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He laughed, swallowing the shot Bryson had poured for him and passing the emptied glass back. “I find that hard to believe. You seem like you’d be the life of the party,” Dallas said. Was that sarcasm? I couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or genuine. The man was tough to read.
“Being the life of the party almost killed me. I’m good without it now.”
Dallas put his hand on my arm. “Woah, dude. I’m glad you’re still here.” Was he?
I nodded and ignored the quiet gasp that came from Amanda, but I didn’t miss the brief look of concern that crossed her face. She stared at me silently, her eyes desperately searching my face for a sign of injury she would never find.
At least not a visible one.
There were a lot of things I couldn’t remember anymore. It started when it was no longer just casual drinks with friends on the weekends or a single drink at happy hour. I wasn’t sure when it changed—when those casual outings became desperate daily necessities.
Before long, breakfast was a couple shots of whiskey, and dinner was the last drink of the day that would send me to bed. One of those drinks should’ve been my last. Somehow, I always woke up the next day.
I shouldn’t have.
One day I collapsed in the middle of some bar. There was a bartender that called an ambulance when the people that were supposed to be my friends disappeared. They never came to see me in the hospital, but the bartender did. He came and checked in on me a lot.
The doctors said my heart stopped and I was lucky my kidneys weren’t completely shutting down. They promised me that if I drank like that again, it would be the last time I did. There was no way I would survive another night like that—like every night. I didn’t have another drink after that.
Bryson looked at me from behind the bottle he held, and he winked. A decade later, and we don’t talk about how he saved my life. I don’t know if he ever intended for us to be friends or if he felt bad that I had nobody else, but there was the unspoken truth that I owe him more than a few favors. A truth Bryson would never agree to. He would never have let me repay that favor.
Until he asked me to watch out for his sister.
Chapter ten
Drake
“What are you reading?” I asked, pulling out the chair next to Amanda. She jumped slightly, looking sideways at me from beneath the curtain of blond hair that framed her face.
“Oh, I was just looking at a couple detail things for Mack and Bryson’s wedding.” Amanda closed the magazine she had been thumbing through, quickly slipping it to the bottom of her pile of notebooks. She brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. “Did you need something?”
“I wanted to check on you.” I took a deep breath, reminding myself Bryson had asked me to look out for her. “Everything is going alright? You seem to be impressing the boss.”
Amanda rolled her eyes, likely remembering the same favor—the same one she’d vehemently turned down since her first day. “I’m fine, Drake.” She sounded exasperated, and I narrowed my eyes. “I mean it,” she said, softer this time.
When she offered me a light smile, I released the breath I was holding. Why was I anxious? Women didn’t make me nervous—especially my friend’s far-too-young-for-me-sister. “Good,” I said.
“Good,” she echoed. Then she swallowed, and I followed the lump in her throat.
The room around us was too quiet. All I could hear was her breathing and the excited voices from a meeting in the conference room on the other side of the breakroom wall. My heartbeat matched the quiet tapping of her red fingernail against the table, and I watched the movement for too long before I realized she was just staring at me.
“Actually, speaking of the wedding,” I started, breaking the silence but pausing when Amanda rolled her head to the side. She didn’t look amused, but she seemed like she would humor me. “Bryson mentioned a bow tie.”
Amanda half nodded and shrugged. “Yeah? And?” She tried to look annoyed, but the small smirk that tugged at her lips betrayed her and made my stomach flip.
I threw my hands up in mock frustration, biting back a laugh. “Why a bow tie?”
“What’s wrong with bow ties? You don’t like them?” When she giggled, the tension in my shoulders relaxed.
“Of course not!” I scoffed and chortled at the same time. “Nothing about me tying a bow around my neck like a dog is fashionable.”
The sudden amusement that crossed her face made my chest squeeze. “I think they are! I bet you’ll look great in a bow tie.”
When Amanda put her hand on my forearm, my skin buzzed. Her fingers were soft and gentle, and she held them there. We both stared, looking at the contact between us. After a moment, Amanda blinked rapidly, like she was coming out of an internal discussion she was having with herself.
She quickly snapped, pulling her hand back and coughing to clear her throat. At first, she clasped her hands together on the table in front of her, and her fingers twitched. Then she fidgeted, moving to run her fingers through her hair and then returning them to the table.
“You think so, huh?” I broke the silence that felt like it had gone on for hours.
