Chapter 5 #3
I try to pull away from him, but his fingers dig into my shoulder. “No, really, I’m okay—” The bar door being thrown open interrupts me.
Asher waltzes out the door and glares at the group of men around me. “There a problem here?” he asks in an icy tone.
“No,” laughs the man with his arm around me.
“She’s with me, so we’re about to have a problem if you don’t get your hands off her,” he growls.
Liquid heat fills my stomach at his tone and words. Or maybe it’s the alcohol.
She’s with me, echoes in my head on repeat.
“Sorry, dude,” the guy says, letting go of me so that I go careening backward. My ankle twists as I fall awkwardly on the pavement and skin my palms. He’s already walking away with his buddies as they all burst out into laughter without so much as an apology.
Asher gives me a concerned look as he rushes to my side and helps me back to my feet.
“Sorry,” I mutter, testing putting weight on my ankle. It buckles, and I wince at the sharp pain in my joint.
“Is your Uber on the way?”
I gesture weakly to my phone, which thankfully is unscathed after that tumble. “Phone’s dead, I haven’t replaced it in years, so the battery life is essentially nonexistent. I was going to wait to see if a taxi came along or maybe just start walking. I don’t live too far from here.”
“How far away do you live?”
“I live on 56th street?” I say, knowing it’s too far to walk—especially with a sprained ankle.
He looks at me like I’m nuts before gesturing to my shoes. “There’s no way you’re making it there in those torture devices after that fall. Come on,” he insists. “I’ll drop you off.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I start to say before he stops me with a piercing look.
“You’re not putting any weight on your injured ankle.
You’re lucky I don’t insist you go to urgent care.
You’re not walking home, and there’s no way a taxi is going to be out here.
It’s on the way for me; it’s no big deal.
” He grabs my hand and leads me, limping, to the parking lot around the side of the bar, toward a gray Range Rover.
Suddenly, I feel like a petulant child. I rip my hand away and nearly fall again as my ankle refuses to support me. Asher catches me around the waist just before my back hits the car.
His face is just inches from mine.
“Sorry.” I let out a breath of air.
“You smell like apples,” he replies quietly, his eyes glancing down to my lips.
“Sorry,” I say again, licking my lips. “It’s the apple martinis.”
He tears his eyes away and shakes his head before opening up the passenger door and helping me inside. It smells like him. Like pine and sandalwood. I look around for an air freshener, but don’t see any. It’s all him.
The inside of his car is immaculate. No trash, no receipts, nothing hanging from his rearview mirror. No personal touches. It doesn’t surprise me that he keeps his car impersonal and probably cleaner than when he first purchased it.
He gets in the driver’s seat and holds out his phone to me. I look at him, dumbfounded, before he bites back a laugh. “Can you put your address in? Or did you just want me to drive to 56th Street and hope that you recognize the place with your beer goggles on?”
I take the phone from him and mutter, “Martini goggles, thank you very much.” I punch my address in, but decide to add, “I also want it on the record that I’m not drunk. I fell because that guy was an asshole, not because I drank too much.”
“My mistake,” he softens his voice and grins as I hand him the phone back.
He puts the keys into the ignition and makes his way out of the parking lot and onto the road just as my ankle starts to throb.
I groan and lean back against the headrest while closing my eyes.
“Please don’t puke in my car,” he pleads.
I crack an eye open to look at him. “It’s my ankle, I haven’t puked from alcohol since I was twenty-one.”
He purses his lips and nods. “Should I be impressed?”
“You look impressed,” I sigh, closing my eyes again. I resist the urge to put my foot on the seat to rub the sore ankle. I’ll take a ride home, but putting my feet up on someone’s car seat when I don’t know them feels rude.
We drive in silence. Being surrounded by his scent is doing weird things to me. His smell, paired with the liquor, is making me want to do something extremely stupid. I start to tap my foot as I try to avoid taking a deep breath and inhaling more of the intoxicating pine and sandalwood fragrance.
I’m going to maul him if I don’t get out of here soon.
He seems to be strategically avoiding looking my way, even as we pause at a stop sign and he looks both ways before crawling forward.
“Are you going to need help inside?” he asks as we get closer to my crappy studio.
“Doubt it,” I answer. I just want to get out of this car and forget that I fell and ate shit in front of Cascadia University’s hottest professor.
His eyes dart toward me and look down at my rapidly swelling ankle that’s still locked in the ‘torture devices’ he mentioned earlier. “You sure about that?”