woman with the tongue ring who was eyeing him across the bar back to his room.
He couldn’t handle waking up beside a Robert Pattinson tattoo, tongue ring or not.
Instead he’d taken the image of Sundress on the balcony in her lace panties to bed, and then some.
It happened. He wasn’t proud of it. It wouldn’t happen again.
Jase’s mood perked slightly at the sight of Graham with dripping wet hair and gray bags under his eyes. A vision of death warmed over.
“Morning, sunshine,” Jase said with a grin. “Where’s your other half?”
Graham sat at the table beside Jase and glanced behind him. “Struggling.”
Lindsey rounded the corner of the lobby wearing her oversized sunglasses, hair piled on top of her head. She settled into a chair carefully, as if subtle movements caused great pain.
“How about that?” Jase cleared his throat to cover a laugh. “A pair.”
“You should eat something,” Graham suggested.
Lindsey shot him down with an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“Come on,” Graham urged in a softer voice than he’d used in a while. “They have waffles.”
Lindsey approached the self-serve breakfast spread and took a small cup from the stack with a shaky hand. As soon as a few clumps of waffle batter sputtered from the spout, she dropped the cup and lunged for the garbage can below the counter.
A horrified cry broke out among the other travelers who had been enjoying a quiet Sunday breakfast, and Jase jumped back so fast he spilled out of his chair.
After a visit to the bathroom, Graham poured Lindsey into the back seat of the station wagon.
She sprawled out with one arm draped over a small trash can the hotel let her keep as a courtesy.
Jase gave up the car keys to his brother, who looked a little too determined to get to Texas, and they were on the road by eleven.
Austin was only five hundred miles away.