EMERSON
I expected to hear the sounds of the cars coming and going on my street. We might not live right on the beach, but the stretch of beach we lived adjacent to was a local hot spot for surfers and beach bums alike. That meant that parking came at a premium, and sometimes we had to fight for our spots, depending on the weather, the waves, and whether there was a good party taking place on the beach. It also meant a lot of street noise.
The noise I heard now though . . . this was a different kind of commotion. It was late, and the car door slamming might not have been out of place, if it hadn’t been for the shouting that followed . . . and the pounding. Both of which sounded like they were coming from practically right outside my bedroom window.
But even that wasn’t enough to drag me from a deep sleep. It was the voice that got me. The voice that caused goose bumps to prickle over my arms and sent me upright in bed.
Lucas was out there.
Lucas, who was now making so much noise it was impossible for me to pretend I lived in a bubble in which he didn’t exist.
Huffing, even though there was no one around to appreciate my epic huffiness, I threw back my covers. Definitely not now that Lucas had punctured my self-induced force field of ignorance. So what would be the harm in just peeking? One little peek to spy on my obnoxious neighbor?
But my neighbor wasn’t just obnoxious, he was hammered. To the point of being nearly passed out by the time I saw him. He’d collapsed in a heap, slumped in a pile against the front door to his place.
“Aw, hell,” I grumbled in the darkness. I didn’t need this. Couldn’t I just go back to bed and pretend I hadn’t seen him? How many times had my brothers passed out? How many times had I stepped over them and gone up to my own bed where it was safe and warm and slept like a baby?
I could do that now, too. Lucas Harper was not my problem, at least not anymore. But I wouldn’t sleep . . . not knowing he was out there.
I was already reaching for the skimpy robe draped over the end of my bed—the only kind of robe I owned—as I stalked through my living room. Lucas better appreciate this when he sobered up. Not everyone was as neighborly as me.
I was still congratulating myself on my humanitarianism as I marched across the small patch of grass that separated our two houses. But when I reached him, I stopped dead in my tracks. Up close, Lucas was more than just drunk—he was a mess. His bleary-eyed gaze turned toward me but remained completely unfocused. For a second, I wondered if he even knew it was me standing there. If he even recognized me.
Then he dropped his head again, like it was too heavy to hold up and said, “Emm . . .” His lips locked on the m in my name, like he was humming it. When he said it again, I thought maybe he wasn’t saying my name at all, maybe he really was just making a sound. Maybe the Em part was an accident—I’d only heard my name because I wanted to hear it—and he really didn’t know it was me.
What was I going to do with him?
“Lucas,” I said sadly because he was sad. This was sad. I leaned down, thinking maybe I would help him to his feet, but that was a mistake.
The second I was within range, he caught a piece of my hair. I thought he might tug it, a little boy with a braid. Instead, he dragged it to his nose and sniffed it, like he was savoring a fine wine. “You smell d’licious.” His words came out sloppy.
I slapped his hand away. “Stop it.”
He blinked slowly. “Sorry.” His S’s were long and slurry.
I sighed. “Come on,” I told him, holding out my hand. “Gimme your keys. We need to get you inside. You need to go to bed.”
He made an effort to lift his head again, but it dipped too far back and he smacked it on the door before he attempted to home in on me. “Mmm . . . bed. You al’ays have—” He paused and licked his lips. “You always have the bes’ ideas.”
Jesus. He was wrecked. This wouldn’t be easy.
“Give me your keys,” I repeated.
This time he just shook his wobbly head from side to side.
It took everything I possessed to cling to my patience. “Why not?”
He blinked one eye shut as he tried to focus on me again. “Lost ’em.”
Awesome.
I leaned over the top of him and knocked on the door. But I’d already heard him pounding on it when I looked outside—Zane was probably working at the bar tonight.
Then I had an idea. “Gimme your phone.”
His face scrunched up. “Why?” He asked it defensively, like I was plotting to steal state secrets from him.
“Jesus. Paranoid much? I’m gonna call Zane. If I can’t reach him, I guess I’ll call Aster, have her bring her key over.”
This time when he answered he stared at me blankly. “Why do you want her key?”
I felt like I was stuck in a version of “Who’s On First?” “No. Not her key. Her key to your place. If I can get her to come over, then she can let you in.”
His face screwed up, the wheels in his brain working slowly, obviously processing my brilliant idea. Then he shook his head haltingly. “Aster doesn’t have a key.”
“Uh . . . yeah, she does. I saw her, coming out of your place. The night I got back from Dallas.” We were past pretending. I was calling him on his bullshit.
He leaned his head back—this time harder than the last—and he banged his skull loudly against the door. For now, it didn’t seem to make much of an impression on him, but tomorrow he’d probably have a pretty decent-sized lump. His eyelids drooped lazily as he was clearly growing tired, either of the conversation or of all the lies. He waved me off. “That’s because I sent her over here. To get the contracts . . .” His voice lagged. I recognized that brand of weariness—I was losing him. Lucas was about to pass out, and if I didn’t figure out what to do with him soon, he’d be stuck right where he was. “I gave her my key. But she gave it back.” His eyes drifted closed. “That was when we . . . still thought . . . we’d have . . . a gala.”
“Come on,” I insisted, trying to get him up. To keep him moving. I shoved my hands underneath his arm, but he was too heavy to lift on his own. I needed his cooperation. “Let’s get you up.” He sank into me and looped his arms around my neck, groping me more than necessary as I heaved him off the doorstep. His breath smelled like a distillery and I hoped no one lit a match around him tonight.
“It’s over, Emmm . . . ,” he moaned against my neck. Even while I was trying to do the right thing for a neighbor, the feel of his breath on my skin sent a wave of shivers along my spine. “Overrr . . .”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the gala now or about us—he was using the same words I’d used against him when I told him we couldn’t be a thing, me and him. Maybe he meant both.
The despondency in his tone, tugged at me. That and the feel of his lean muscles beneath my fingertips as I struggled to keep him upright. I was still a good Samaritan, I told myself, even if I copped a feel.
But what if I kissed him—just one little kiss? Would Lucas even remember it in the morning? Would it even count?
I leaned my face toward his, my cheek grazing his chin as the thought lit me up like an electric chair. Every hair on my body stood on end as his body weighed heavily on me.
Then, from inside his house, the lights clicked on and I heard the slide of the deadbolt. Zane’s face appeared from between the crack of the open door.
Zane who wasn’t at work after all.
Had he been there that night too, when Aster had been coming out with her blouse all rumpled and a key I thought had been hers?
“What’s going on out here?” Clearly I wasn’t the only one Lucas had disturbed tonight.
“Nothing,” I answered pointedly, when his gaze landed on his inebriated roommate who was currently wrapped in my arms. Nothing because, no way, had I been about to kiss him. Not a chance in hell. “Take him. Please.”
We managed to shift Lucas’s mostly dead weight from me to Zane. And then I said, “I assume you can take it from here.” And when I heard the door close, I walked back across the lawn to my own place, my good deed accomplished.