Chapter Six
Brent
#brotherlypainintheass
Nothing had been better than falling asleep in Jay’s arms. Not even the sex, and damn, that was beyond amazing. No. Falling asleep in his arms was nothing short of perfection.
The way I woke up had been the complete antithesis.
My phone buzzed and buzzed until I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I got up to turn it off only to see a trail of texts from my new brother.
Alarm company called. You okay?
Fire? Are they right? Is there a fire?
Why aren’t you answering me?
Brent?
I shot him a text back letting him know I was still out but would be headed back there to check things out. Freaking A, only I could have a hot night with a complete stranger end too soon because of a fire.
I grabbed a receipt from my jeans pocket and wrote a quick note telling him where I was going to be and that I didn’t want to wake him. The last thing I needed was for him to think I took the walk of shame on the sly after our amazing night together. There was no shame there. None.
I got to the apartment, shortly before seven, to find fire trucks there, but everyone was standing around looking either bored or pissed, which was better than all-out firefighting mode.
I found the guy who looked like he was in charge and introduced myself.
“Your brother said you were on the way. We have paperwork for you to sign.”
“I’m confused. What happened?” I recognized not one face from the night before. Half of me was worried they were all passed out in the apartment. For the love of Pete, let that not be the case.
“It seems one of your guests threw a lit cigarette over the balcony.” Of course they did. Drunken fools. “It landed in a pile of garbage, which it set on fire. “
“It feels like I’m missing something.” A fire shouldn’t get me as much anger as was flowing off of the fire chief.
“You are missing where one of your guests pulled the alarm to call us even though it didn’t need more than a pot filled with water to put it out.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. Henry and I were going to have words when I got home. First, he sent me on a vacation to spend time with his son who gave zero fucks I was there and then left me with all of his deadbeat friends, who apparently needed more babysitting than I gave them, and now I was stuck dealing with the fallout instead of having yummy morning sex. Oh, words were going to happen all right.
“My brother’s guests,” I corrected because I wanted no connection to those people whatsoever.
“You are the one here.”
He was right. Double suck.
“So how much paperwork?” I asked wanting it to be a sign-here-and-date-there kind of form.
“Enough.” He chuckled, shaking his head.
Enough meant time for three cups of coffee at the firehouse, followed by online forms for the alarm company. By the time I got out of there, I was ready to sleep for a week, except sleep was the last thing I wanted. Instead, I grabbed a car to Cafe Du Monde and ordered beignets and coffee for three, the third to bribe the driver to wait for me.
Only problem was, the hotel room door was propped open for housekeeping and all of his things were gone. Worst part was, the note I had left him, the one that told him where I was going and gave my phone number—was sitting on the floor beside the nightstand only inches from the rubbish. Well, that answered that.
I put the coffee and goodies on the small table and snapped a quick picture before putting it on my social media like a loser.
#giftsformyalpha #morningafter #gonewithoutatrace #misshimalready #pathetictouristinNOLA
I didn’t even bother taking my coffee with me back to the apartment, which, true to my worry was filled with awful people in various stages of undress and pitifully hungover.
I snapped a few pictures and sent them to my sort-of brother. #yourplaceyourproblem #Imgoinghome
I packed my bag, more than grateful I didn’t bring anything of value, considering how little anyone there seemed to care about anyone other than themselves. As I left the building, I called Henry.
“Having fun?” He answered without a hello. I guess technically we were kind of family, but hellos were still nice.
“I was. But—”
“My son’s an ass.” I wasn’t going to put it that way, but it summed it up nicely.
“Pretty much that.” I started aimlessly down the street, wanting to get away from there and fast. “He left right as I got here and stuck me with his friends who are pretty much the worst people I’ve ever met. And they pulled an alarm, and there was so much paperwork and now they are all hungover at his place, and I just wanna go home.” I was babbling, but it felt good to get it off my chest.
“I’ll see what I can do. Worst case scenario, I’ll get you a room at the hotel near the airport, and you can fly out tomorrow.”
He was taking it a lot better than I had feared he would, which was nice. The last thing I needed to do was to go home to an angry mother and future stepfather after dealing with all my sort-of brother’s bullshit and getting my heart stomped on.
I swore Jay said he had one more day in town. If I had known it was his last night, I might have reacted differently or at the very least woken him up. From where the letter was when I got there, it either fell off the table or he tried to throw it away. In either case, he wasn’t going to be calling me any time soon.
“Thanks.” I meant it, too. Henry was a nice enough guy. He’d never have sent me to his son if he knew the man was going to leave me high and dry.
“You sound heartbroken.”
That’s because I was.
“Don’t. It’ll be okay, and I’m sorry about Jaxon I thought if you went to see him and he saw how amazing you are doing in your field, he might think about putting his life together. I shouldn’t have put that on you.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if I was his role model of choice, he needed to set the bar higher. We chatted briefly before hanging up so he could find me a flight, which he did faster than I thought possible. It was later that night and I headed to the airport early. No need to tour the city with my suitcase when I could drink overpriced coffee and use crappy free Internet at the airport. Yeah, I was in a pretty crappy move.
As I settled into the seat, heading to the airport, I took a selfie of my pathetic self before uploading it on my SM. #heartbrokeninNOLA #MissingMySexyNurse #HeadedHome #IfYouSeeMyJSendHimMyWay
I knew I’d regret documenting my pain for all the world, but since my SM was under BrentTheNerd, I figured it was kind of private-ish enough and oddly therapeutic. If only someone really could find my Jay.