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So Owen had been talking. Reid held his hands up. “I tripped. This is gravel rash. Owen should’ve said it’s not binge drinking. It’s full-time alcoholism.”
Dev clucked his tongue. “What would your mother think? Mine would whack into you.”
“Owen tried the sympathy route. I see you’re going with shame.”
Dev took Reid’s empty glass, washed it, dried it and put it away. Reid didn’t have the energy to point out Dev should’ve thrown it at his head instead. “Thank you for the food.”
Dev stopped wiping the sink, then made a show of sticking his finger in his ear as if he was having trouble hearing. Reid tried to remember the last time he’d said thank you for one of Dev’s kindnesses and couldn’t. He got up from the stool and dragged his feet back along the hall. Dev would let himself out and Reid intended to sleep until he felt like it made sense to be awake and if it didn’t, it’s not like anyone other than Mom would miss him and she’d wait till Christmas to do it.
It was light again when Reid woke and his head felt like it was normal size and the walls weren’t closing in on him. He listened to the apartment and was satisfied he was alone. Dev was the only person with an access override code, so even if Lux wanted to check up on him she couldn’t.
He flexed his hand. It’d scabbed up, the skin felt tight and dry enough to crack open and bleed again. Had she seen him fall? He felt his face heat and it was either the fever still or embarrassment. He’d watched Lux take down a guy five times her size in the alley and step around him like he was a mere curiosity and he’d said obnoxious things to her that implied she’d deserved that trouble. But that’s not what he’d meant.
She should be safe leaving her work, same as he was leaving anywhere. He’d meant it wasn’t safe for her to have to exit Lucky’s by their back entrance, it was dark, and the perfect place to be ambushed. But he hadn’t explained himself and he’d been amused enough at her umbrage that he’d laughed when she called him a dickhead.
He was a dickhead.
And that next night, the night he felt sick, she’d blown him a kiss from the stage—a kiss off more like, and then used her body to show him what he was missing out on. He’d sat there transfixed while she tossed her hair and spread her legs and danced in that little ripped to ribbons black dress like she was deliberately trying to make his lungs seize and his heart expand till it punched out his chest.
He’d flushed hot and cold and his head spun and eventually he’d realized it wasn’t lust writhing in his gut and he had more than a headache going on.
He was an asshole who’d mouthed off at Lux and barfed all over himself, and yet she’d stopped to help him, gone out of her way to bring him home and stand over him till he was safely comatose.
His stomach churned and it wasn’t from hunger. He’d been acting like a spoilt brat and it was time to get real. This was rock bottom of the pity fest he’d been on.
There was nothing he could do about Owen or Dev right away. Too much history between them and no clue how to set it right, but he could do something about Lux.
Of course, Lux, couldn’t be her real name, but that’s all he had for her. He sent flowers care of Lucky’s. It was a start, but since bastards who assumed she was theirs to take by force probably did slick things like send flowers too, it wasn’t enough. He wanted Lux to know he was astonishingly grateful for what she’d done, that he appreciated it, and was sorry for being . . . just being an asshole who was hopeless with people.
He needed to apologize face to face. It was the kind of thing he’d had a lot of practice at. The kind of thing those he was apologizing to usually enjoyed immensely.
And once he’d done that, he’d quit obsessing about her, move on, maybe learn to cook, or travel, or go build houses in Cambodia, ask a woman on a date, anything that had potential to make him a better person.
It was another two days before he stopped feeling dizzy and weak and left the apartment. It was the first time he’d felt motivated by anything other than getting plastered since his exit from Plus. He went to Lucky’s and when the regular hostess who served him came over with his usual rotgut he asked her name.
She laughed and put the glass down. “Absence made the heart grow fonder, did it?”
“What?” Cinnamon was on stage, which meant he’d missed Lux’s first set.
“We haven’t seen you in a while.”
He looked at the woman. “That’s because your chef poisoned me.”
“Holy shit, you had the surf and turf. I’ll go get Lou.”
“No. I don’t want to complain.”
She balanced her tray on one hip and tipped her head in the other direction. “You don’t?”
“Nope. I don’t want that bourbon either. Just a Coke.”
“As in pop?”
“Yep.”
She shook her head. “Honey, you can’t sit here and not drink alcohol?”
He looked directly into her heavily made-up eyes and didn’t blink. “Why not?”
