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I tore Ben’s hand away, causing him to choke a little on the gulp in his mouth, and put my hands on each side of Lizzie’s face. “Lizzie. What are you doing?”
“Mermaid!” she squealed, obliterated and smashed. “Aren’t you just everyone’s hero?” Her words were slurred, her curls a mess, and her eyes bloodshot. She was the opposite of who I met at the hospital and, with Ben reaching once more for her, I knew I needed to intervene…whatever the consequences. Screw those damn things.
“A drinking competition,” I bellowed, looking at Lizzie and Ben. “You’re adults.”
“Sad adults,” Lizzie muttered, hiding behind her glass of beer. My gaze shot to her, my chest thumping. Sad adults.
“Lonely adults,” Ben added. I loved the guy, but in that moment, I wanted to punch him. I tightened my fingers into a fist, trying to settle the impulse when Lizzie’s hand wrapped around my shoulder and my attention was hers.
“You can join us if you want, mermaid,” she stood on her tiptoes to speak in my ear, “but you don’t seem to follow through on things, husband.” I was rigid as Lizzie lowered back onto her feet, clinking her glass with Ben’s before taking another swig.
“Lizzie!” I shouted, taking her hand in mine. “I’ll take you home.”
“Oh,” she turned to me, her mouth wide with laughter, “that sounds promising, mermaid! But I can’t leave my friend, Billy.”
“Ben,” he corrected, unphased. “Noah, don’t be a downer. We’re having fun. Go home if you can’t handle it. I’ll keep an eye on this one.” This one?That wasn’t like Ben, and that pissed me off. I squeezed Lizzie’s hand, feeling her fingertips tighten around mine in response, and I knew she was with me.
I closed the gap between us, our fingers intertwined, and whispered in Lizzie’s ear. “Do you want me to get you out of here?” She nodded against my jaw, and I knew I’d done something right.
I dropped her beer onto the table behind Lizzie, nudging a shoulder into the crowd once I turned us around, and walked with her to get my coat. I barely acknowledged Nadia and Ben when I returned to the bar, my hand still locked around Lizzie’s. I kept my free hand against the base of her back, ushering us out of the bar and onto the crowded sidewalk.
“It’s cold,” she groaned at my side. I didn’t reply; I just kept walking with her.
I didn’t really understand why I felt…angry. I was ashamed of my actions, not hers, and Ben was just an idiot trying to take home the next girl who’d drink him, literally, under the table. One glance at Lizzie through the corner of my eye and I knew, from the way her big blue eyes rolled up too high to really see anything, she was hiding tears, hiding emotions. We waited at the intersection of Mifflin and State, her eyes rolled up and mine burning ahead.
I noticed the Capitol steps were clear, so when the signal changed, I squeezed Lizzie’s hand and pulled her across the street with me. She followed my cue, although her face scrunched skeptically—I found it utterly amusing—and sat next to me. I twisted my fingers around, listening to Lizzie exhale.
“What happened tonight?” I probed, lightly nudging her knee with mine. It was a damn freezer outside for early summer, but that didn’t stop us from sitting on the Capitol steps, my heart sewing itself back onto Lizzie’s sleeve.
“This hot guy came to the hospital.” I didn’t take the bait. She was using me as a scapegoat, and I wasn’t going to let her pull one over on me. She had some serious shit to grieve and work through. I was going to be there for her, waiting it out.
When Lizzie continued, she dropped her head to my shoulder, and I couldn’t remember the last breath I took. “My best friend is pregnant with twins, and our other friend, who knocked her up and is her partner for life and everything beautiful, was resuscitated. He is such an asshole! He keeps dying, she keeps fixing him, their perfect love keeps fixing them. It’s just not fair. They’re my best friends.”
“I know who they are,” I tried to reassure her. “You can use their names. Sean. Avery. Ella and Jesse. My favorite,” I rested my head on hers as it balanced against my shoulder, “is Lizzie.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m drunk.”
“Well,” I chuckled, “maybe, but I’m also saying it because I mean it. Ella’s too cute, and while Avery’s beautiful, they’re both spoken for. Besides, we’re getting married. I would never be unfaithful to my wife.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, “who cheats? Who does that cowardly, despicable shit?”
I rolled my lips inward, thinking of how close to home Lizzie and everything around her really was to me. “My ex.”
She froze, slowly peeling her head from my shoulder before peeking at me with squinted eyes. “What an evil witch.”
“Pretty much.” I started to laugh, and it felt incredible. Even while Lizzie stared at me like I’d gone nuts, I was losing it. “She…she was…” I couldn’t finish; the rumble overtook me, catching Lizzie like a contagion as she started laughing with me. I just thought of protecting Muffin’s eyes, the hipster’s skinny jeans, and Callie actually being offended by my reaction. I couldn’t catch my breath as I grieved through laughter. “She was filming—”
“Oh, don’t even start,” Lizzie blurted, socking me in the side with her elbow. I keeled over, clutching my aching abs while caught between laughter and pain. She wrapped her right arm around my back and, even through our clothes, her touch was something else. It was grounding. Holding my left arm with her free hand, she peered over her knees at me, her face scrunched warily.
“I count on you to save people, so if you’re hurt, I’m useless,” Lizzie chastised.
I groaned a little, coming back from laughing while stretching my stomach as I sat. “I got another tattoo this week. It isn’t healed. Your elbow got it like a damn bullseye.”
Lizzie stood, reaching for my hands to pull me up. I towered over her, but her head fit perfectly below my chin, like a damn puzzle piece. Heart, go away. Balls, where the hell are you? Oh, they were in there. I clenched my jaw to stabilize myself, focusing on the woman across from me as her arms crossed while she eyed me up and down. Lizzie sobered in the cool air, and thankfully so because I didn’t want either of us to forget this time together.
“What did you get?” she probed, her gaze running from my stomach to my eyes.
“Bruised abs,” I teased, watching her smile. “Just black roses.”
