* * *
Emma and Deacondidn’t stay very long after that—big surprise. Emma wore this pinched, uptight expression, and as soon as Deacon wandered back to the porch, glancing at both of us cautiously, she grabbed his hand and told him that she was ready to leave.
But she got in one more parting shot before she took off.
“Noah, I love you.” She laid her slim, cool hands on either side of my face, staring into my eyes. “You really are my best friend, and I don’t want that to change. But look at what you’re doing. Look at the choices you’re making, the life you’re leading. It’s a mess. It’s not you. If Angela could see—” She broke off, either because of her own emotion or because she saw the pain in my eyes. “Noah, she wouldn’t recognize you.Ibarely do. So please, please, sweetie, do me a favor and slow down. Think about all of this.” She’d tiptoed up to kiss my cheek. “And don’t forget to call me, because I miss you.”
I patted her back, mumbled something that I hoped sounded convincing, and waved goodbye. And then I went back into the house and took the bottle of Jack from the bartender in the kitchen. When he offered me a glass, I only laughed.
Everything after that was a blur. At one point, I was out on my back porch with a bunch of the guys doing did-you-ever shots. One of them tried to protest that the game was really called never-have-I-ever, but we were all too wasted to do anything but hoot at him. It reminded me, though, of Alison playing two lies and a truth that day in the emergency room.
I didn’t know if it was Emma talking to me about her or my own self-flagellating memory, but God, I missed her. I missed her with an ache that I couldn’t soothe, not even with another bottle of whiskey. I wished that she was sitting here next to me, holding my hand, looking at me like she thought I could move mountains.
I could almost hear her voice, teasing as she called me her mag man. My breath caught, and I had to swallow over a huge lump in my throat. Dammit, I had to let her go—memory and all. I couldn’t have her, and I couldn’t spend the rest of my life moping over that fact. I needed to erase her from my mind, stop thinking about her, stop believing even in the deepest, most hidden recesses of my mind, that I still had a chance with her.
Zeke bumped into my chair as he came out onto the porch, nearly knocking me to the ground in my inebriated state. I turned around to scowl at him.
“What the fuck?”
His expression was tight, and his eyes were dark with anger. He growled something at me, something I couldn’t understand, and then he sat down in the only empty chair, tipping a beer up to take a drink.
“Hey, man, you playing?” A rookie passed the bottle of tequila to him. “It’s did-you-ever. So you say something you’ve done, and if anyone else has done it, too, they need to drink.”
Zeke stared at him in silence and then accepted the bottle. Lifting it high, he raised his voice.
“Did you ever say cruel, hurtful things to a woman who was only trying to help you, who’d done everything in her power to try to make you see how much she—” He broke off, glaring at me. “Did you ever make her cry and drive away so fast that she might’ve killed herself? Did you ever shrug it off because you’re a selfish, mean son-of-a-bitch who thinks he deserves sympathy because he caught some tough breaks? Did you ever take the heart of a good woman and just shit all over it?”
There was a moment of silence. Several of the guys exchanged meaningful glances. Zeke pointed at me with the hand that held the bottle.
“You better be drinking, Spencer. You better fucking be chugging, because you did all that and more. You’re a fucking idiot, man. We all ought to just leave you here to die, like you wanted.”
I pushed myself to my feet, swaying, trying to focus on Zeke. “What the hell, man? Shut up. You don’t know—”
“Oh, I know.” Zeke was standing now, too, coming toward me. “Believe me, I’ve seen it all. You’re a fucking bastard. A fucking asshole.”
“She asked for it and more.” I’d had enough. I was finished here. “No one asked her to come here, to clean my house, to cook for me, to make me take care of myself. She pushed herself in. She knew I didn’t want—didn’t need—”
“Uh-huh, and you didn’t want her in your bed either, huh? We’re supposed to believe that bullshit?” Zeke’s hands curled into fists.
“Believe whatever you want, but trust me, I’m not the one who issued the invitation.” I spat out the words. Zeke’s focus darted to just over my shoulder, and he looked stricken. I wasn’t sure why until I realized that Coach Briars was standing behind me.
“Spencer.” His voice was a low growl, full of anger. “Boy, you need to shut the fuck up. I don’t care that you’re drunk off your ass, I don’t care that you’re acting out because you can’t play anymore. Boo-fucking-hoo, man. Get yourself together. You’re not a kid, you’re a man. Start behaving like it.”
I turned around to face him and nearly fell off my chair. I managed to hold on, catch my balance, and lift up one hand, pointing my finger at Coach.
“I’m pretty sure I told you before to mind your own business. I’m not your fucking boy anymore. You have no say-so over me or what the hell I say, and Zeke doesn’t have the right to talk that shit about Juliet when he doesn’t know jack about her, when he’s just fucking jealous—”
If I hadn’t been so bleary-eyed drunk, I probably would’ve seen the punch coming. Probably, but maybe not, because I was so focused on Coach that I never saw Zeke’s arm move. But I felt the sting, felt my head jerk back, and then I felt the wood of the porch as my ass and my spine hit it. My skull bounced up, and everything spun. I felt all the booze rise in my throat, threatening to spew out.
People were yelling, there was a lot of noise . . . but I just lay there. It felt good to be down. It felt right. The floor vibrated as feet stomped moved—I had a vague notion that a couple of guys were fighting off to the side. I closed my eyes and drifted.
I didn’t know how long I was out, but the next thing I knew, I heard sirens. A few moments later—or maybe it was hours, who knew—someone was kneeling next to me, pulling at my eyes, her face leaning close to mine.
“Sir? Sir? Can you hear me? Can you speak to me? Do you know your name?”
I pushed myself to sit up, but her hand on my shoulder was surprisingly strong. “Please stay down, sir, until we check you out. We need to make sure you don’t have any injuries. Your mouth is bleeding.”
“It is?” I was astounded. Why was my mouth bleeding? And then I remembered Zeke, fucking Zeke, hitting me. Why did he do that? And where was the son of a bitch now?
