Chapter 5
Lauren
The alley behind Haye’s Bar smelled like trash and spilled beer. Jackson was outside waiting, still in the black T-shirt from his shift, keys loose in one hand.
“Hey,” he said when Kevin pulled up. He looked right at me. “How bad?”
“Worse than before,” Kevin said, getting out. “She tried the stairs at the motel.”
Jackson looked at me. “You did what?”
“It felt ambitious at the time.”
His mouth twitched, but it didn’t make it all the way to a smile. “Yeah, well. That was dumb.”
“Thank you for the support.”
Jackson came around to my side and opened the door. Kevin reached for my bag, but Jackson had it over his shoulder before Kevin made it around the other side. Then they got under my arms and eased me out.
“Bad foot,” Kevin said, like reflex, and Jackson shifted my weight before the words were fully out.
They moved like they’d done this before — not this exactly, just this kind of thing.
They got me up the narrow staircase to the apartment above the bar. Only eight steps, which still sucked, but at least I had both of them holding me up. I hated needing that much help from either of them. Worse was the way their grips tightened every time I wobbled.
The apartment was small. Basically one room pretending to be both a kitchen and a living room, then a hallway that led to what had to be the bedroom and bathroom.
Dishes stacked in the sink. Empty beer bottles on the coffee table.
A Carhartt jacket over the back of a worn leather couch.
A gray hoodie with the bar logo hung from a chair by the counter, and a milk crate by the fridge held liquor invoices and rolled-up bar towels.
Bass thudded downstairs, somebody laughed, and then it was just bar noise again.
It was one of those old places where something was always making noise.
Pipes clicked in the wall. The floor gave a little under our steps.
“Sorry about the mess,” Jackson said. “Wasn’t expecting company.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“That sounded specific.”
“It was.”
He glanced at me like he wanted to ask what that meant, then let it go.
Kevin helped me down the hallway while Jackson disappeared into the bedroom. I heard drawers opening, sheets getting yanked around, Jackson suddenly realizing I was about to see how he lived.
The bedroom barely fit a queen bed and a dresser. Jackson stripped the sheets and dropped them in a corner.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“Yeah, I do.”
He pulled fresh sheets from the closet and made the bed fast, like he didn’t want me arguing about it. “You’re taking the bed. I’ll crash on the couch.”
“Jackson, I can’t.”
“You can’t sleep on a couch with that ankle.” He smoothed the plain navy comforter. “And I’m not letting you.”
Kevin guided me down onto the edge of the bed, then knelt to unwrap my ankle and check the damage.
His hands were gentle, but he was being a little too careful for this to feel casual.
One hand braced my calf, firm and steady, while the other worked the bandage loose.
He was close enough to be a problem. I stayed very still, mostly because of my ankle, and a little because I really didn’t need to be noticing any of that.
“It’s more swollen,” he said. “You should not have tried those stairs.”
“I know.”
He pulled an elastic bandage from his medical bag and rewrapped my ankle with more pressure this time, careful as hell and bossy enough to annoy me on instinct. His thumb pressed just above my ankle bone to hold me still while he checked the wrap, and my stomach dipped, which was annoying as hell.
“Keep it elevated tonight. Ice, if Jackson has any.”
“I have ice,” Jackson called from the other room, already moving.
Of course he did. Apparently even this disaster had to be organized.
Kevin finished the wrap and looked up at me once before he stood. “Any dizziness? Nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“A little.”
“That’s normal. But if it gets worse, wake Jackson immediately.” He paused, eyes on mine. “Do you understand?”
That tone should not have done a damn thing for me. It especially shouldn’t have hit with Jackson right there and the bed pressed into the backs of my knees.
“I understand.”
Jackson appeared in the doorway with a glass of water and two Advil. “For the pain.”
He came close enough to hand them over without making me reach. His fingers brushed mine, brief and practical, and still I felt it more than I should have. I took the pills and swallowed them down. The water was cold and tasted faintly metallic.
The room went still in a way I really didn’t like.
It was too small, too close, and suddenly I was aware of everything.
Kevin stood between my knees and the dresser, broad enough to take up most of the space.
Jackson lingered by the door with the hand towel he’d used to wrap the ice.
The old pipes knocked somewhere in the wall.
A chair scraped faintly below us, followed by the low blur of voices from the bar.
I was sitting on Jackson’s bed in a bar owner’s apartment over the same place I’d gotten drunk enough to humiliate myself in public.
None of this was doing anything for my self-respect.
“I should go,” Kevin said. “Let you get some rest.”
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
He nodded, but his mouth already set hard. He looked at me for one beat too long, like he was holding himself back, like he had something to say and already decided not to. He looked like leaving was the last thing he wanted to do, which I really didn’t need to be noticing right then.
“I’ll come by tomorrow to check on you.”
After he left, Jackson brought me an ice pack wrapped in a dish towel and helped me get my ankle up on two pillows. One hand slid under my heel, the other under my calf, and he lifted carefully, all focus now, no grin in sight. It should have just felt practical. It absolutely did not.
After he got the pillows where he wanted them, he stood there for a second, hands in his pockets, like he wanted to help and had no idea what the move was now.
“You need anything else?” he asked.
“No. I’m good.”
“Bathroom’s across the hall if you need it. Just yell if you can’t make it on your own.”
“I’ll be fine.” Probably a lie, but I was committed now.
He nodded, started to leave, then turned back. “Hey. You’re safe here. Just so you know.”
I looked at him. Messy dark hair, stubble, tattoos down his arm. Trouble, I’d thought the first time I saw him. Just like Logan. Unfortunately, exactly my type.
But Logan never would have given up his bed for a stranger. He would have found a way to make me feel expensive for needing help. And he definitely wouldn’t have looked at me like this, like he actually cared if I was okay. Like I wasn’t just some drunk mess he had to deal with.
“I know,” I said. And strangely, I did.
He smiled a little. “Get some sleep.”
After he closed the door, I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
The place never really shut up. Cars kept going by outside.
Something thudded downstairs, then it was back to the usual bar racket.
Pipes ticked in the wall. A minute later I heard him go down the stairs, then the bar door below, and then just the usual noise bleeding up through the floor. Because of me.
I probably should have been more freaked out about crashing at a stranger’s place.
Two strangers, technically. One I’d met that night.
The other had carried me up a staircase and was now somewhere downstairs.
This was either how horror movies started or exactly what girls got warned about.
Drunk girl, two hot guys, small-town bar.
Yeah. Not exactly my best decision-making.
But by then I was more tired than worried. And they were nothing but decent. So either they really were, or I was getting played in a very committed way. At that point, whatever. I was tired enough to roll with it.
Kevin was dangerous in a specific way—too competent, too in control all the time.
He helped you so smoothly you didn’t realize till later you owed him.
Jackson was different. Easier to be around, warmer, harder to see coming.
He got past your guard before you even thought to look for the catch.
Neither of them felt simple, and neither of them felt safe in any way I could use.
By then, it didn’t even feel like a choice.
I had somehow limped straight into two completely different bad ideas, and both of them had already made room for me anyway.
My ankle throbbed despite the ice and Advil. My head ached. Logan was still in my head, just quieter now, mostly buried under how tired I was and I’d walked into the first thing in months that felt good, and it was going to wreck me. I could already tell.
Or I woke up without a kidney. Honestly, hard to say.
I closed my eyes.