Page 468 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I shook my head. “Not at all. On the contrary, she was keeping me company while I waited for you.”
“Sorry I’m late. I was walking out the door when my mom called.” She made an exasperated sound and shook a strand of hair out of her eyes. “She always has the worst timing.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Okay? Oh, yes, of course.” She smiled. “Everything is fine. Mom just got into her liquor cabinet tonight and was feeling sentimental, so she wanted to call me and reminisce about the good old days. In other words, she wanted to tell me all her memories, which are totally contradictory to mine, and pretend that we’re still a big happy family. This happens every year around this time. She misses me, and I miss them… but when we’re together it’s never as blissfully joyful as she remembers.”
I wondered how the rift had begun with her family. “I’m just glad you’re here now.”
She grinned. “Me too.”
Behind Tinsely at the food area, I spotted Aleena collecting a crew of people and leading them toward us.
“Heads-up,” I muttered.
Tinsely’s eyebrows lifted, and she was about to ask what was happening when Aleena threw an arm over her shoulders and nearly knocked her off her feet. The entourage, Benji and Danielle, were also intoxicated, and Hugh, bless his heart, had somehow been dragged along for the ride but looked stone-cold sober.
He managed to detach himself from Aleena, who still had a vise grip on Tinsely, and make his way over to me at the bar. He leaned his elbows on it and caught the bartender’s attention.
“A rum and coke please,” he said before turning to me. “Anything for you, boss?”
I held up my almost-finished Old Fashioned. “I think I’m done after this one. Something tells me someone is going to have to keep their head on straight tonight and make sure everyone gets home safely.”
Hugh nodded and glanced over his shoulder at Aleena, who was whispering something in Tinsely’s ear that made her turn pink. “Yeah, it’s going to get messier before it gets better.”
“Please don’t say that,” I groaned.
I’d had big plans for tonight. I wanted to show Tinsely a good time, and when nobody was looking, I wanted to whisk her away and take her home with me. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like that was going to happen.
Daniella pried Aleena off Tinsely. “Let go, Aleena. You’re going to ruin her dress. Holy smokes, how many tequila shots did you have?”
After overhearing the word shots, I caught the bartender’s eye. “No more shots for the one in blue,” I said, gesturing at Aleena.
He nodded. “I cut her off twenty minutes ago, but she keeps getting drinks from other people.”
“Thanks anyways,” I said.
I tried to remember if Aleena had been like this at last year’s party but couldn’t recall. I knew she liked to have a good time, and she was usually the life of the party even when she was sober. She had a big personality and liked to cut loose. Hell, so did I. But I could tell that Tinsely wanted to get away from her, and Aleena’s eyes were beginning to have that glazed-over look of someone who was going to crash fairly soon.
Her night would inevitably take a turn for the worse.
Once Danielle freed Tinsely from Aleena’s vise grip, Tinsely joined Hugh and me at the bar.
I put my hand on her lower back. “I’m going to step into my office. Come find me there in five minutes?”
Tinsely didn’t look up at me, but she gave me a curt nod, and when I stepped back from the bar, she let her fingers graze my knuckles over my drink. The touch said more than words ever could.
I slipped through the crowd, passed the food, and ducked down the hall to my office. I left the lights off so nobody knew I was there, sat back on one of the lounge chairs by the window facing the door, and waited for my girl to come find me.
CHAPTER 25
TINSELY
Aleena clutched her stomach. “I think I might puke.”
I grimaced. No.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Chadwick was waiting for me in his office, and even though I knew it was selfish to abandon Aleena in a time of need, I wanted to go to him.
