Steven smirked at her. “I’m not upset about Mia. Not really. I’m pissed at Chris. We don’t do that shit to each other. Ever. And he was here to get to know you. I told him a little about what you’d been through. That you needed to have a night of fun. Just hanging out and having a good time. So either way you look at it—” he paused to jerk his head back in the direction of where they’d seen their friends—“it’s a shitty move.”
She raised her eyebrows. Steven Blythe was pissed on her behalf. Well, that was kind of sweet.
“Oh, and these three are for you.” He slid half of the shots closer to her. “So you can blame the tequila tomorrow if you wake up with regrets.”
So much for sweet. She didn’t stop to think it over. Just downed the first shot as quickly as she could. She clenched her eyes shut at the pain. Grenades of burning red detonated behind her eyes.
Holy hell. Why do people do this?
“Here. Open up, rookie.” Steven held a lemon wedge at the edge of her lips.
She opened her mouth and took it in. It did help a little, actually. Once she could breathe again, she looked at her drinking buddy. There was something in his gaze she recognized. She knew because she avoided noticing it in the mirror.
No matter what he’d said, he was hurting. Seeing Mia and Chris like that had hurt him, for whatever reason.
He gave her a small smile. She knew her eyes were still slightly watery from taking that shot. “You don’t have to drink the other two.” He reached out to pull them back, but Kylie put her hand on his.
“I want to.”
His eyebrows rose as he watched her take the next two shots in quick succession. He grinned when she grabbed the nearest lemon wedge and bit down on it like her life depended on it.
“Well, look who’s a fast learner.” He finished off his own shots. When he’d set the last empty glass down, he turned to face her. “That offer to come over still stand?”
She wasn’t sure if she could still stand. She bit her bottom lip and glanced up at him. Before she could answer his question, he reached out and used his thumb to pull her lip from her teeth.
The residual tingles from the alcohol and him touching her mouth made her brave, so she nodded. He was different. Nearly the exact opposite of what she thought she’d wanted for so long.
Sometimes different was a good thing.
THE WALK to her place was relatively short. But they were both pretty heavily buzzed so it was taking longer than usual.
“I should’ve probably taken the hint in Chicago,” Steven said as they reached the door to her building. “She went straight for him when I called her up on stage.”
Kylie resisted her normal habit of suppressing memories.
Chicago. They’d hung out. Danced. The pictures and the video from that night were what had sent Trace over the edge. Straight into rehab. And from the looks of it, straight to Gretchen Gibson.
She tried to pull herself from the past and focus on the present. “I think she did that to make you jealous. Who knows? Maybe tonight was to make you jealous, too.”
He shook his head and huffed out a breath. “Thanks for trying, Ryans. But I don’t think either of them gives a damn if we saw or not. Notice how no one has called or texted to see where the hell we went?”
There was no denying that he was right about that much at least.
She avoided the elevator when they entered her building. Steven was radiating frustrated tension so hard she could feel it. A small, enclosed space was not safe right now.
They climbed the stairs to her apartment in silence. It wasn’t until she turned the key and opened the door to the darkness that the full weight of the situation came down on her.
“Steven, I don’t know if—”
Whatever she was going to say was silenced by his mouth as he pressed it against hers before she’d even turned the lights on. He tasted of tequila and lemons. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. Wasn’t tentative, coming from smiling lips like their other messing around make-out sessions had been. It was rough and desperate. Angry and hot.
She fought back against his tongue with her own, pulling at his bottom lip hard with her teeth. Her chest burned as if she were setting fire to her own heart.
Good. A heart isn’t good for anything but aching anyways.
Steven kicked the door shut behind them. She let him press her against the wall.
Change me. Make the pain go away. Kiss his memory right out of my damn head. A rumble of angry chords played when they knocked a guitar over.
“If you want to stop, now’s your chance,” he mumbled against her lips.
Kylie took the opportunity to let her head fall back and catch her breath. Or try to catch her breath anyway. Steven slid his hands up underneath her shirt, raking his warmth over her sides and up to the edges of her bra.