Tipsy (10 page)

The annoyance slipped right off her
face and she winked.

I downed the drink, knowing I shouldn’t
drink any more, but not caring. This night had been all kinds of
messed up.

Slater and I sat there a while,
bullshitting with the girls, listening to the music and Slater
making out with any girl he could get his hands on. Man, he really
got into his undercover role.

After a while, I slid out of the booth.
“Later, man.”

He pulled away from the brunette in his
lap and got out of the booth to offer me his fist. I bumped mine
against his and he said, “He’s gonna check you out with Pike. You
pass that and you’re in.”

I’d pass. I knew I would.

Slater clapped me on the shoulder and
leaned in. “Thanks for the info.”

I didn’t acknowledge his words as I
walked away. Is that why he was undercover? Was he investigating
the “leave of absence” by one of the crew? I thought he was called
in for the drugs as well, but now I was beginning to wonder if
maybe there was more.

9

Julie

I pretended to be drunker than I was on
the ride home. I didn’t want to face Dee’s never-ending questions
about the guy she saw me with, the other guy I was dancing with,
and if I saw what happened when a fight broke out.

Luckily, she had been too far away to
see I was practically in the center of the fight. Luckily, she
didn’t know what Blue looked like, because if she’d realized the
man in the gray knit cap was Blue, there might have been a second
fight that night.

I leaned my head against the cool glass
of the backseat window and stared out into the darkness. Every once
in a while, I would let my eyes droop closed so Dee would think I
was close to passing out. Really, I wasn’t nearly drunk
enough.

The alcohol I did drink seemed to
vacate my system the minute Blue started beating up the guy I was
dancing with. My eyes closed again, this time not because I was
trying to fool Dee, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about
him.

The way it felt to be pressed into his
side as he steered me toward the exit. It was a casual touch, but I
was close enough that I felt the tension in his muscles; I felt the
awareness in his body. It didn’t make me afraid… It made me feel
protected.

I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed to
be protected. I lived alone, I took care of myself, and I refused
to rely on a man. But that didn’t mean the inner princess in me
didn’t squeal in delight when his arm draped around me and I felt
small.

Even tough girls want to feel safe
sometimes, too.

When Craig pulled the Hummer up to my
house, I got out quickly, shocking them with my movements. Dee
probably thought she was going to have to peel me off the backseat
to get me inside.

She climbed out of the SUV and met me
on the sidewalk. I smiled at her. “Thanks for the ride and for the
fun.”

“
You gonna be okay?” she
asked, concerned.

My heart softened at her genuine
concern, and I pulled her into a big hug. Maybe the alcohol was
still in there somewhere after all. “Thanks, Dee. You’re the
best.”

“
I know,” she agreed when I
pulled away. “I’ll walk you in.”

“
You don’t have to,” I said,
grabbing my keys. “I’ll be fine. I’m going to pass out
anyway.”

“
Call me
tomorrow.”

“
You know it.”

I knew she wouldn’t leave until I was
inside, so I trudged up the steps and unlocked the front door. It
took a couple tries to get the door open because my hands were
shaking and my vision was slightly blurry. Yeah, the alcohol was
definitely still there.

Still, I couldn’t pretend.

I couldn’t pretend that everything I
was feeling was liquor-induced. The blurred vision, yeah. The
exhaustion I was feeling? Probably the liquor. But the shaking?
That was all Blue.

Once I was inside, I waved to her and
Craig and then shut the door and leaned against it. The quiet
serenity of my home enveloped me like a giant hug. I sighed in
relief. I was so on my way to becoming one of those crazy old women
who lived alone and watched reruns of Jeopardy all day
long.

Upstairs, I yanked off my boots and
clothes, leaving them in a giant heap in the center of the floor. I
padded into the bathroom to wash off my makeup and comb out my
hair. I clipped my bangs away from my face with a little pink clip
that was lying on the edge of the sink.

After pulling on a too-big T-shirt, I
crawled into bed and sighed.

I closed my eyes.

I saw his face.

My eyes sprang back open.

I sat up, yanked the clip out of my
hair, and tossed it across the room, where I heard it clatter in
the darkness. A frustrated growl vibrated my throat as I kicked the
blankets around frantically, freeing my feet and twisting the
sheets into a pile in the center of the mattress.

My stomach seemed to revolt from all
the movement and my head began to pound.

“
Really?” I yelled in the
darkness. “I’m going to get a nasty hangover from one and a half
drinks?”

I leaned back against my padded
headboard and tried to calm my rolling stomach. As I sat there,
trying not to barf, a light sound caught my attention.

It was the closing of the front
door.

I perked up, forgetting all about the
fact I was suffering from an attack of an unsuspecting
hangover.

Had I forgotten to lock the
door? I never
forgot
to lock the door. But I was usually not running from my best
friend.

Great.

The one time I don’t lock the damn door
is the one time a burglar decides to come a’ calling.

Too bad for mister criminal
I had a plan for something like this. I was the kind of girl
that
always
had a
plan.

I crept into the bathroom, being as
quiet as I could, and reached into the cabinet. I pulled out my
weapons (hey, all the crap women have to do to themselves to look
good definitely qualify as weapons) and gripped them closely to my
chest with both hands.

My heart was beating so hard against my
ribs that it actually hurt and I had to work to not gasp for
breath. Catching my intruder by surprise was key to my
plan.

