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‘So what? You’re dumping him on me? You don’t want to deal with this mess, so I have to?’
It’s not far from the truth. ‘I can’t deal with the mess. I’ve tried. I...love him, Gabe.’ Admitting it to someone else helps. ‘And Noah being Noah, he’s determined to push me away. He’s so angry with me. And he’s... It’s all wrong. I...I have my own reasons for needing it to be over. But yes, I’m worried about him, and I know you care about him, and that you’ll speak to him and stay with him until he gets help.’
‘Another doctor who’ll seduce him?’ he snarls.
‘It wasn’t like that, believe me,’ I say, but wearily, because it doesn’t matter who seduced whom, nor how we defined and justified our situation. ‘I know a doctor who will be perfect for Noah, but he... I suspect he’s on a downwards spiral. I think he’s going to need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into therapy.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ The words are said with haughty derision.
‘Mine. I know that. Believe me, Gabe, you’re wasting your energy trying to make me feel bad about this. I couldn’t feel worse than I do.’
‘Oh, I doubt that.’ He glares at me for several seconds and then crosses his arms. ‘He deserved better than this.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘FUCK OFF!’ I SHOUT the words, but the sound makes my head bang. Screw this hangover. Where am I? I lift my head up and stare across the room. I’m on my sofa. Wearing jeans and nothing else. I push up to sitting as the banging at the door continues.
What time is it?
I stand. A wave of nausea surges through me. I grip the sofa back.
The banging continues.
The clock on the wall tells me it’s almost four o’clock. What time did I go to bed? Was I alone?
Holly.
My chest squeezes and I taste her tears in my mouth. I remember going to her home and practically demanding she fuck me. Jesus Christ. As if on cue, I see the discarded beer bottles littering my home.
Is it Holly at my door? Has she come to see me?
I stumble forward, lurching as fast as I can go in my probably still drunk state, and wrench the door open.
‘Cristo.’
Gabe’s lips compress. I haven’t seen him in a couple of months, since Julianne died.
‘You look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’ I step back, not bothering to invite him in. There’s no need. Gabe knows he has a standing invitation to my home.
‘So it’s true. You’re just going to drink yourself into oblivion? That’s your plan?’
‘It was Christmas,’ I say defensively, my head splitting in two. ‘I have it on good authority it’s okay to over-imbibe.’
‘You don’t celebrate Christmas.’
‘I did this year.’
‘Alone?’ He is looking at me with sympathy. I don’t want it.
‘So?’
His eyes lift to the mezzanine bedroom. ‘You got hammered here, by yourself?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ It’s not as though Gabe leads the life of a saint.
A muscle jerks in his jaw. ‘You know what’s wrong with that. What the hell is going on with you?’
