Chapter Ten
Venezio
Fun fact: Stephanie was the kind of drinker who was absolutely fine if she kept moving, but the second she sat down, the liquor hit her like a truck.
While Sammy tried to get Andy to stop showing the random family of tourists the thousands of pictures she had of their French Bulldog on the subway, Steph was sitting next to me, arms thrown out as the world seemed to spin around her.
The train lurched to life, making Stephanie let out a pathetic whimper.
“Let’s try this,” I suggested, reaching down for her legs and pulling them over mine so she was sitting sideways on the seat.
She was quick to nestle in, leaning her head on my shoulder and sucking in a deep breath.
“Any better?” I asked.
“Little,” she admitted. She sucked in another deep breath. “You always smell like coffee.”
There was no reasoning with the part of me that was thrilled to learn she noticed something like that about me.
“You smell like sugar.”
“Sugar doesn’t have a smell,” she objected.
“Sure it does. And you smell like it. Though, you smell like berries and tequila tonight.”
She tasted like it too.
I tried to force those thoughts out of my mind, knowing if I didn’t, I’d be rock-hard within a minute. With the way she was sitting across my lap, there was no way she wouldn’t notice that.
“Too much tequila,” she said, letting out an exaggeratedly long sigh.
“Eh, just enough,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re happy and uninhibited, but conscious and not bent over a toilet.”
“All true,” she agreed, rubbing her cheek against my chest.
“Everything still spinning?”
“It’s worse if I close my eyes.”
“So don’t do that,” I suggested. My hand seemed incapable of staying around her hips. It drifted up and down her spine, toyed with the silky edges of her hair. “That feels nice,” she declared, making my stomach tighten.
I tried to take a steadying breath.
But I only breathed in more of that sugar-sweet scent of her.
“Mmm,” she moaned, the sound going right to my dick. “That feels even better,” she said as my fingers made little circles around her scalp.
She shifted closer, leaned more firmly against me.
And she let out several more of those little moans.
Thankfully, our stop was just a few seconds later, so Sammy and I half-carried the girls out of the train, up the steps, and back out onto the streets.
The cold seemed to revive both of them momentarily, making it easier to get them up into their apartment building.
“I’ll be back to check on you in two minutes,” Sammy said as she led her girlfriend toward another apartment.
The meaning there was clear: I will make sure you don’t hurt my friend.
I had to respect that.
“Ugh!” Stephanie grumbled, shaking her purse. “Just pick it,” she said.
“The lock?” I asked, confused.
“My purse ate my keys.”
“Yeah?” I asked, just barely holding back a smile. “Let me see.”
I took her bag as she leaned against the wall, saying something about macaroni and cheese that I didn’t quite make out as I dug through her bag to find her keyring. Sure enough, like everything else about her, it was Christmas-themed with a big elf stuffy attached to the ring.
“Show off,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me as I stabbed the key in the lock, then pushed the door open.
“Ready?” she asked.
“For what?” I asked, unable to see much of anything in her pitch-black apartment.
“This!” she said with a flourish as she threw a hand out, feeling for something. “Hold on. I just… okay. This!” she said when her hand finally found the tablet she was looking for and hit a few buttons.
Then the lights flicked on.
And I didn’t just mean her table lamps.
Nope.
The whole fucking apartment was lit in the warm glow of colored lights. On the tree, framing the windows, strung over the top of the kitchen cabinets, over the doorways.
“I know you’re a grinchy kind of guy,” she said, already kicking off her shoes, and nearly toppling over in the process. “But even you have to admit it’s pretty.”
“It’s pretty,” I agreed, glancing from the twinkling tree back to her as she—I shit you not—started to strip out of her layers. “Whoa, what are you doing?” I asked, grabbing her coat and gloves off the floor to set them neatly on the couch.
“Yeahhh,” Sammy said from the doorway. “She does that.”
“Does what? Strips when she gets home?”
“When she’s had tequila, yeah. Best to just get her in bed,” she offered.
