Page 38 of The Sun
There was a pause, but his boots were still planted firmly beside my leg, a puddle forming around their soles. “Look, I’m not leaving you out here. Just get up.”
“I said I’m fine.” My nostrils flared. “Like you care anyway.” I couldn’t control the butthurt bitch inside no matter how much I wished I could.
“Jesus.”
“Just so you know, the guy who kissed me—not the guyIkissed—was James Leroy. And I shoved him away. I wasn’t on a date with him. God.” I pushed to my feet way too fast and staggered to the side. I swatted his hand away when Elias went to catch me. “Still, no reason to act like I don’t exist,” I mumbled.
The muscles in his jaw ticced, and he inched his way closer to me until my back was flat against the rough brick of the house, and his nose was almost touching mine. “Stop it. Sunny.” His jilted words heated my lips, and it took everything inside of my weakening soul not to kiss him. “It’s best this way.”
“Best this way?” I laughed. “Wow.”
“You don’t belong with me. All right? So, there’s no point revisiting the past.”
“Oh my God, Elias, get over yourself. . .”
He shoved away from me.
I took a step and stumbled.
“I’m not talking to you when you’re this drunk,” he said. “Where’s that Brandon guy?”
Even through the alcohol, I caught the hint of disdain that laced his tone.
“ThatBrandonguy?”
“Yeah, your boyfriend.”
“No, no, no.” I swayed to the side, and Elias reached out to steady me. His warm hand felt so right. So good against my skin. “He’s not my”—hiccup—“boyfriend.”
“Okay, whatever he is. Where is he?”
My mouth filled with the dreaded hot spit that warned me vomiting was inevitable. “He’ssomewherewith—Idon’tknow.” The words caught in my throat like molasses, sticky and strung together.
The next thing I knew, Elias rushed me to the side of the porch and pulled my hair back while I threw up over the rail. My stomach went into spasms. I chocked and coughed while tears poured down my cheeks. And then the bottom fell out of the sky. Cold, stinging rain pelted down, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop being sick.
“It’s okay,” Elias said beside my ear while sweeping the damp strands of hair away from my cheek. “You’re all right. Okay? You’re good. Just get it out.” Elias stayed right with me, and for a moment, it was the way it used to be, then everything kind of just went black.
“Oh, God,”I groaned, rolling onto my side in the hopes it would dull the pounding in my temples.
I tossed and turned, fighting to find sleep again, but the early morning sunlight had already begun to creep through my shades and reflect off the godawful-pink walls. “Enough with the light already.”
When I opened my eyes, instead of staring at my closet door, I stared at Elias. His head had dropped to his shoulder; one knee was pulled to his chest, and his other leg stretched out in front of him. Boots still on.
With each beat, my pulse raced faster, harder. I struggled through the wine fog to remember what had happened the night before, but only managed to gather flashes.
Elias and some random guy shoving me in a car.
My head in his lap.
Him dragging me up the stairs to my room.
Jesus, if my parents had walked out of their room and caught him carting my drunk carcass up those stairs, he would have been in a morgue instead of my floor. We both may have been.
The bedsprings creaked when I shifted my weight, and Elias’ eyes shot open. His hands went to the floor preparing for a sudden bolt. Then he glanced at my closed bedroom door, and his palm went to his heart, the strain on his face dissipating.
“Definitely don’t need that shit,” he whispered, then somewhat grinned. “How do you feel this morning?”
“Like death.”
