Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Finley
I wake with a start and realize that the bedroom door is open. A faint light spills in, outlining a man in the doorway, gripping the frame like he might collapse. Or charge inside. My heart lurches, and I sit up, ready to scream until I realize it’s Alex.
The clock next to the bed reads a little after two a.m. He’s still in his running clothes, snow dusting his hair, but he’s swaying like a drunk Christmas tree ornament.
“Alex, are you okay?”
He squints at me, words slurred. “Yeah… I don’t think so.”
I hurry over to him, scanning him for injuries. Then the heavy stench of beer hits me. He’s drunk.
Why? For all I know, this is a regular occurrence for him, but I don’t think so. This has something to do with his family.
“Come on,” I say, taking his arm and guiding him inside. “Let’s get you to bed.”
He shakes his head in a slow, dramatic wag. “Oh, nooo,” he sings, “can’t be sleeping in your bed. Might molest you.”
I groan and roll my eyes. “Relax, Casanova. I doubt you could molest a doorknob right now.”
That earns a lopsided grin, but he still digs in his heels. “Nope. Not safe.”
“You’re right,” I deadpan. “You could dent the floor when you fall over. Just sit down for a moment.”
“Okay,” he says, his eyelids half shut. “That sounds perfectly weasonable.” He pauses and frowns. “Weas—”
“It is perfectly reasonable,” I say, tugging him to the bed. “That’s me. Reasonable Finley.”
He lets me guide him, then looks up at me like he’s never seen me before. “Just one of your many wonderful attributes.”
“Maybe I’ll have you make a list,” I tease as I flip on the beside lamp. “Then we can go over it in the morning.”
Light floods the room and my stomach drops. One knee of his sweatpants is ripped and dark with blood. His palm is scraped raw.
I kneel in front of him. “Alex. What happened?”
“Oh, there was a hole in the road,” he says matter-of-factly. “I think I fell into it when I was running.”
“You were running after you’d been drinking? Where’d you get the beer?”
He grins. “How do you know I had beer?”
“I’m a mind reader.”
He gently tries to tap the end of my nose but misses and his fingertip slides across my cheek. “Wouldn’t be surprised. You’re good at everything.”
A drunken compliment. I can’t believe a word he says.
“We’ll add it to the list. Did you scrape your knee?” I tug up his pant leg. A gash on his knee is still oozing blood. I look up at him. “We need to clean this. Do you know where your mom keeps her first aid kit?”
He shrugs, loose and sloppy. “Don’t know. Don’t live here anymore.”
“Where did she keep it when you were a kid? The bathroom? Downstairs in the kitchen?”
“Pantry,” he whispers like it’s top-secret intel, then nods sharply.
“Okay,” I say as I get to my feet. “You stay right here. Don’t move.”
“So I can just stay here on the bed?” He pats the mattress with both hands then quickly jerks his right hand back. “Ow.”
“Yes, Alex. Stay on the bed and don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
I head for the door, then turn back. “How many beers did you have?”
“I don’t know,” he says defensively.
“Take a guess.”
He shrugs. “Five. Or maybe six.”
“Great. So, you were basically at a frat party.”
He perks up. “Where’s a frat party?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No more frat parties for you.” I add a glass of water to my mental list.
I creep down the stairs. A lamp glows on the kitchen counter, enough to guide me to the pantry.
I shut the door before flipping on the light, then dig around until I find rubbing alcohol and bandages, a couple large enough for his knee.
But then I grab the whole kit, just in case I missed some of his wounds.
Next, I snag a glass of water, some ibuprofen, and a big bowl—insurance against a drunken dash to the bathroom.
When I get back upstairs, Alex is sprawled sideways across the bed, his legs dangling over the side, his arms splayed like a starfish.
I step inside, and his eyes snap open like a horror-movie jump scare. I nearly shriek.
“Finley, be careful,” he warns with grave seriousness. “The room is spinning and you might fall off.”
“I have gravity shoes,” I say with a chuckle. “I’ll be okay. But it’s good that you laid down.”
“I fell backwards and I can’t get up.” He flails his arms. “I’m like a turtle.”
I don’t usually find drunk men funny, but there’s something so vulnerable about him I can’t help laughing. “Well, at least you fell down on the bed instead of denting the floor.”
He pats the mattress with both hands. “This must be my bed, ‘cause it’s really comfortable.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that is your bed,” I say, even though he’s patting the middle.
