“I do still love you,” he says and loses his balance.
He manages to catch himself before he falls all the way to the ground, but he knocks a stack of plates off the counter in the process.
“Okay,” I tell him. “You’re taking a shower and I’m going to bring you some coffee after I get all this cleaned up.”
“You’re so good to me,” he says. “You’re fucking amazing.”
“I must be,” I sigh as I put one of his arms around my shoulders and walk him to the bathroom.
All things considered, the only thing he really did wrong was got too drunk.
I’ve done that.
I don’t know why I’m so angry with him, but the feeling’s not going away.
We get into the bathroom and I stuff him in the shower and tell him to take off his clothes.
“All right,” he says, a grin working its way up his face. “Hey,” he whispers.
“What?” I ask, leaning toward him.
“If you jump in the shower with me, we can pretend it’s a waterfall.”
With that, I’m done talking to him.
I turn on the shower, hoping that the jolt of the cold water brings him back to a more tolerable version of himself, and I walk out of the room.
It’s a miracle that neither of us got cut on the shards of ceramic plate scattered all over the kitchen floor.
The dishes were nothing fancy, but that doesn’t make me any less angry. My only consolation is that it doesn’t take long to pick up the remnants.
I can hear Dane in the bathroom.
It’s unclear whether he’s singing or just talking really loud, but I could do without hearing that voice for a little while, so I walk over to the television, fully intending to crank the volume up and drown his voice out entirely.
That’s when I hear what he’s singing.
I step into the bathroom.
“…Leila, Leila, Leila, Leila…”
The guy’s a mess, but damn it, he’s my mess.
He’s drenched and I know how cold the water is, but he’s just sitting there on the shower floor, arms open wide, eyes closed, singing my name.
It’s pretty hard to stay mad at him.
Chapter Twenty
Rough
Dane
If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the sunlight creeping through my window is hell.
I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk in my life.
My only comfort from this massive hangover is the soft, warm body lying next to me.
With my eyes as near closed as I can keep them while still managing to see what I’m doing, I lean over and kiss Leila on the forehead. She takes a deep breath and continues to sleep.
I remember meeting with Wrigley yesterday.
To say that I’m confident in trusting her to leave us alone would be a lie, but at least she put forward the lip service.
I get up and stagger my way into the kitchen. Now would be the perfect time to have one of those coffee machines that starts brewing at a preset time, but that’s a luxury for a different morning.
There’s a bottle of ibuprofen on one of the shelves in the cupboard, but I’m not ready for the physical effort it’s going to take to reach for it just yet.
For now, I remove the old filter from the coffee maker and replace it with a new one. I don’t bother measuring the grounds I put in the filter.
It’s a minute before I realize that a coffee maker requires water.
I open the cupboard and grab the ibuprofen.
There’s a stir in my bedroom, and I have wild and wondrous fantasies of Leila coming out here and offering to make the coffee while I’m allowed to lie down on the couch, but it doesn’t happen that way.
As it happens, Leila comes out of the room, her hair beautifully messy and her eyes hardly more open than my own.
“Morning,” she says and plops down on the couch.
The television is on a moment later, and I’m left with this herculean task to conquer alone.
Somehow, I manage to put all the ingredients in all the right places and get the pot of coffee going, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to do much else if I can’t reign this fucking hangover in a bit.
There’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer, but I have a feeling Leila’s not going to be particularly understanding of my situation. The last thing I clearly remember is the icy shower she dumped me into.
Things must have worked out all right, though. Last night was the first night she slept in my room.
“Hungry?” I ask her.
“Meh,” she answers. I know that’s a clear signal one way or another, but I left my decoder ring in my other pants.
“How about waffles?” I ask.
It’s the perfect crime: I get to take a few swigs of vodka to dial back my hangover and Leila’s pacified and distracted by waffles.
“Meh,” she answers again.
Oh well.
I open the freezer and grab the vodka bottle before I even dream of touching the waffles.
This is a covert operation.
If I took the waffles out first, she’d be bound to suspect that I was up to something when I didn’t immediately close the freezer.
The vodka is cold enough that I don’t taste it for a couple of seconds, just long enough for the worst of it to pass.
I leave the bottle on the countertop. There’s no reason to put it back before I’m done with the waffles.
“Butter? Syrup?” I ask.
“I’m not that hungry,” she says.
Myself, I’m fairly certain that if I were to try and eat something right now, I’d just refund it a few minutes later.
“Okay.”
The coffee’s done, but I take another swig of vodka before I bother doing anything with that information.
“Hair of the dog?” Leila asks.
I don’t know why I still try to get away with anything with Leila around.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m dying over here. This hangover is murder.”
“I would imagine,” she says inscrutably.
One more swig and the vodka goes back into the freezer, right along with the unopened box of waffles.
“So,” Leila starts, “do you remember anything from last night?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “After the shower it’s a little fuzzy, but I’m sure with some minor discussion the rest of it will come back.”
“Well,” she says, turning around on the couch to face me, “you begged me not to move to New Jersey.”
“That sounds like something I’d do,” I tell her, pulling two coffee mugs from the cupboard. “That sounds exactly like something I’d do. I both love you and hate New Jersey.”
“Yeah, that came up during our discussion,” she says. “Do you remember where the conversation went from there?”
I’m right in that in-between area where the alcohol is starting to hit, but the hangover’s still overpowering it and I want to stick my hand into a running garbage disposal just to take the focus away from my throbbing head.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “It hasn’t come back to me yet.”
“Do you think it’s going to, or do you just want me to tell you?”
“Tell me.”
I have both mugs filled with coffee before she considers responding.
“It seems that you have a bit of a problem with Mike,” she says.
This can’t be a good turn of events.
“Really?” I ask. “What did I say?”
“You said it was kind of messed up that you’re doing everything to keep your past relationships away from ours while I’m still hanging around with Mike.”
“I said that?” I ask, not sure whether to be proud or nervous.
“Yeah,” she says. “At one point, you called him a douche nozzle. It was a mean sentiment, but I have to admit it did get me to laugh.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I think we need to talk,” she says.
I bring her coffee as a peace offering, but it doesn’t seem to have the magical powers with which I had so intently tried to imbue it.
“Mike is my best friend,” she says. “I get that you’ve got a little jealousy going on, but he and I have known each other for a really long time, and I can’t just stop being friends with him because you’re feeling threatened.”