CHAPTER 12

DRUNKEN IDIOT

Brandon

Charlie was drunk.

I wasn’t positive about the full capacity of her drunkenness, but I knew there was no way in hell she was going to drive home.

I had only seen her drink three beers, but it would appear that those three beers were beyond her limit.

Especially if her constant giggling had anything to do with it.

“Seriously, Brandon.” She turned to face me as I walked her to my car. “Livy can take me home.”

“Livy lives here,” I reminded her. “There’s no point in her getting out when I’ve got to drive home anyway.”

“That’s true.” She scrunched her brow in concentration as if she was trying to figure out the next excuse to get me to not take her home.

“Don’t you have something else you need to do?” She took another step backward, and I reached out for her when she almost fell over her own damn feet.

“Nope.” I opened the passenger side door and waited for her to get inside.

“You mean to tell me that a handsome thing like you doesn’t have a gaggle of women waiting for you to call them?”

“Did you just say gaggle?” I chuckled, but I definitely didn’t miss the fact that she had just called me handsome.

“Don’t avoid the question, mister.” She pointed her finger at me then leaned her head back against my car. I prayed she didn’t pass out or puke.

“It’s nice to know that you think I’m handsome, but no. I don’t have a gaggle of women.”

She lifted her head to look at me before she rolled her eyes so hard in the back of her head that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Puhhlease.” She drug out the word. “You don’t need me telling you how handsome you are. I’m sure that you are quite aware.”

I grinned as her eyes slid down my body and did a slow perusal.

I took a step closer to her, and her gaze slowly moved back up to reach mine. “I like that you think I’m handsome.” I tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who is attracted to the other.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I didn’t say that I was attracted to you.”

Her skin was already a light shade of red from her drinking, but I knew that if she was sober, I would have been able to watch the blush creep up her neck.

“Didn’t you?” I cocked my head to the side.

“I think that a lot of women are beautiful, but that doesn’t mean I am attracted to them.”

“That may be true.” I nodded my head. “But I think you are just lying to the both of us.”

“Of course, you do.” She pushed off my car and moved to get into the front seat. Her body slid past mine, and I breathed her in. She constantly smelled sweet enough to eat. A side effect of the job I assumed. “That’s because you, my dear friend, are arrogant.”

She plopped down in the front seat, and I smiled at her assessment of me as I reached in to help her get the seatbelt buckled.

“What would you prefer for me to be? More like David?” I didn’t know why I even brought him up, but I was dying to know if she was planning to go out with him again. I needed to know where they stood.

“For your information.” She jerked the seatbelt out of my hand and quickly pressed it into the buckle. “David hasn’t even called me after your display the other night.”

What?

David hadn’t called her? If anything, I would have thought she would have been the one who decided she was no longer interested in him. He was a fucking idiot.

I told her so. “David is a fucking idiot.”

“Well.” She folded her hands in her lap and pressed her head back against the headrest as she looked up at me. “You should be happy. He’s an idiot who no longer wants to date me.”

“That doesn’t make me happy, sweetheart.” It did, but not like this. Not with that sad damn look on her face. Not when that asshole had somehow made her feel like she was less than.

“It doesn’t matter.” She reached past me, forcing me out of the way, as she forced the door closed.

I ran my hands through my hair and walked over to the driver seat. I didn’t want her dating David, but I didn’t want it to be like this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. At least the part where she was sad.

I climbed into the car, and she kept her face turned toward the window. I knew she wanted to avoid me, and I was going to let her. She deserved that at least.

When we pulled up outside her apartment, she pushed her door open before I could shut off the engine.

“Freckles, wait up,” I called out to her as I jogged behind her to catch up to her speed walking.

“I’m sorry.”

She swiveled toward me with her finger in the air. Her mouth opened, but then she seemed to think better of it. She turned on her heel and continued her pace.

When she shoved her keys into the door, I finally caught up to her.

“I didn’t mean for him not to call you. Please forgive me,” I said to her back.

“Yes. You did.” She left the keys hanging in the door. “That is exactly what you wanted to happen.”

I thought about what to say to her, but I came up blank.

What I wasn’t expecting to happen was for Charlie to wrap her arm around my neck and push her body against mine with a force I didn’t know she had. When her mouth pressed firmly against mine, it took everything inside of me not to kiss her back. Not like this. Not when she was upset and definitely not when she was drunk.

I unwrapped her hand from the back of my neck and gently pushed her away from me. I could see the hurt in her eyes before her feet were firmly planted back on the ground.

“Charlie,” I whispered her name.

“No.” She chuckled and waved me away. “I get it.”

She most certainly didn’t get it. She didn’t have a clue.

“You’re drunk.”

She rolled her eyes as if it was the worst excuse I could possibly have come up with, and I guess in her head it may have been.

She turned the key to her front door, and she looked back up at me before she walked inside.

“I’m an idiot.”

Then she was gone.