I study him, trying to decide where to start. He’s still wearing his shoes, so I start there. I set the supplies on the nightstand, then kneel in front of him to untie his laces.
“What are you doing?” he asks suspiciously. “You going to take advantage of me?”
For a moment I think he’s making fun of me for not letting him sleep in the bed, but it’s obvious he has no idea what he’s saying. “Drunk Alex is funny. Who knew?”
“Taking my shoe off, that’s where it starts,” he says seriously. “Then you work your way up.”
I can’t see his face, so I can imagine his expression. “Don’t flatter yourself. I stop at the knees.”
“I’m not a bad person, Finley,” he blurts, voice suddenly raw.
The smile slips off my face. My chest aches. “I never said you were a bad person.”
“But you think I am,” he says, defeated. “You’re just too nice to say it. Everyone thinks it.”
“No,” I say softly, tugging off his shoe. “I don’t think you’re a bad person, Alex.”
His head pops up and he stares at me on the floor. “Why not?”
I untie his other shoe and slip it off, then perch on the edge of the bed. “If I thought you were a terrible person, I wouldn’t have come with you to see your family.”
He presses his lips together, considering what I said. “But I tricked you.”
I blink, my heart skipping a beat. He’s drunk, but his words land heavy. “How did you trick me?”
“Curtis thinks I tricked you into coming with me.”
“Who’s Curtis?”
“My best friend.” His face twists. “Used to be. Now he thinks I’m an asshole.”
I gently lift his legs onto the mattress, then scoot him sideways until his head hits the pillow. Out of breath, I sit beside him, staring down at his face.
“You didn’t trick me, Alex. I came of my own free will.”
“So I could sleep in my bed.” His words slur, and he lets out a laugh. “The joke’s on me—‘cause I still can’t sleep in my bed.”
The truth stabs me. Because he’s right. And I hate that he’s right.
He tries to open his eyes wide, but they sink to slits. “I didn’t get drunk so I could sleep in my bed.”
“I know that,” I say softly. “No one’s that Machiavellian.”
He narrows his eyes. “You know what that word means?”
Irritation sparks, but I shove it down. He’s drunk, and I already know that he thinks I’m some country bumpkin. “Yes, Alex,” I say, a little sharper than I intend. “I know what Machiavellian means. I’m not entirely stupid.”
“I never said you were stupid,” He frowns, confused.
“But you thought I was uneducated, right?” I scoot back down to the bottom of the bed and roll up his sweatpants leg.
“It’s just…” he stumbles over his words. “I don’t date women who didn’t go to college.”
The words sting more than I expect. I already knew that—he pretty much told me so earlier. So why does hearing him say it feel like a slap? Why do I care what this drunk, arrogant man thinks of me?
“That’s okay,” I say lightly, even though it isn’t. “It’s not like we’re really dating anyway.”
I glance up, but his eyes are closed again. I push his pants leg over his knee. The gash is deeper than a scrape, but the jagged edges mean he’s not a candidate for stitches.
I grab a wet paper towel from the bowl. “This is gonna hurt a bit.” I dab at the wound, and he flinches.
“Ow!” he yelps.
“Shh! You’re gonna wake everyone up.” If he hasn’t already.
“You don’t want them to know what a bad person I am?” His eyes are open, earnest and raw.
“Alex.” I say again softly, “You’re not a bad person. We just don’t want to wake the whole house. They need their sleep.”
He grumbles something under his breath that I don’t understand, then says nothing.
“Okay, round two,” I warn, and then dab again.
He flinches, but doesn’t speak this time, just tenses as I clean the wound. Tiny bits of gravel cling to the raw skin, and I brush them out with the edge of the paper towel. Then I soak some cotton balls with the rubbing alcohol. “This is really going to hurt, Alex. I’m sorry.”
I press the cotton ball to his knee and he jerks, cursing through gritted teeth.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “But you had pieces of the road in there. We don’t want an infection.”
“Yeah.” He exhales, then repeats a softer, “Yeah.” The fight drains out of him, leaving him limp.
“The worst is over.” I wave my hand over the wound until it dries, then peel open the bandage. “I’ll put this on, then check for any other scrapes.”
“Are you going to kiss my boo-boo and make it better?”
I snort. “No. That only works in fairy tales.”
His right eye cracks open. “You sure this isn’t a fairy tale?”
