Chapter 6
Chapter Six
It really pissed Nolan off that everyone he would normally buddy up with to go drinking was paired off. Really, genuinely pissed him off.
Because he had been ruminating on the whole thing with Lila — from the swim to her shoving him in the bathroom — and he couldn’t think anymore. He needed to drink about it, but then that brought up what had happened when he’d gotten drunk last night.
He was just pissed off at her. She had been acting like a fool the entire day, flirting with that idiot who just wanted to get into her pants, and then she had lost her shit at him when he was trying to help her.
He had gone back out to the barn to check on a few things, and Pike was still there, finishing clearing things up.
“You good?”
“I was thinking I might go out drinking,” Nolan said.
“Well,” Pike said. “I’m happy to be your designated driver.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Because I don’t drink, and also, because that way I get to go out. It’s either that or going and sitting at home.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He frowned. “But you don’t mind if I drink?”
“No. I’ve been sober for a long time. It’s all good.”
And right there, he knew more about Pike than any of his long-winded stories had ever taught him. It made him wonder, how much of Pike was a facade, and how much was real, because he would never have guessed that the guy with a thousand good-natured stories would have needed to get sober.
But he let Pike drive them both down to the Velvet Slipper, down at the end of Main Street in Mustang River. A cozy, dimly lit bar that was good for meeting hookups if you were in such a mind.
But he didn’t have his own vehicle, so that probably wasn’t what was going to happen.
He would just get wasted and let Pike take him home.
“Big changes around the ranch,” Pike said as soon as they sat at the bar and he got his Shirley Temple while Nolan got a whiskey and a beer.
“Yeah,” he said. “Realized tonight that I didn’t have any of my regular drinking buddies on hand. But, happy to go out with you.”
“How’s Lila? I saw her fall, but I didn’t want to make her self-conscious by racing over there. You seemed like you had it.”
Nolan winced. Because leave it to Pike to somehow zero in on the thing that he was drinking about. Although why he was drinking about Lila Grayson, he didn’t really know.
“She’s fine. Physically. She’s mad at me.” As he said that, it was like a montage of images played in his mind, from drunk Lila at twenty-one on down to when she’d shoved him. Every moment, every breath, every misstep in between.
“Seems like she’s always mad at you.”
“Yeah,” Nolan said, feeling validated. “No shit.”
He and Pike sat there for a couple of hours, talking about nothing, mostly, and quite a few times women would come over and say hi to either him or Pike.
Pike had to be in his early forties, but hell, there were plenty of women in their twenties that were happy to come and chat him up.
But he did that same easy flirting thing he did with everybody and sent them away without any tension.
Like he just wasn’t interested — same as the alcohol.
“I can get a cab if I have to,” Nolan said, in case Pike was holding back on a hookup for Nolan’s sake.
What Nolan wasn’t doing was staying in Kip’s room above the bar again.
That place was off limits to him forever now.
Pike shook his head. “There are some things, some sins, that a man must spend a lifetime atoning for, Nolan. And that means sometimes you have to wear a hair shirt and just let yourself strike out when you could have scored.”
And that was another bit of interesting information about Pike.
He was whiskey-addled at the moment. A little bit muddled up. And by the time they got back into Pike’s truck, he was ready to go to bed.
There was none of the excitement from last night hanging in the air. Two nights of drinking in a row and he just felt like an asshole who was past his prime.
Or like a man running away from demons.
He could only hope he wasn’t hungover as hell tomorrow when they got back to trailblazing. On the other hand, maybe he needed to be a little poorly, so she’d put her claws back in.
But he kept seeing Lila’s face. Angry. Raging at him. Telling him not to touch her.
Her cheeks had been red, and she had shoved him.
But she hadn’t done that when he had been dressing her knee.
And then he had moved between her legs, and he’d felt a strange feeling of resistance in his gut when he’d done it.
Felt a strange sort of shock when he’d brushed his thumb over her forehead.
And then he’d been thinking about how she’d told that jackass that he was her brother and...
Her face was all red. She was angry, yes.
But was she... No. He was drunk. He was drunk and when it came to Lila, alcohol made him stupid.
He was drunk and that meant whatever he thought, felt or imagined about Lila wasn’t real.
