1
Dawson
I leaned heavily against the passenger seat of Nix’s shiny new truck then fumbled with the door panel until I found the button that controlled the window. I cracked it, and the cool night air rushed into the truck and over my face like a slap.
It eased some of the dizziness, though. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink, but the drive was proving that maybe I’d had more than I realized. My head spun with every jolt of the truck, and my stomach roiled threateningly. I swallowed purposefully around the bite of bile in the back of my throat.
The cold breeze helped, at least.
Nix tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shot me a questioning look. “You all right? Need me to pull over?”
I shook my head, which made the spinning worse. “I’m fine,” I muttered. “Just hot.”
“You sure?” Nix sounded very unconvinced of my being fine.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said a little snappishly.
I was just a little drunk, I wasn’t going to get sick on the side of the road like a teenager. I knew how to hold my booze. And yeah, maybe I’d gone a little overboard tonight at Ballast. These days, one or two wasn’t quite enough to take the edge off. But I was a grown adult, and I deserved a few after a hard day. And it wasn’t like I was dependent on it—I knew what that looked like. Mom was a textbook drunk, and I was nothing like her. I prided myself on that.
“All right,” Nix said as he turned his eyes back to the road. “We’re almost there, at least.”
I grunted my acknowledgment and closed my eyes, focusing on the cool air blowing over my face. Admittedly I was a little embarrassed about how dizzy I was—that hard kiss against Nix’s truck had been enough to pierce through the haze of booze, and when he’d pressed his body against me, I’d wanted him. Wanted him badly. But now, woozy and nauseous in his passenger seat, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to fuck him tonight. I’d be lucky if I could get out of his truck without stumbling.
I usually didn’t get quite this drunk. And when I did, I preferred to deal with it myself—either taking a cab, or just crashing in the back of my own truck. Having Nix haul me home was more than a little demeaning.
Finally, right when I was about at the limit of how much nausea I could actually endure, and I started thinking that I might have to ask Nix to pull over, the truck stopped. Nix turned off the engine and hopped out. I wrestled with my seatbelt a little—my hands wouldn’t quite work exactly how I wanted them to—and by the time I got it unhooked, Nix was at the passenger side, opening the door.
“Come on,” he said, offering his hand to help balance me.
Now this was seriously demeaning, being helped out of my seat like a damsel. But his truck was a little lifted off the ground, and honestly, I didn’t trust my feet to step down without me falling flat on my fucking face. I was dizzy, and nauseous, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep the booze off, and then the inevitable hangover.
I gripped Nix’s forearm as I stepped out of the truck and kept my hold on him as we walked across the gravel parking lot.
Gravel? Wait. Fuck.
I looked up. Nix hadn’t driven me home—he’d taken me back to the Crew Motel. I bit back my complaints. If I raised enough hell, I could probably convince Nix to take me to my place, or at least call a cab for me—but honestly, I didn’t know if I could make it through another car ride. I needed to be horizontal. Walking was hard, and I was suddenly exhausted, even with Nix’s steady presence beside me.
He led me up the stairs and down a narrow hallway, then into his little apartment. Then, without a word or any hesitation, he guided me to a wide, overstuffed couch, and sat me down.
And wow. Comfortable. Nearly as comfortable as my bed. I sighed with relief as I stretched out—the couch was big enough that I could lie down fully. But I did have to keep one foot on the floor to keep the room from spinning too much. Lying down eased my nausea, and the exhaustion settled over me like a blanket.
Nix walked away, humming to himself, and I heard him clattering around in his kitchenette, though I didn’t have the energy to look up. Instead, I just peered curiously at the parts of his studio apartment I could see: the coffee table in front of me, the big, well-worn armchair, the art crowding the walls, and the tall, stuffed bookshelves. Really, there were books everywhere: face-down on the coffee table, dog-eared in the chair, even stacked on the floor next to the bookshelves.
Then Nix appeared in the living room again, with a bottle of water, a plate, and a pill bottle in hand.
“Here,” he said, setting all three down. He’d made toast, with a thin smear of peanut butter, and the bottle was low-dose ibuprofen. “Eat tonight and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
“You read?” I blurted out, as he’d set the plate down on a faded C.S. Lewis novel.
Nix arched one eyebrow curiously. The gesture almost made me snort a surprised laugh—it was expressive and handsome, especially behind the round frames of his small glasses. “You don’t have to sound so shocked.”
I winced and shifted a little on the couch, propping myself up against the arm of the couch. “I just didn’t know you were a big reader.”
“Well,” Nix said, “you don’t really know anything about me.”
His tone was oddly warm, but it was matter-of-fact. And I hated that he was right—why did that annoy me so much? There was no reason for me to be interested in getting to know him at all. Just a fling—barely a fling. He was just a one-night stand. I didn’t care about getting to know my flings beyond what it took to get a good roll in the hay.
But Nix’s apartment was just so… him. It was warm, and comforting, and the couch was so soft beneath me, and the booze was making my brain-to-mouth filter shut down. But I still didn’t know why I was so curious. Maybe it was because he’d brought me food. That was not a thing people usually did—let alone past flings.
“I don’t know a whole lot of people who have so many books they use them as coasters,” I said.
“Eat,” Nix said. He dropped into the armchair across the coffee table, watching me curiously. “That book?” He nodded at the copy of The Chronicles of Narnia under my plate. “I’ve got like four copies, it’s not a big deal.”
I dutifully took a bite of the toast. Initially my stomach turned again, but as soon as I had a few bites, I started to feel a little better. A little more clear-headed and settled. “Four copies?”
“Well, I’ll misplace it, then want to reread it, so I’ll end up at a used bookstore to pick up a copy, and then I’ll inevitably find the one I misplaced a few days later,” Nix said with a laugh. “I don’t know why, though. I’ve read it so many times I could basically recite it at this point.”
“You’ve read it that many times?” I asked. I couldn’t think of the last book I’d read more than once. Hell, I could hardly remember the last time I’d read for pleasure at all.
Nix grinned a little sheepishly. “Sure. It’s a comfort novel. Sometimes I’ll just open it to a random part and read a few paragraphs when I’m tired, or anxious. It’s like meeting old friends.” He glanced at his bookshelf. “I’ve got a few books like that.”