Page 21 of His for the Holiday

“I wish,” she said, and it sounded like she really did wish he would.

I understood it, though. Clearly, there had been a lot going on in Portsmouth that Emery had been dealing with all by herself. Deciding that I might just try to talk to him about it if the opportunity ever presented itself, I was surprised when she suddenly took my arm and started marching away from the festival.

“Where are we going?” I asked laughingly.

“Hen’s Bar,” she said. “A lot of the old crowd are in town for the holidays and rumor has it they’ve been hanging out there. Let’s go have some fun.”

I groaned. Hanging out with a bunch of kids from high school did not sound like fun to me, but when we walked in, it turned out that it was more like a freaking reunion than just a crowd hanging out. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of people I recognized and I had to explain my life story over and over again.

As the night drew on, I got tired of rehashing it to people who would only use my situation as fodder for the gossip machine, and I went to track down Emery. She was laughing with some girls at the bar when I finally found her.

“I think I’m going to head home,” I said, giving the other girls an apologetic smile for cutting into their conversation.

As Emery spun to face me, she nearly fell off her chair and I realized that she’d gotten pretty drunk. Reaching out to steady her, I kept a gentle hold on her arm. “On second thought, maybe you should come with me. What do you say about calling it a night?”

At first, she looked like she might argue, but then she blinked hard and started nodding. “Yeah. Good idea. You’re looking a little fuzzy.”

“As long as you’re not seeing double,” I said as I helped her up. She was a little unsteady on her feet, so I looped my arm around hers and we swayed out of the bar together. She was pretty much incoherent by the time we made it to the street, and I groaned as I realized I might just end up having to carry her home.

“Sutton?” Hawk’s voice suddenly called from behind us and I groaned. “Em? Are you guys okay?”

I glanced at him over my shoulder, seeing him emerge from Hen’s with his own eyes almost as glassy as I was sure mine were. “Hawk? Have you been here the whole time?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I was drinking. What’s wrong with her?”

“Drinking,” I echoed the word. “Are you going home?”

“I am now,” he said, picking up his pace to catch up to us. “Although I might need a wheelbarrow to cart you stumbling ladies back to the house.”

“That sounds lovely,” I said. “Go find one.”

His long legs ate up the distance, and the next thing I knew, he was right next to me. Those blue eyes burned into mine. “How much did she have?”

“She had just enough to have fun for a change,” my sister muttered drunkenly. “But now I need to sit down. Bench?”

With surprising speed, she broke away from me, letting go of my arm and barreling toward a bus bench nearby. She looked almost graceful until she tried to sit. She missed and slid right off the edge of the seat onto her butt. Hawk groaned and raced over, picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder.

“You’ve always been such a lightweight,” he teased his sister as she hung with her arms extended down his back. “What did you do? Suck down a bottle of tequila?”

“Hard cider,” she muttered. “The lord’s apple juice. What about you? Are you missing your glitzy clubs back in LA?”

“More and more by the second,” he said, grinning.

We walked up the slight incline to our houses. Since my parents were with Winnie, I decided to walk them to theirs, wanting to make sure that they got there okay. When we arrived, Hawk disappeared into the house to tuck his sister in bed, but he’d hardly gone inside when he walked back out again.

“She insisted on doing it herself,” he explained, striding to the steps of their porch and sitting down. “Want to talk for a while? I’m a little keyed up to go to sleep.”

“Sure,” I agreed, not nearly as inebriated as Emery but having had enough to drink that my inhibitions were lowered, if not gone.

As I sat down next to him, I turned to study his profile, so beautiful when he was softly lit with the orangey light of their front garden.

“What?” he asked suddenly.

“Nothing.” There was no way I was going to tell him that I’d realized I was still just as attracted to him as I’d ever been. “Is it weird for you being home?”

“Okay, that’s really not what I thought you were thinking.” He let out a low chuckle. “It’s weird for me, yes, but it’s probably weirder for you.”

“Why do you say that?”