37. Zane

37

ZANE

"Wake up, asshole. We need the couch."

Each word is like an individual gunshot, but I still can't open my eyes. Consciousness is floating just out of reach, and based on the way my head is throbbing and my stomach churns, I'm not sure I want it.

I start to drift back off—only for loud, metallic banging to startle me awake again.

"No more sleeping!" a familiar voice snaps. "Gallagher is coming back from daycare soon. I can't have Uncle Zane passed out on the sofa."

Jace.

I'm at Jace's house.

Fuck.

I blink my eyes open and hiss like Dracula. "Do you live on the fucking sun? What is wrong with this place?"

Jace's blurry figure walks around the couch and I hear the fwish of the blinds sliding closed.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

"The only thing wrong with my house is that you've been sweating out last night's poison all over my leather couch for the last ten hours."

I drag a hand through my hair. It feels like my brain is trying to escape my skull. I can't remember the last time I felt this terrible.

Actually, I can. The entire first week after I decided to get sober was a descent into the bowels of hell.

As my eyes throb and my stomach churns, I'm wondering if hell doesn't have a basement.

My phone vibrates on the table and I lunge for it, just to shut the damn thing up. But my hand-eye coordination is ten kinds of fucked, so I end up skidding my phone across the coffee table and onto the rug. At least the vibration is muffled.

"It's been ringing like that for hours," Jace informs me. There isn't a drop of sympathy on his face. "All night, really. You said Mira wasn't your girlfriend, but she sure as hell calls you like one."

"Mira?" Snippets of conversation float back to me, but it's like trying to write a novel with alphabet soup. Nothing goes in the right order. "What happened?"

"Well, you decided to throw away four years of sobriety and get trashed at a bar. Then you tried to fight me when it was time to leave."

I squint up at him. I don't see any black eyes. No bruises. "I must not have tried very hard. You look fine."

"Only because you were so drunk you could barely stand," Jace growls. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Whitaker?"

"Right now, your volume control." I reach for my phone, moving slowly so I don't upset the very delicate game of balance that is keeping the contents of my stomach inside my stomach. It vibrates again, Mira's name flashing on the screen.

I don't even have time to dismiss the call before my phone goes black. It's dead.

Suddenly, Jace swats my phone out of my hand. "I carried your ass out of the bar, cleaned your vomit out of the backseat of my car, and had to give my kid breakfast in his bedroom so he wouldn't get scared seeing you passed out on my couch. The very fucking least you can do is tell me why ."

I bite the inside of my cheek. "It's nothing."

"Wrong answer, asshole!" he barks. "After you spewed alcohol all over my backseat, you also spewed your guts. I know everything."

I snap my attention to him, moving so fast my head spins. "What does that mean? What do you know?"

What did I tell him?

"I know Mira had a date last night." Jace drops down on the far end of the sofa with a sigh. "It's obvious you're into her. I saw you two at the party. I haven't seen you like that with anyone. Ever. Not even Paige."

Paige is dead.

I have a son.

Mira is…

"Mira is—" I shake my head. "Nothing is going on."

He snorts. "Is that why you said her name in your sleep? Because she means ‘nothing' to you?"

I clench my jaw. Drunk Zane apparently has no dignity whatsoever. Yet another reason never to drink again.

"Listen, I'm all about you finding some woman and settling down," Jace says, "but not if it's going to fuck with your head like this. She went out on one date and you ended up hungover at my house in the middle of the damn afternoon. It's not healthy."

The middle of the afternoon.

"Shit!" I jump to my feet, groaning and paling as my body adjusts to the new altitude. "What time is it?"

"It's almost three," Jace answers. "Gallagher is going to be home in a few minutes and I promised Rachelle you'd be gone by the time they?—"

"Fuck. Fucking fuck. " I snatch my dead phone off the couch and search the empty coffee table. "Keys. Where are my keys?"

I was supposed to be home last night. Instead, I'm going to roll in almost twenty-four hours later.

What if CPS dropped in for a visit? What if Mira reports me for abandoning Aiden?

Aiden. Fuck! How is Mira explaining this to him?

Jace laughs. "If you think you were in any state to drive last night, then you must still be drunk. Your car is at the bar."

"Shit. Right. I'll order an Uber." I'm halfway to the door when I remember my phone is dead. "Can you call me a?—?"

"I'm already on it." Jace is still looking down at his phone when he waves me out. "Go on, fuck off. Your ride will be here in three minutes."

"Thanks, man." I stop, one hand on the door. "For everything."

Jace rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. No repeats of this, though, yeah? I have a kid now. I can't be acting like one."

"Yeah," I mutter. "Me, too."

The car ride back to my condo is real-time punishment for my sins. If I had my phone, I'd give the driver negative stars. Karma is a bitch, and apparently, she drives a Prius.

Linda Q. takes every turn like she's competing in the Monaco Grand Prix. By the time the car skids to a stop in front of my building, I peel myself out of the backseat and almost kiss the pavement. I'm so glad to be stationary.

Even the thought of the elevator makes me gag, so I hoof it up the stairs. I'm a professional athlete—I get paid to go to the gym and stay in shape—but I'm sweating by the time I press my forehead to the cool wood of my front door.

