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I slumped down the side of the bed, my foot catching on shards of…
Oh shit. Aya’s conch. My breath stilled. No. I shoved the wrecked nightstand out of the way. The shell had shattered.
I touched one of the jagged edges, feeling that way myself. I shoved the nightstand again and a bottle rolled out. Whiskey. Half-filled. Why the hell would this be here? I had no memory of stashing the bottle, and I’d been so careful to remove any temptation.
Because the liquid did tempt me. It would erase all these damn messy feelings. I shouldn’t touch it… I didn’t want to touch it. That’s what I told myself even as I leaned forward and snagged it, my gaze still on the soft-pink innards of the conch. I twisted off the cap. The first long sip did nothing to dull my raging emotions. Neither did the second or the third.
I didn’t remember anything after the fifth.
26
Nash
My head ached and my eyes burned behind my closed lids. Even my skin hurt. It was as if my entire body had decided it needed to break, not just my heart. A rough tongue grated over my cheek. I batted it away.
“Good. You’re awake.”
I lifted my head from the thick carpet and glanced around my trashed bedroom. My neck and shoulders screamed in protest as I sat up. I must have passed out. On the floor. After my rage-fest at Aya.
I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.
Jigsaw curled around my ankles, purring loudly.
“What did you take?” Steve asked. His voice was neutral, almost without inflection.
I didn’t bother to raise my head. “Why do you care?”
“I’ve always cared.”
I bit back my response about him having a shit way of showing it. The idea of attacking Steve left me exhausted. More exhausted.
“She’s gone, you know,” he added after a moment.
I raised my head, my eyes narrowing as pain sliced through my skull. “She’s back at the ranch?” I asked, hopeful. I’d talk to her, touch her… My hands stopped shaking as the image of her in my arms calmed me.
“She’s gone. And she was too upset to come upstairs again, so I gave her a T-shirt, shorts, some flip-flops, and a ride at three-thirty in the morning.” Steve hesitated for a moment.
I stood too fast, swaying from dizziness, my hand landing on the bed beside me. “Where would she go? I need to see her.”
The need was deep, visceral—like the need to take another drink of whiskey, and another, and another…
Steve shrugged and stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. He turned to leave. “She asked me not to tell you.”
I gnashed my teeth. “That’s bullshit. Tell me.”
He widened his stance and glowered. “She has the right to make this call. You clearly still have some shit to work out.”
“I have some—” I bit off the rest of my sentence. “I drank a bottle of Whistlepig, just like dear old mommy.”
Just like my mom.
Oh…
She’d used alcohol, then drugs. She’d even used sex to fill the anguished hole inside her. Just as I did. Because of her actions, sure. But also because of my own.
The ones I didn’t like to admit to.
And, just like my mother, I’d used Aya to fill my needs. Sure, she was better than drugs or alcohol, but she was a person, and I’d wrapped myself so tightly around her, all while not actually trusting her, that I’d sunk us both. One well-placed insinuation from her waste of a father, and I’d gone off the deep end. What had I even said to her last night? What had I accused her of?
