Page 47 of Wait for Him

Upstairs, I get her door with an elbow and carry her through the dark to her bedroom, and lay her down on top of the covers first. I sit her against the pillows and crouch to get her shoes off — these absurd, gorgeous heels she's somehow still wearing — easing each one off and setting them by the nightstand where she'll find them in the morning. She stirs but doesn't wake.

I get a glass of water and two aspirin onto the nightstand for the version of her that's going to hate the sun. I pull the clip out of her hair, so it won't dig into her scalp all night, and her dark waves spill loose across the pillowcase. I make myself not look at that for longer than it takes to do it. I work the duvet out from under her, get her settled beneath it, and draw it up over her shoulder.

For a second she fights the dark, brow pinching, fingers reaching for something. "Jackson," she mumbles, not really awake.

"I'm here," I tell her. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart."

Her face smooths out. Her hand goes still.

I leave the door cracked so the hall light reaches her, and head to her kitchen to pour myself something strong and settle in for a long fucking night.

Chapter Two

Rose

Even through the headache and the heartbreak, through the cotton-thick fog of however much wine that actually was, nothing can fuzz out the one fact my brain has helpfully preserved in crystal clarity.

I am the worst person to walk this earth.

Every time I close my eyes, I see that fucking condom landing on the table.

What do you say, Jackoftrades20?

Jesus Christ.

Replaying how I propositioned Jackson last night, and his entirely rightful rejection, has me wanting to sink straight through the bed frame, through the floor and into whichever apartment is beneath mine. I'll introduce myself when I get there. Explain that I'm their upstairs neighbor and I've come to live with them now because I can never show my face in my own home again.

I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, which smells like him because he carried me against him to my bed last night, so that's not helping a single fucking thing. I let out a long, muffled, thoroughly frustrated scream into the down.

Because this is not me.

I don't fall apart. I'm the one who holds everyone else together while they do. Michael fucks up, I fix it. A deal starts bleeding, I stop it. Something hurts, I put it somewhere inconvenient and deal with it when I have time, which historically means never.

And yet here I am, face-down in bed at whatever ungodly hour, reeking of someone else's heartbreak and my own poor decisions, trying to reassemble what's left of my dignity from the wreckage before I've even located my pants.

“Take your aspirin. Drink the water. You've got a change of clothes in the bathroom.”

I slowly lift my face from the pillow.

Jackson is leaning against the doorway holding a cup of coffee, already dressed for the office like there’s nothing remotely remarkable about any of this. Like I didn't throw a condom at him, sexually harass him with memories of our past, cry in his lap and then require transportation into my own bed.

“Why are you still here?”

“Good morning to you too.”

“I thought you left.”

He lifts the coffee slightly. "Nope," he says with a pop of the p.

“Why?”

“Because I knew you'd wake up like this.”

“Like what?”

His eyes move over me.

I narrow mine.