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“I think you’re full of beauty,” he said. “Yes.”
Her smile was small then—shy, even—but Nick thought she glowed a little.
She said, “Thank you, Nick.”
“You’re welcome.”
Well, at least she didn’t think she was a problem anymore. Maybe his work here was finally done.
“How d’you get an Uber?” she asked him out of nowhere.
Excellent—this meant she was leaving. “I think you have to download the app and get an account,” he told her.
“You mean you don’t know? Didn’t you have to call one to get here?” He shook his head gently, and she put her face in her hands. “Shit,” she said through her fingers. “You can drive. I’m so sorry.”
Nick could’ve explained how much he hated struggling to climb into an unfamiliar car, or how excruciating it was to watch someone he’d never met try to manhandle the walker into the trunk, but he and Hayley had both been through enough for one night.
“It’s okay,” he said. “How about a taxi?”
Two minutes later, Hayley was on the phone with a taxi service, and he gave her the address of the bar. “Okay,” she said. “Now where’m I going?”
He looked at her quizzically. “How should I know?”
“Oh!” She started laughing. “My place. Right.”
Nick was more confused when Hayley put down her phone and started rummaging in her purse. “Are they still on the line?” he asked.
“I wrote it down here somewhere,” she said.
Nick picked up the phone. As it became increasingly clear that Hayley wasn’t finding her address, a bored man on the other end of the line told him the cab company did not pick up drunk people from bars without first knowing where they would be dropping those drunk people off. Nick thanked him, hung up the phone, and watched Hayley search.
“How about you call Kevin?” he suggested.
She shook her head emphatically. “No. He might be doing something important.”
“Come on. He’ll understand.”
Hayley wordlessly took the phone from him, put it to her ear, then hung up after less than a minute. “No answer,” she said.
“Maybe if you call again, he’ll know it’s important.”
“I’m not going to be a problem anyone has to fix.”
She wasn’t—not technically—but he knew that ship had sailed a while ago. He couldn’t just leave her here. He didn’t love the idea of staying either; he was sober now, but he felt depleted enough that the drive home was likely to get harder the longer he stayed in this booth. If he couldn’t leave her to fend for herself, and he couldn’t wait here until she figured things out; if a taxi and an Uber were not going to work, and Kevin wasn’t answering the phone, then Nick saw only one more option.
He didn’t like it.
8
Hayley was alone in a strange bed, clad only in her panties.
She sat up slowly, getting used to the pain in her head and the light slipping into the room through a crack in drawn curtains. She saw a dresser, an overstuffed armchair, a bedside table with a lamp. An alarm clock read nine. There was a photo of a beach on the far wall.
Her bra was on the floor next to the bed, and the rest of her clothing had disappeared.
She glimpsed a sink and mirror through the open bathroom door, and a hazy memory found her: She’d decided it was too hot, thrown her shirt, and shucked her tank top over her head as she walked down the hallway. She’d stepped out of her shoes, peeled off her socks, slipped out of her jeans. They’d both come into the bedroom, but he’d ducked into the bathroom while she’d climbed into bed. Hayley remembered him standing in the doorway, light streaming into the dark room from the hallway behind him.“Goodnight,”he’d said, and she couldn’t see his face.
Shit. She was in Nick’s bed.
