Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nick called in sick to book club.
Scratch that—he texted in sick. He couldn’t stand the idea of hearing Vi’s disappointment as he lied to her. He sent her a text that morning, stomach roiling, sweaty fingers smearing the screen. He wasn’t lying, technically. He was sick. Just not with a cold like he told her.
Vi replied in less than a minute: Hope you feel better soon. I heard you’ve been off work this week? Must be pretty bad.
Nick threw his phone across the room and returned to his bed to shiver and sweat.
Phone-throwing was not, he recognized later, as he examined the dent in his phone caused by the sharp corner of his drawers, the most mature thing to do. But it was the instinctive thing to do. Run, hide, cover anything sincere in jokes and bullshit.
His phone vibrated around noon. Another text from Vi. Do you need anything?
Nick didn’t reply. He needed to wallow. To get over his rejection sickness and return to his regular hermit ways, only leaving the house to go to work or the Shop N’ Save and occasionally Sour Claw.
No more book club. No helping Rosie with her groceries, no quiz nights or charity work, no saving the day at kids’ birthday parties. No more Vi and her lovely laugh.
Except . . . he still wanted Vi to have spare time. If he really cared about her, he would keep doing the quiz nights and charity crap when he felt better. Even though she had rejected him.
It was official now: His mate had rejected him.
He hadn’t confessed, but that didn’t matter; his churning stomach, buckets of sweat, and incredible exhaustion were proof enough of that.
He wasn’t boyfriend material, as he’d heard Vi snap when he was opening the car door to give her back her keys.
He’d hastily pulled the door closed. If he wasn’t boyfriend material, he sure as hell wasn’t mate material. End of story.
He’d screwed it all up, like he screwed everything up. The past few months had been a strange glimpse into another life, but he was back now.
Just with a few more evening commitments. Luckily, tonight wasn’t a commitment. Tonight was for him.
“This is good,” Nick told himself as he rode down the street, hands sweating around his motorcycle handles, resolutely not looking at Sweethelm Books as he sped past. “This is great. Back to normal.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, he was striding into Sour Claw.
It was 6:10 p.m. on a Thursday night. All the usual suspects were there, as well as an unusual one.
Nick pointed at Heath Astarot, who was seated next to Jasper at the bar.
“You don’t come here,” he said, even though Heath was most definitely there, burly and scaly as always, drinking a pint of beer and watching Nick like he might keel over any second.
Jasper slapped Heath’s back, taking a swig from his almost-empty beer. “Tonight he does! We’re gonna get you out in the world, buddy.”
“Gee,” Heath said sarcastically, tail swishing around the barstool. “Thanks. You look like shit, Wicker. If you’re sick, you should stay home and not infect the rest of us.”
“I’m not sick. I’m great,” Nick croaked. He slid onto the empty seat, only to find Gerri the bartender already pushing a beer in front of him. “You’re a godsend.”
She gave him an unamused look, wings fluttering. Then she frowned, peering at his sweaty fingers around the glass. “Are you okay? You look terrible.”
“He’s fine,” Jasper said sarcastically, watching Nick with a look so piercing, it made Nick nervous. Then he paused, twisting to catch something a guy was yelling from the pool table. He broke out in a grin and slammed the rest of his beer.
“DON’T YOU DARE. I’M COMING! Heath, play nice.” Jasper pressed a wet kiss to Heath’s cheek and ran off, long hair bouncing. “Play nice.”
“Fuck off,” Heath said good-naturedly.
Nick watched Jasper run off and then turned to Heath: “It’s overrated, you know. Getting out in the world.”
Heath wiped Jasper’s spit off his cheek. “Now you’re speaking my language. Who needs it? I got my bakery and my sister. That’s world enough for me.”
Nick snapped his fingers. “Right, you’re Suze’s brother. Why weren’t you at the birthday party, man?”
“I was,” Heath said. “Eventually.”
Nick nodded distractedly, chugging his beer in five long swallows and ignoring how his stomach roiled in response. Why was it upsetting his stomach so much?
“Anyway,” Heath said slowly, wisely not saying anything about Nick slamming down the empty glass and waving Gerri over for a refill. “You’re getting out, right? Sorry, getting involved. Really getting stuck into the community.”
Nick snorted, holding out his glass for Gerri to refill. “I don’t know, dude. It was a good run, but . . . maybe it’s time to call it. I’m not that good at it anyway.”
Heath grunted. “You’re fine.”