He hadn’t realized that he’d passed out on the couch until he woke up to very loud knocking on the door. And it wasn’t just pounding in his head, it was real. He sat up and groaned. He was wearing... his underwear. That was it. And he felt like shit.
He looked around the room and saw his jeans lying on the floor by the couch, so he shrugged them on as he walked to the door. Then he opened it, and much to his surprise, Lila was standing out there holding a giant bakery box and some coffee.
“Good morning,” she said. Then she pushed past him and into the house. She set the pastry box and the coffee on the table by the door and turned toward him. She had a sort of fixed, determined look on her face that he couldn’t quite read.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“I—”
“What I did to you yesterday — well, and the night before — was completely inappropriate. Then when you were helping fix me up I overreacted because I was embarrassed.”
Her words were firm and exacting, rehearsed, even. But then, that didn’t totally surprise him. Of course, in order to apologize to him, she had to write it out and scrupulously rehearse it.
“Well, go on,” he said.
“I just overreacted. That’s all. Because, of course, falling out of the van like that was scary, and it was a lot of adrenaline, and so I took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have. You were being nice to me.”
“I was,” he said.
“I brought you a peace offering,” she said, gesturing to the giant box. “Thank you. Also packed everything that we need for the overnight trip tonight out of the central resort supplies. So you don’t need to get anything together.”
“Thank you. It’s almost like you knew I was going to be hungover.”
“You’re hungover?” she asked. “Again?”
“Yep,” he said. “Pike and I went and painted the town red last night.”
Her brow furrowed. “Oh.”
“Work hard, play hard,” he said, somewhat dryly. “Though, I should be old enough to know better than to do that right before I have to work a full day. You live and learn. Except sometimes I don’t, apparently.”
“Well. Well, I can just wait for you to get ready, and we can go.”
“I need to take a shower.”
He noticed that her cheeks turned red.
“Okay. I’ll just wait for you down here. Though, your coffee is going to get cold.”
“I’ll reheat it before we leave. I’ll be quick.”
He walked out of the room and up the stairs, heading into the bathroom and turning on the shower. Then he went into his room and picked out some clothes, along with another pair of clothes for tomorrow.
His mind was on the pink in her cheeks.
He had been thinking about something before he’d essentially lost consciousness last night. And now he was having difficulty dredging it back up. But somehow, Lila’s cheeks turning pink reminded him of it.
He took his clothes off and got into the shower, scrubbing up as quickly as possible.
He was musing still about her face, and he felt a sensation in his body that he really didn’t like.
He was washing himself, and it was morning, and he was kind of hard.
And he really didn’t want to think about Lila while any of those things were happening. But her face...
And her hands planting on his chest and shoving him back against the wall.
She had been bright red then.
And he knew what it looked like when Lila got angry. It wasn’t that. It wasn’t just that.
He’d been kind of mad too, because yesterday she had been flirting with that dumbass.
It was just that it was really stupid. That guy was just so clearly after an easy lay.
Which he didn’t think Lila was. Not that he knew anything about that part of her life.
She was younger than him anyway. Her social circle was separate from his.
He didn’t even think women her age in town went to the Velvet Slipper.
Well, women his age did. He had seen them last night and the night before.
He had just always been separate from that part of Lila’s life.
And if she was an easy lay, that was her business.
Apparently when she didn’t think a man was hot, she was real certain.
She must find this man hot. Just because he thought she could do better than some Bud Light drunk doofus at a bachelor party, didn’t mean she wanted to do better.
So yeah, maybe he’d been a little bit of an ass. But he wasn’t acting like her brother.
And she’d said he was hot in spite of being an ass.
He tamed his body into a state of submission with pure willpower and got dressed, his hair still wet as he walked downstairs with an overnight bag.
Lila was standing in front of the table, and he walked over to where she was and reached past her, flicking open the bakery box.
He grabbed a cinnamon roll, and as he did, he moved back just slightly, and his eyes met hers. He noticed a change in her breathing, even though her cheeks didn’t turn pink this time. Her pupils expanded, and he could see the pulse at the base of her throat beating faster.
Shit.
He pulled back away from her as quickly as possible.
Shit.