“I’m right here,” Stephanie grumbled, trying to fiddle with her button and zipper on her pants.
“Listen, my dear,” Sammy said, moving forward to grab Steph’s hands before she could shimmy the material down her hips. “While I fully respect your desire to side hustle as a midnight ballerina, we’re going to need you to keep your clothes on right now.”
“They’re just underwear,” Stephanie grumbled, tripping over a fallen throw pillow and dropping backward onto the couch.
“Gonna get you some water,” I said as Sammy tried to refasten Stephanie’s pants for her.
With the distraction of Steph—and my seemingly overwhelming attraction to her. Even when she was belting out an off-key pop song with her (even more off-key) best friend. Actually, that shit was a lot hotter than it had any right to be.
Maybe it was just because it was so free.
I lived a very rigid life within an organization of people who mostly took themselves very seriously. Then my home, well, it was rare that people living in such economic straits let loose. Systemic poverty tensed up every muscle, ground down each drop of joy, gobbled up every bit of dopamine.
So, yeah, Steph’s happiness was hypnotic.
The quiet lilt of her voice as she spoke to her friend still washed over me as I moved away, even if it was impossible to make out the words.
It let me focus more on her apartment.
That made me acutely aware of just how bare my own was. While it wasn’t a huge space, and the original cabinets, floors, and white walls could have easily felt lifeless and uninteresting, Stephanie refused to allow that to happen.
She breathed her personality and interests into every inch of this place.
The walls featured random art. Her kitchen counters were scattered with cooking utensils, flour and sugar canisters, a crock full of brightly colored utensils, pictures of nights out with her friends pinned to the fridge with magnets made of clay in the shapes of anthropomorphized fruits and vegetables.
I went through her cabinets to find a glass, coming across her mug collection instead. There were two shelves full. One featured her Christmas collection—mismatched Santa prints, reindeer, elves, you name it. The other was her everyday collection, which was equally varied.
I found a glass, the pitcher of water in the fridge, and a packet of electrolytes.
“Uh-oh,” Sammy said as I made my way back, her body stiffening at something she heard. It took me a second, but the echoes of retching drifted down the hallway.
“Go on. I’m just gonna make sure she drinks this, then I’ll head out. You can check back every two minutes if you wanna.”
Sammy looked conflicted, but eventually had no choice but to rush out when a smush-faced dog went rushing past Steph’s open door.
“Shit. Meatball!” she called, running out into the hall.
“I love Meatball,” Steph said, eyes going round, almost a little sad.
“Yeah? Why don’t you get one?”
“Work. Charity.”
“You work from home,” I reminded her.
“Maybe after Christmas. Is that for me?” she asked, pressing her hand to her heart as I offered her the glass of water. She was looking at it like it was five dozen long-stemmed roses.
“Yep. You gotta drink it all.”
She sniffed it, her nose wrinkling.
“That’s not a margarita.”
“No, but it might help you prevent a hangover from those margaritas. Beside, it’s a mocktail flavor. Cranberry cosmo or some shit like that.”
“I like how you talk,” she said, taking a sip. “Some shit like that,” she parroted, dropping her voice low. “I can’t do the gravel.”
“The gravel?”
“There’s gravel in your voice. I like it. It’s hot.”
These were not things a sober Stephanie would want to say to me. I felt guilty hearing (and enjoying) them.
“I got him!” Sammy said, making me turn to find her standing in the doorway with a wriggling, unhappy dog. “I’m going to check on Andy, then take him to pee. I’ll check on you right after.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that Stephanie was safe with me. Overprotective friends were a good thing for a woman to have. I wasn’t going to insist Sammy let down her guard.
Especially not with dicks like Craig sniffing around Steph.
“I’m not gonna head out until you’re gone. I’ll keep an ear for your woman, too. Just in case she needs something.”
“Okay. Thanks,” Sammy said, but I was aware of her checking the doorknob on her way back out, making sure it was locked. “Five minutes!” she called, rushing down the hallway.