Nick gave him a disbelieving look. “The one time I did the food bank with you, you said I was the worst volunteer you’d ever had.”
“I did not,” Heath said, affronted. “There have been children who were worse. And however crap you are at it, apparently, you did a good job hosting those quiz nights. And book club. And Rosie Dunham won’t shut up about how nice it is to have someone to reach the items on the top shelves when she goes shopping. ”
“Jesus Christ,” Nick muttered against his glass.
Guilt swirled through him at the idea of Rosie going without her terrible peanut butter choices because he was too much of a selfish asshole to go grocery shopping with her. Maybe he should keep that on his roster, too?
“You’re great, Heath,” Nick said suddenly. “Anybody ever tell you that? I bet they do. ’Cause you’re great. Grumpy as shit, sure. But you’re kind. You’re dependable. Sturdy. Real boyfriend material. No bullshit under the stairs. No mess.”
Heath stared at him. “Nick,” he said, and then paused. He made a face, like he was considering something he didn’t really want to do. “Ugh,” he muttered. “Alright.”
He turned in his chair to face Nick, who was starting to sweat through his shirt.
This sounded like it was turning into a serious conversation, and Nick wanted none of that.
He wanted fun times and a distraction from his rejection sickness.
He wanted Jasper to drag him into something monumentally stupid that he’d later regret.
“Look,” Heath said flatly. “I don’t know what shit you’ve got going on, but over the past few months you’ve been way less of an asshole than usual.
And now you’re here, visibly exhausted, talking crap about all the good stuff you’ve done and trying to bury your head in the sand. Or in a metric shit ton of beer—”
“It doesn’t even work,” Nick muttered, eyeing the tub of wolfsbane behind the bar warily.
“You’re not making things better by screwing yourself over,” Heath continued, ignoring him. “You get that, right? You get that everybody’s got bullshit, including me, right?”
If Nick was in a nicer, less self-centered mood, he might consider the speech touching.
He might take it as a valuable lesson that of course everyone has shit going on under the surface, and it would be idiotic to assume they didn’t.
That he should pick himself up, dust himself off, and continue down the hard, rewarding path of openness and community rather than run back down the easy, terrible path of isolation and self-sabotage.
But Nick was deeply dedicated to the belief that he was the biggest piece of shit in Claw Haven. And an important part of that belief was that everyone had it together except for him. It was a belief that couldn’t be undone by a sincere speech at the bar.
Nick snorted even louder, downing the rest of his beer. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but it sounds boring. Where’s our vampire gone?”
“Well,” Heath sighed, saluting nobody in particular with his beer. “I tried.”
He took a sip of his beer, his face twisting.
“What?” Nick asked. “Not good enough?”
“No, Jasper just got me the one I hate,” Heath said flatly. “Asshole.”
As if summoned, Jasper appeared and threw an arm around their shoulders, tugging them together.
“What’s with the sad faces?” Jasper crowed. “Come on, get happy.”
Nick stared glumly at the wolfsbane behind the bar, considering.
He hadn’t been drunk in . . . what? Five years?
The hangover hadn’t been that bad. Sure, he got sent home from work the next day, but surely, he was just being a wimp.
Nick needed his beer to do more than taste good tonight. He needed to get drunk.
“You know what?” Nick said. “I will.”
He reached over the bar and grabbed several sprigs of wolfsbane from the tub, squeezing the purple liquid into his beer.
“Uhhhh,” said Jasper. “Is this that kind of night?”
“Now it is,” Nick said. He swished his pint around, watching the purple liquid dissipate. Then he put it to his lips and drank deep.
“Nick,” Heath said. “That was a lot of wolfsbane. Isn’t that pretty rough on orcs?”
Jasper shushed him, eyes glinting mischievously.
Nick resurfaced, gasping and shuddering. The wolfsbane tasted just as awful as it had five years ago. But he could feel it hitting his bloodstream hard.
“You know what we should do next?” Jasper announced. “Wolfsbane shots.”
“No,” Heath said flatly.
Nick turned to him, squeezing his pale face.
“You,” he announced, “are a genius.”
* * *
The night got a little fuzzy after that.
He did wolfsbane shots with Jasper. Then he did Heath’s share of shots, because Heath was a wimp who only drank half of one before returning to his unfinished beer.
Then he sat down in the bathroom with his forehead pressed to the toilet seat, trying to talk himself out of puking.
His nauseated, rejection-sick stomach wasn’t appreciating all the wolfsbane being poured into it.
Then he ate half his body weight in peanuts, hoping that would solve the problem.