Sweet Surrendering (28 page)

I could avoid for a little bit longer. He seemed to be doing it.

Lucah texted me when I was on my third glass and I was a wee bit tipsy.

Have to deal with family tomorrow night. Sorry, Sunshine.

I didn’t really have a response for that, so I just typed out
Ok, see you tomorrow.
I wasn’t drunk enough to not be able to text, but I was getting there.

We had somehow turned Cards Against Humanity into a drinking game, but I was still unsure of the rules, so whenever someone told me to drink, I did.

By the time we got to the second bottle of wine, I was definitely buzzed and feeling good. Warm and fuzzy and kind of in love with everyone. I wouldn’t stop hugging Chloe and she kept threatening to make out with me if I didn’t stop.

“We need more wine,” Sloane said as she poured the last into my glass. I tossed it back and she stumbled to the kitchen and found another bottle.

“Score!” We all cheered as she filled up our glasses again.

An hour later, I was completely toasted. I hadn’t been this gone in a very long time. Maybe not since college. It was kind of nice. My phone buzzed and I picked it up. It was another text from Lucah.

Missing you.

I had an impulse and hit his number and before I knew it, he was picking up and saying, “Hello?”

“I love you. I love you and it sucks because now I’m going to lose my job and all our kids are going to have red hair and I want at least one of them to be blonde, but they’ll probably all have red hair and you’re keeping secrets from me and I love you.” I hung up before he could say anything and he called me back a second later, but I tossed my phone on the table and ignored it.

“You tell him!” Sloane said from her position on the floor. She had been sitting on a chair, but now she was on the floor. I found this wildly funny and we all laughed until we forgot what we were laughing about.

“I’m drunk,” Marisol said.

“Me too.” Chloe moaned and put her head on my shoulder.

We were all drunk.

“Fuck you, sun,” was the first thing I heard the next morning. We’d ended up either on the couch or on the floor.

“Why did we do that?” I finally opened my eyes and instantly regretted it.

“Fuck you, sun,” I said as everyone else moaned and groaned and tried to get up.

We all had to work today, but we were all hopelessly hung over. Damn wine. My phone buzzed and I reached for it, squinting at the clock.

“SHIT!” I was supposed to be at work five minutes ago.

“Why is there screaming?” Chloe moaned as I struggled to get to my feet while my head pounded and my stomach heaved. Nothing short of a miracle was going to get me into the office today. I hadn’t called in sick in two years, but there was absolutely no way I could go in. I grabbed a glass of water to wash my mouth out with and then called my dad.

“Hey, Dad. I just wanted to let you know that I can’t come in today. I’m just not feeling well.” This wasn’t a lie at all and I hoped he heard it in my voice, and didn’t figure out what caused it.

“Oh, Rory. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, just need another day. Will you let everyone know?”

“Of course, of course. You never take a day off and I always worry that you’re going to burn out before you’re old enough to burn out. You take some time and we’ll take care of everything here.”

“Thanks, Dad. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” He hung up and I saw that I had about twenty texts and missed calls from Lucah. How had none of us heard my phone? I scrolled through the messages and then it came back to me.

Oh . . . SHIT.

JE-SUS CHRIST.

I had told Lucah I loved him. Also that I wanted to have his ginger babies. I TOLD HIM THAT I LOVED HIM.

My stomach finally woke all the way up and I had to run to the bathroom. I wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the unintended declaration that made me puke, but I ended up in the bathroom for the next hour, with Sloane and Marisol taking turns holding my hair and bringing me water.

I told him that I loved him.

Fuck.

“Are you feeling any better?” Sloane tiptoed into my room in the late morning. She was better off than I was, but she’d decided to take the day off and take care of me. I didn’t know which was worse: the hangover or the fact that I’d accidentally told Lucah I loved him when I was drunk.

“No. The only way I’m going to feel better is if you find a time machine and can take me back to last night and tell me not to drink. That would be fantastic. Thanks.” She sat down on the edge of my bed and held out a cup of lemon ginger tea.

“I’ll get right on that, babe.” I took the tea from her and sipped it. The ginger would be soothing on my stomach. I really didn’t want anything in my body right at the moment, but I drank it anyway.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” I squinted at her and she looked fantastic, as usual. She had the kind of hair that worked curly or straight and her large curls from yesterday were still intact.

“Hey, you were on a roll. And it was bound to come out eventually. They have that quote about the truth being in wine for a reason. Now that it’s out, you can talk about it and deal with it and then realize that you’re both idiots and you belong together.”

“How do you know that we belong together?”

“The same reason I know how to make a flan just by reading a recipe once. Pure instinct.” She did have good instincts, but I was still humiliated.

“You just gotta decide what’s more important. And I’m guessing that forty years down the line, you’re not going to regret that you chose love over your job.” She patted my foot and left me with my tea and my thoughts.

When I finally felt a little bit better, I found my phone and stared at it. I needed to call Lucah and explain myself. He’d been texting me all day asking if I was okay. He didn’t mention the love thing because he was great like that.

He was so concerned about me even when he had a ton of crap to deal with and that only made me love him more. It really was like a sickness and it multiplied the more I thought about it and the more I thought about him.

