Sorrow and sympathy bled from me as I watched him try to force back the emotions breaking free. “Peter . . .”
His stare darted to mine. “You don’t know his side, and unless you’re just done and this is your way of getting out of a marriage I know you don’t want out of . . . then he deserves the chance to say it.”
My head dipped after a beat of hesitation. “Yeah, okay.”
“The fuck?” I yelled and swung—and immediately regretted it when it felt like my head split open. “Oh fuck.”
The last was a groan . . . and it was still too loud. Too painful.
My back was stinging from the slap Hunter delivered to wake me, the throbbing from the blood rushing to the site beat in time with my aching skull. I was going to kill my brother.
I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth when I tried to push to my knees, feeling like I’d taken a knockout punch and was about to get laid out. Pass right the fuck back out where I was . . .
In the hallway, apparently. And—what the hell? Why am I naked and holding a trash can?
I used the small trash can to push myself to standing, then staggered down the hall to the room Savannah and I were staying in.
“Babe,” I murmured when I stumbled in, but she wasn’t there.
The sheets were messed up, but the bed was empty.
I wanted that bed. I wanted to fall into it and not move for a long, damn time. But if Savannah was already awake, then I needed to be awake with her.
I bit back another groan to save my fiercely pounding head and went to my bag. Once I had a pair of boxer briefs and shorts on, I grabbed a shirt and left the way I’d come.
My steps so unsteady that I wasn’t sure if I was that hungover or still drunk.
Over a dozen of us had come out to Alex and Adrianna’s parents’ lake house for spring break. Their parents and a couple relatives had come too, but they’d only stayed for a night before looking to Alex, his girlfriend, Savannah, and me to keep the rest of the kids in line . . .
All with sly smiles on their faces as they’d stocked the house full of enough food and alcohol to keep a fraternity going for a month. Then they’d left for Oklahoma to gamble for a couple days, leaving a bunch of seventeen- to nineteen-year-olds to their own devices.
And from the punishing rhythm that had taken residence in my skull, I wondered if they’d thought they were doing us a favor or teaching us a lesson.
The world seemed to tilt as I lifted my shirt, and I decided right then it had been a lesson.
I caught sight of Hunter and Madison and mumbled, “I’m gonna fucking kill you,” loud enough for Hunter to hear as I descended the stairs and succeeded in pulling my shirt over my head.
Hunter gave me an amused look as he gestured to Madison. “My girl had to see your ugly ass. You deserved it.”
I huffed . . . and regretted it.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Wait,” Madison began, voice all kinds of confused as she looked at my brother. “Didn’t you see him when you left the room?”
He looked pointedly toward the back door. “I woke up on the table.”
I glanced that way, then followed the cluster of people still passed out on the floor as Madison hesitantly claimed, “No, you came to bed.”
“I don’t think so,” Hunter said softly.
I looked around the rest of the main room and then back up the stairs when I didn’t see Savannah, rubbing at my head as I settled on where my brother was grabbing a container of orange juice from the fridge.
“You did,” Madison argued.
“Okay,” Hunter said, trying to placate her. “But the last thing I remember was being outside with everyone. You said you needed to change clothes because pandas make you wanna cry. Then I woke up on the table.”
“Pandas are cute,” Madison whispered in defense.
My eyes rolled as I stepped closer to my brother, earning an irritated look from him.
Or that could’ve been because I took the juice from him.
I wasn’t sure. At that moment, I really didn’t care about anything other than hydrating, finding somewhere steady, and figuring out where my girl was.
I trudged over to the table and sat on top of it, letting my head fall into my free hand. Dragging my fingers through my hair over and over again as I tried to take calming breaths. As I tried to sort through the blur that was last night.
It wasn’t the same as when I lost control of my anger. When that happened, it was like I saw everything in bursts. Speeding through parts and pausing for one crucial second. Only to continue until it was over.
Or until Savannah snapped me out of it.
Last night was different. I’d already been well into being wasted when someone had the brilliant idea of starting the Beer Olympics. With Savannah championing the idea, I hadn’t been able to tell her no. I also couldn’t really remember much of it even though I somehow knew I’d taken part in it.
I remembered the cheerleader pyramid that had gone all kinds of wrong right at the beginning. I remembered pressing Savannah up against a tree, and her begging me to take her upstairs before we’d been pulled into another round of . . .
Fuck, I can’t remember. Something.
And Savannah.
Dancing around the way she always did . . . I remembered that. I remembered kissing the hell out of her.
But all of it was a blur.
The music. Our friends. The bonfire. The games.
I couldn’t even remember how I’d ended up on the floor, let alone naked.
As if on cue, Hunter asked, “And what the hell were you doing? What was with the trash can?”
A breath fled from me. “The fuck if I know.”
I rubbed at my dry, aching eyes as I struggled to remember. As my head raged in protest.
“Come ge’me.”
I’d buried my face in her neck, breathing her in. “Gonna hide from me?”
I felt more than heard her giggle. “Never.”
I squeezed my eyes shut against the hammering as that piece of the night faded as fast as it had appeared. Trashed. We’d been so fucking trashed then. I’d been struggling to hold her up, and she’d been falling out of my lap.
All of our words more slurred than not.
I was just about to stand up to go look for her when I remembered stumbling into our room last night. Falling onto the bed as I’d tripped out of my pants.
Laughing as she’d pulled me closer. As I’d settled between her legs and pushed inside her. The room and the bed spinning, and I’d been struggling. Struggling to stay there with her. Stay awake. Going in and out of it before I’d collapsed on top of her.
Laughing. Again. We’d been laughing before she’d—
“I’m gon’be sick.”
“Oh shit, Savannah got sick,” I said softly, my stomach sinking as everything started adding up.
Waking up buck-ass naked in the hall. Trash can in hand.
Savannah had probably passed out in the bathroom, and I hadn’t been there for her.
Fuck.
Hunter breathed out a laugh. “Yeah, don’t think you made it back to her, man.”
“Shit,” I bit out as I pushed off the table and started for the stairs.
But I’d just reached the second step when my entire world came walking into the kitchen . . . from the downstairs hall.