I smooth the bandage over his knee, careful not to stick it to the gash. “I’m pretty sure it’s not. Although, I guess you could argue that it sort of is since you’re making my dream come true.”
He grunts. “A white Christmas is your dream come true? That’s just sad, Finley.”
He doesn’t mean it to be cruel, but the words scrape across something raw inside me. “Yeah, I know. You had a white Christmas every year, so it’s nothing to you. But surely there was something that you really wanted as a kid. Something that would have made you happy.”
He’s quiet for several seconds, then in surprising seriousness, he says, “Yeah, I always wanted to go to a dude ranch.”
I blink, startled by how boyish he suddenly looks. “Okay. I can see you at a dude ranch.”
His head pops off the pillow, his eyes wide open. “Really? When I told my last girlfriend, she laughed and laughed and said, ‘Yeah, right, Alex.’”
“She sounds like a pretty crappy girlfriend.”
“I was a pretty crappy boyfriend, so I guess it evened out.”
I try to imagine Alex as a boyfriend and come up short. Before I landed in Vermont, I could have easily conjured the image, but now… now I’m not sure.
“In any case,” I say, “I can see you at a dude ranch. Not the professional you who comes into Beans to Go—more the you I see with your family and house you grew up in.” I give him a soft smile. “You should go. I’ll even help you look some up if you want.”
His eyes turn glassy. “Why didn’t I meet you ten years ago, Finley?”
My heart does a stupid little flip. He’s drunk and drunk people say things they don’t mean. I shrug it off with a joke. “Ten years ago, you were at some Hollybrook high school, and I was at Marshall High School in Georgia. Not exactly fate material.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Sadness tugs at his voice and it makes me want to make him feel better.
“But we met now,” I say. I let the sentence hang for a second. “We can be friends, right? I thought we were friends.”
“Yeah, friends,” he slurs, his eyes closed.
I roll up his other pant leg—no injuries there. I push up his t-shirt sleeves to his elbows, relieved to find him wound free. The only other scrape is on his right palm, probably from bracing his fall. I dab it with alcohol; it stings, but it’s shallow, so no bandage needed.
“That’s it,” I say.
He’s been quiet for so long that I think he’s out. But when I move to get up, his left hand shoots out and clamps on my arm. “Where are you going?”
“I need to throw this trash away, but you should sip some water first.”
“I need to get up,” he mutters, trying to push himself off the bed. “Need to get in the chair.”
“You need to get a drink of water first.” There’s no way I’m letting him out of this bed, but one battle at a time. “Here, let me help.” I slip a hand behind his back and ease him upright, then press the glass into his hand. “Drink.”
He tilts the glass, and it spills, so I take it back and hold it to his lips. His eyes lift to mine—glassy, heavy-lidded, stubborn, but also vulnerable. It’s the vulnerability that makes my chest do a ridiculous little squeeze.
“Not too much,” I murmur.
He gulps a few sips, then flops back as I guide him down.
“No,” he says, trying again to rise. “I need to get up.”
“I’ll help you,” I say. “But you just lie here while I clean up, and then I’ll tell you when it’s time to go to the chair.”
“Okay,” he says, closing his eyes again.
“I put a bowl over here in case you need to throw up,” I add.
He lets out a bitter laugh. “I haven’t puked from being drunk since high school.”
“You probably won’t need it, but it’s here, just in case.” At least I hope he doesn’t.
He sinks back into the pillow. “Why are you taking care of me?”
“Because,” I say, thinking it’s a weird question. It never occurred to me to not take care of him. “You need to be taken care of.”
“I wouldn’t take care of you,” he says flatly. “If you were lying here, I wouldn’t take care of you.”
The words land like a slap. But then I think about Mallory’s stories, and the way he is at Beans to Go. That person is good. He’s real and that man’s inside him. Maybe he just doesn’t know how to let him out.
“You know what?” I say softly. “I think you would.”
“Bullshit,” he snaps, pissed. “I would not.”
“Yeah,” I say, and I mean it. “You would.” Then I walk out of the room and head to the bathroom to toss the trash.
I stay longer than I need to, gripping the counter until my knuckles ache. Needing the quiet and the privacy to sort out my stupid feelings. Part of me believes he wouldn’t help me if our situations were reversed—he’s drunk, bitter, and scared. Part of me doesn’t believe him at all.
It’s either stupidity or instinct, but I have a feeling I’m going to be hurt either way.