Finally I took a deep breath and called him. I knew he’d be on lunch so he’d be free to talk.

“Hello, Mr. Blaine,” I said, sitting back on my pillows.

“Hello, Miss Clarke. How are you feeling this afternoon?” His voice was soft, and I could hear him walking away from some other voices. He must be out getting food.

“A little worse for wear. How are you?” His voice instantly made me happy, even though I felt shitty. Yup. That’s love.

“I’m just concerned about you.”

“Yeah, same here. How’s everything with your brother?” I didn’t want to talk about me. And because he was such an awesome guy, he talked about his brother and how he was trying to get him a lease on an apartment and also his failed attempts to get Ryder a job.

“He’s not really qualified to do anything. He never finished college, just started a bunch of times and never got all the way through. He’s one of those people who knows how to do a bunch of things, but not enough to get a job. I don’t know what to do with him.”

I couldn’t imagine what that must be like, but even though I didn’t have any siblings, I had friends and that is similar. Luckily, my friends had most of their shit together.

“We have a few positions open at Clarke. I mean it’s nothing glamorous. The mail room, billing. If he wants to come in for an interview, I could set it up. Just a thought.”

“Thanks, Sunshine, but I don’t want to put you in that position. Plus, I don’t think Ryder would last a day in an office. He’d probably end up jumping out the window and taking off. Trust me, he’s done it before.”

“He jumped out a window?”

“Yeah. It was on the first floor, but still.” There had been days when I wanted to go out the window, but since my office was so far up, I would end up dying and I wasn’t that desperate.

“So am I ever going to get to meet this elusive brother?”

“I don’t think so. Not right now. Maybe sometime. He’s just . . . a lot to take.” Had he met Sloane?

“I think I can handle it, but it’s up to you.”

“Thanks. Now, have we talked about enough other things that we can go back to the drunken phone call I received from you last night?” Crap. Fuck. Hell, crap, fuck, Jesus.

“What phone call?”

“Nice try, Sunshine, but I know you remember and I know you don’t want to discuss it; but since you said it, I feel the need to say something too.” He took a deep breath and I cut him off.

“I was drunk. You don’t have to say anything. I . . . I didn’t mean to say it like that. I didn’t want to say it, but there it is. I wish I could go back and unsay it, but I can’t, so there it is. But I don’t know if I’m ready to say it sober yet. Which doesn’t make any sense.” I was rambling again and I wasn’t even drunk. I waited for him to say something.

“I love you, and I’m completely sober and I’ve wanted to say it for a while now, but I didn’t know if you’d say it back.”

It shouldn’t come as a shock to me when he said those three words, but hearing them in his voice was a whole different thing than I thought it would be.

“I’m not ready to have your ginger babies. But I love you.” I said it in a whisper, as if it was less true if my voice wasn’t that loud.

He sighed.

“I wish I was with you right now.” I wanted to reach through the phone, grab him and pull him into my room. Why hasn’t science made this possible yet?

“I wish you were here.”

“I can come over.” Even as he said it we both knew it wasn’t possible. It would look too suspicious if we were both out, and I wasn’t willing to risk it.

“No, you can’t. Not right now, but you can later. After work.” It killed me to say that, but I had to.

“Why must you be the voice of reason, Miss Clarke?”

“Because I’m your boss. And you’re my sexcretary.”

“We’re going to have to talk about that. I think we need to have some more trade off nights. I have some more dirty uses for office supplies that I want to try out.”

Mmm, that sounded really, really nice. As long as staples weren’t involved. Ouch.

“We’ll talk later. I’m going to go shower because I’m pretty gross right now.” I sniffed my armpit and was actually glad that he wasn’t here to witness it.

“You’re never gross, Sunshine. Or at least you’re not gross to me. But I’ll see you later. As long as my brother doesn’t have a disaster between now and then.”

“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” I said and then wondered how we were supposed to end our phone conversations now.

“Am I allowed to end this conversation by saying that I love you and I’ll see you later?” he said.

“You’re asking my permission?”

“Not really. I was going to say it anyway.”

“Well, I’m not going to stop you. I love you, too.” I almost had a giggle fit after I said it and it made my toes curl under thinking about seeing him tonight.

I set the phone down and fell back against my pillows with a happy sigh. And then my door flew open and Sloane came barreling across the room and jumped on my bed with a scream.

“You totally love him!” She pulled me up on my feet and started jumping on my bed and I had no choice but to jump with her with.

“You love him!”

“I know!” We jumped until we were both out of breath and I was worried about the structural soundness of my bed.

“I’m sorry, I just felt that needed to be celebrated.” She held up her hand and I smacked it with mine.

“Now that you’re in love, you’re not going to turn into a disgusting sap that I can’t stand to be around, are you? Because then I will have to vagina punch you.”

“I don’t think I’m going to become any different than I already am. I mean, I was sort of in love with Royce. Or at least I thought I was.” I hadn’t been, even though I’d told him the words. This felt completely different. Love with Royce felt . . . obligatory? Love with Lucah was something I couldn’t control, and something I didn’t want to control. Loving him was letting go. Surrendering.