Moving quickly through the dark, I
moved to the bedroom door, leaning against the wall and peering out
into the darkened hallway. I could see the top of the stairs from
where I stood, as well as the railing that ran alongside the
hallway to keep someone from falling into the stairwell from
upstairs.

Courtesy of the nightlight down in the
entryway (it came in handy when I wanted a drink in the middle of
the night); I saw a shadow move against the wall. The figure was
large and distorted against the tall bare wall of the
stairwell.

Up until that point, I hadn’t been
certain someone was in the house.

But now I couldn’t deny it.

There was a robber in my
house.

He for sure had nefarious
plans.

Too bad for him I had a really shitty
night and wasn’t in the mood.

As his foot stepped on the bottom
stairs, I slinked out the door and along the wall, keeping my eyes
trained on the top of the stairs. He began climbing (I was very
unimpressed with his quietness, or rather lack thereof), and as he
climbed, I slipped along the wall, moving through the darkness
until I was standing in the corner directly across from the top of
the stairs.

I saw his shoulders appear as he
continued upward. He was wearing a dark coat and a dark hat… He was
nothing but a large, ominous shape in the night.

I swallowed. The sound of my saliva
scraping down my dry throat made me wince, and my palms were
sweaty, causing me to tighten my grip on my weapons.

Oh yeah. I forgot.

I had weapons. I had a plan.

Just as his foot cleared the top step,
I gave a battle cry and leapt forward, brandishing my weapon—a very
large can of hairspray—which I pointed and pressed down on the
top.

The can hissed as a cloud of very
nice-smelling spray rushed out into the space between us. The man
yelled, caught off guard, and slapped a hand over his eyes. I
sprayed him some more as he stumbled forward.

I rushed past him, still holding on to
the hairspray, going for the stairs. I was NOT the kind of idiot
girl in the movies who ran farther into the house. I was headed for
the freaking front door.

The man, now sputtering, turned and
grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled me backward. I stumbled
forward and would have fallen right down the stairs, but he yanked
me away.

My hands flew out to protect myself
from falling and the can of hairspray rolled down the
steps.

“
Shit,” I grunted and I
rolled onto my back, twisting away from his grasp. He released me
but then reached down for me again.

I screamed and struck out with my last
remaining weapon. A pink razor. Hey, if it could tame the hair on
my legs, then it could take out an attacker.

I pushed the blade down on his hand and
pulled back the handle.

“
Fuck!” he yelled, jerking
away.

I fell back on the carpet, breathing
hard. He was hunched over his poor razored hand, and I drew my foot
back to kick him.

“
Shit, Julie. It’s
me!”

My foot paused in midair.

The hall light flipped on.

Blue stood over me with a look of
pained frustration on his face. I lay there stunned. He was the
last freaking person I expected to see. In fact, if asked to guess
who would be more likely to be in my home in the middle of the
night, Blue or a burglar, I would not have chosen Blue.

Maybe I was a lot drunker than I
thought.

“
Blue?” I asked
tentatively.

His gaze dropped a little lower than my
face, and I realized I still had my foot raised in the air… and I
wasn’t wearing pants.

Well, shit.

I jumped to my feet quickly, letting
the oversized shirt fall to my knees.

“
Is that a razor?” he asked,
blinking at the handle clutched in my hand.

I nodded dumbly.

He lifted his hand, which was bleeding
freely, and looked at it, then back at me. “You gouged my hand with
a pink razor,” he said, almost like he was talking to
himself.

Then he blinked his eyes and wiped at
his face. “Did you spray me with hairspray?”

“
What did you expect?” I
said irritably. “You broke into my house.”

He sighed dramatically. “I needed to
see you.”

Okay, those five little words
completely made my stomach turn over. Butterflies erupted and
caused my insides to tremble.

Those feelings coupled with the
adrenaline, the alcohol, and the fear were not a good
combination.

I slapped a hand over my mouth and
rushed back through my room and into the bathroom, where I fell to
my knees in front of the toilet and proceeded to hurl.

Gah, throwing up was like the grossest
thing ever. And the sounds my body made… It was like a tiny alien
was crawling its way out of my body and torturing me in the
process.

My back heaved and pain sliced through
my sides. My body was so desperate to get rid of everything that
was bothering it that my heaves were violent.

I felt someone crouch behind me and
sweep my hair off my face. The cool air that brushed over my neck
felt blissful.

“
It’s okay,” Blue whispered
rubbing his palm in slow circles across my back. My body relaxed
beneath his touch. I would have been angry at my body’s response if
I wasn’t feeling so lousy.

After my stomach emptied its entire
contents and a cold sweat had broken out over my skin, I finally
stopped heaving. My body was utterly exhausted and I just wanted to
collapse. I sat back away from the toilet and my body slid toward
the floor.

Blue was there and he lifted me up into
his arms and carried me gently into the bedroom and walked toward
the bed.

“
What the hell happened to
your bed?” he asked, eyeballing the heap of covers in the
center.

“
I was asleep when you broke
in,” I muttered.

He shoved the blankets aside and laid
me down. “How much did you drink tonight?” he asked, gently pushing
a damp strand of hair off my cheek.

I groaned. “One rum and coke and a shot
of vodka.”

“
That’s it?” he asked
skeptically.

“
And a couple sips of
another rum and coke.”

He was silent for a long time, and I
cracked my eyes open and looked at him. Even with only the light
from the bathroom, I could see he was frowning and pale.

“
What?”