“She’s the MVP tonight, huh?”
“Sammy doesn’t like getting drunk,” Stephanie told me. She paused, swallowing the last of her water and handing the cup to me. Sideways. The dregs spilled down onto my thigh. And Stephanie? She panicked and tried to wipe it away with her fingers.
“Babe, gonna need you to stop that.” The drops were too damn high on my leg. And my cock was getting ideas.
“I ruined your pants!” she whimpered.
Her gaze cut up to mine, all round eyes and a pouting lower lip that I really wanted to taste again.
“They’re fine,” I assured her, removing her hand myself.
“Why wouldn’t you let me take my pants off?” she asked.
“I believe that was Sammy.” Though, yeah, I’d have tried to stop her too.
“I dreamed of it, you know,” she said, letting out a big yawn and leaning her head on my arm.
“Dreamed of what?” I really needed not to ask questions like that.
“You. Me. Pants off.”
Fuck.
I needed to change topics fast.
“Babe, you’re really drunk.”
“I wasn’t. When I was having those dreams,” she clarified.
“But you are now. And I know sober you wouldn’t want you to be saying this.”
She let out a sound that almost resembled a snore, then suddenly stretched across me.
I threw up my hands, not trusting myself not to reach for her as she did… whatever she was doing on the end table beside me.
It was right then that Sammy decided to reappear in the doorway. She seemed pleased by my gesture as Steph finally located what she was searching for—the remote—and dropped back down to her seat.
“I’m gonna put on ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’,” she told me. “Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“It’s great. Funny. And JTT,” she said, fanning herself. I had no idea what or who JTT was, but even Sammy agreed he was ‘dreamy.’ “You’re going to love it.”
“Babe, I can’t stay and watch it.”
“Why not?” Stephanie asked, her lower lip pouting even more than before.
“I promised Sam—”
“He can stay and watch it,” Sammy said, making Stephanie smile as she tried to read and type out the letters for the title. I glanced over at Sammy who mouthed and mimed to me: She’ll be asleep in five minutes.
The silent part didn’t need to be said. She would be back to check to make sure I went on my way once Stephanie was asleep.
“I need to get my eyes checked,” Stephanie grumbled, squinting at the TV.
I took the remote, pressed the mic button, and spoke the title into it instead.
“You’re so smart!”
“Yeah, fucking genius right here,” I agreed as she clicked the movie and the opening scene started.
Sammy was off by her estimate. But only by five minutes.
Ten minutes into the movie, Stephanie’s head fell hard onto my shoulder, out cold.
I let myself enjoy that sensation for a moment, the softness of her, the sweet scent of her, her hand resting on my leg.
Before I could let myself get too used to it, though, I slid a hand behind her neck, holding her up as I slid out from under her. Then I lowered her down flat on the cushions, glad I didn’t have to worry about her rolling onto her back on the small couch.
I was still tucking the throw blanket covered in candy canes around her sleeping body when I noticed Sammy standing in the doorway, a thoughtful look on her face.
“How’s Andy?” I asked, brushing Steph’s hair behind her ear before forcing myself to move away.
“Empty. Sleeping. She’s going to have a hell of a hangover. Thanks for helping out,” she said as I made my way to the door. “These two can be a handful sometimes.”
“Eh, you love it.”
“I do,” she agreed. “You’re surprisingly gentle with her for such a rough-looking guy.” Sammy reached around to lock the door before pulling it closed.
I didn’t know what to say to that. No one had ever accused me of being gentle before.
“I would apologize for scheming with Andy to bring you to the party, but I’m not sorry,” she admitted with a smile that crinkled her eyes. “Get home safe, Venezio.”
“Thanks,” I said, nodding. “I gotta go fucking rent that movie now,” I admitted.
Because, yeah, Steph had been right; I did like it.
And suddenly, there was something about Christmas joy that didn’t quite feel out of reach.
Whatever the fuck that meant.