"Just one second," I whisper. "I'll wait here for just one second."

Before that second can come to pass, the door yanks open.

It takes every ounce of core strength I have not to faceplant in my entryway. Well, core strength and Mira's hands pressed flat to my chest.

She yelps as I grab her hips and try to right myself before we end up sprawled on the floor.

"Zane," she gasps.

Any other day, I'd hear the breathy way she says my name and imagine her body underneath mine, her breath in my ear.

In my current state, my fantasies mostly involve being buried underneath my blankets in a dark room with no sound at all. The cold, lifeless vacuum of space could be nice.

"Sorry."

She opens her mouth to say something and then recoils, her nose wrinkled. "Where have you been?"

My tongue feels fuzzy and my breath tastes horrible. I'm guessing I don't smell nearly as nice as Mira's fruity perfume. Which, right now, is making my stomach flip in the worst kind of way.

She backs away from me just as Aiden throws himself at my legs. "You're back!"

"I'm back. Sorry, I was?—"

"Flying home from a surprise away game," Mira finishes through a clenched jaw. "I told him all about how the game had to be moved out of town because the ice in our arena melted."

I'm not operating on all cylinders, because it takes me way too long to realize that's a cover story that only a four-year-old would buy.

"Oh, right. Uh-huh." I nod. "Totally melted. It was a swimming pool."

Aiden squeezes my leg again. "I missed you."

He might as well beat me over the head. Someone should. I need to be put out of my misery.

My son lost his mom and then I took off without any warning and left him with Mira all night. What in the hell is wrong with me?

Mira gently pulls Aiden away. "Hey, bud, can you go play in your room for a few minutes? I need to talk to your dad."

Aiden starts to pout, but Mira pivots and says he can play in her room instead.

"Can I make a fort out of the big blanket?" he asks, already backing towards the hall out of excitement.

"Whatever you want." As he's running down the hall, she adds, "But stay out of my dresser!"

The second her bedroom door clicks closed, Mira whirls back to me so fast I get dizzy. "I'd ask if you enjoyed your night, but I can smell it on you. So I'll ask this instead: what the fuck were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that…" I look away so I don't spew both bullshit and actual vomit all over her. "I was thinking I scored a game-winning goal and I deserved to celebrate with my teammates."

It's a shitty excuse and Mira knows it.

"Well, I was thinking that I'm not Aiden's mother," she hisses. "I was thinking that you respected me enough to stick to our schedule. I told you I needed you to come back after the game."

For her date.

My body is processing a lot right now—mostly the last dregs of alcohol still sloshing through my bloodstream—but I still remember where all this started. It's been almost a full day since I first saw Mira's text on my phone, but I'm right back in that moment. Fists clenched, chest in a tight knot.

"When did you tell me that? I think I'd remember that conversation."

"I sent you a calendar invite!"

"No fucking wonder I didn't see it. I'm not your dentist, Mira. If you had plans, you should have told me."

"You're my boss ." She spits the word at me like it's dirty. "We have a business relationship. I scheduled my time off with you like a professional , and you ignored me and got drunk, like an asshole . What the hell is up with that, anyway? I thought you were sober?"

I push past her and storm into the kitchen, barely making it to the island before I need to grip the counter and take a breath. "That's personal. Bringing it up isn't very professional of you."

"As someone who works for you, I deserve to know if you're going off the deep end!"

"You should know. You're the one who pushed me." I fill a glass with water and drain all of it. My mouth is still dry.

"What the—what does that mean?" She shakes her head. "I didn't do anything wrong. You're the one who ruined my night."

"You aren't even supposed to date." I drain another glass of water. When I slam it on the counter, I have a flash of doing something similar last night. Though, I'm pretty positive that glass wasn't full of water. "It's part of our agreement. You're supposed to be my girlfriend."

Her mouth opens and closes a few times before she finds the words. "You've made it clear you aren't interested, Zane. Starting anything between us would be stupid, remember?"

I grind my molars together. "I never said I wanted to start anything."

I didn't say it. But fuck knows I've spent hours thinking about it. About her body arched against mine, her lips parted in a pant. I've rubbed myself raw to keep myself from starting something with her.

"Which is exactly why I'm going to go out with someone who does."

"I could fire you," I blurt.

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I won't. But I let them hang there anyway.

Mira stares at me, her face stony. Finally, she shrugs. "Fine. Do it if you want."

"Mira—"

"I'm taking the day off to make up for all the overtime I worked last night, since you were an inconsiderate asshole and ruined my date." She snatches her keys and purse from the counter. "It will be a test run so you can see what it's like without me."

I don't need a test run. I know what it's going to be like without her.

But I don't ask her to stay.

I can't.

I lost four years of sobriety last night, along with a good dose of my dignity. I'm not going to lose any more.

Mira is halfway out the door when she whips around. "By the way—from now on, when you're in town, I want every Friday night off. I'll pretend to be your girlfriend during business hours, but I'm not going to put my life on pause for you anymore. Asshole. "

To prove her point, she slams the door closed without waiting for me to answer.