I gave a nod. "Unfortunately."
"Is there someone you can call? Someone who can come pick him up?" was the next question.
While that would've been a great alternative, I didn't know anyone Naseem knew other than Brynn and calling her out here to come get him wasn't even an option. So, that only left one person to deal with him.
Me.
"I'll make sure he gets home," I offered, feeling my jaw tense when I did. Relieved, the bartender shifted Naseem's weight to me. Even in his drunken stupor, he didn't readily accept my help. He knew I didn't like him.
"No, I'm fine. I can manage," he insisted, straightening his posture as he attempted to tuck in his shirt.
"You sure you have him?" the bartender asked, double-checking before going back to his post.
I gave a nod and then he walked away.
"I'm … I'm perfectly capable of driving. I only had one bottle," Naseem lied with slurred speech.
"Yeah … okay," was all I bothered to say back as I flung his limp arm over my shoulders.
This wasn't exactly the way I saw tonight going, but I didn't have much choice.
Sucks having a conscience.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Marco
Naseem tripped over his feet all the way to my truck, swaying a little when I propped him against the back door. He didn't have any fight left in him after the light tussle with the bartender, so escorting him out was easy.
"Don't puke in my ride, dude. I swear you won't like me if you do," I warned, despite him being incoherent.
I got the door open and felt his pocket for his wallet so I could check his address on his license. Once I had it memorized, I got him in, grimaced at having to buckle the seatbelt of a grown man, and then I got in, too. Once the address was in my GPS, I followed the route it highlighted.
We were on the road for fifteen grueling minutes. Every bump I hit, I was glancing over to make sure this guy didn't ruin my leather interior. We finally pulled up in front of his house and I was all too happy to kill the engine. I went to his side of the car and got as far as unbuckling his seatbelt before again checking his pockets, but this time, it was his keys I searched for.
And of course, they weren't there.
A heavy sigh puffed from my mouth as I paced beside my truck. He had to have dropped them or set them down when trying to argue with the bartender. I stood there, trying to wrap my mind around having him in my passenger seat for another half-hour roundtrip if I doubled back to the bar. He moaned in the seat and I recognized the look on his face right away.
He was about to hurl.
Scrambling, I lifted him beneath his arms and would've set him down gently, but the sound of dry heaving beside me made dropping him seem like the better option. He managed to hover on all fours as the contents of his stomach emptied onto his front lawn.
This just kept getting better.
"You nasty son of a … Man, what the hell did you eat?" I yelled out into the darkness.
Not only did he ruin my night out, but now I had to stand here while he ralphed in the grass. It'd be one thing to go through all this trouble for a friend. But for a dude I didn't even like? Nah, I wasn't happy.
Naseem groaned again and collapsed onto his side. I gave him a few minutes more just to be sure, and then grabbed a few napkins from the glove box. My face was twisted while I wiped the remnants from his chin-only because I didn't want anything to get on my shirt when I picked him back up. If it hadn't been for that, he would've been on his own.
Hell, I was two seconds from letting him spend the night out here beneath the stars. As far as I was concerned, I'd already done more than what was required of me.
I got him up again and just stood there, wondering if maybe I should look for a spare key. However, I didn't feel like searching all over the place just to come up empty if he didn't have one on the premises. So, I thought of something else. Brynn was less than ten minutes away. I could take him there.
Deciding that was the best option, I hoisted him back inside my truck, but didn't bother belting him in this time, mostly because I was pissed being out here doing this in the first place. If his head hit the dashboard the next time I pressed the brake, that was his damn problem.
I didn't even think to call and tell Brynn I was on my way. All I could think about was getting Naseem somewhere stationary so he wouldn't throw up again. I pulled into her driveway and was glad to see her living room light on. That meant I wasn't waking her. Chances are, this was another sleepless night.
I climbed out and went around to get Naseem out again. Dude was snoring and everything, barely waking up enough to shuffle his feet across the pavement leading to Brynn's door. Knowing it would be a challenge to get him up her steps, I sat him down on them and knocked first.
The sound of footsteps padding across the floor reminded me of what I'd said to her earlier, the thing we hadn't discussed yet. There was no time to rehearse all that now, because the next second her door was open and I laid eyes on her as she stood there in a purple nightgown, looking cute as usual. Because of how her midsection poked out, the material was hiked up a bit, not covering as much of her legs as I imagined it did pre-pregnancy. Even with all the night's drama, I still stole a glance at her smooth, brown thighs where the material stopped halfway down them.
"Everything okay?" Brynn asked instead of greeting me. She stared up at me with bewilderment in her eyes. At first, it was because she wasn't expecting me and I'm sure I looked like I'd just gotten done with a workout, but then the look shifted to Naseem's slumped body at the bottom of her porch.
"What happened?" she asked, unable to hide the concern in her tone. She rushed out and down the steps to look him over.
I gestured toward him with my hand while explaining. "I was at the bar hanging out with the guys and he was there … drinking, obviously. He was about to take himself home, but I stopped him. Somehow, his keys got left at the bar, so this was the first place I thought to bring him."
She pushed his hair away from his face and tilted his head back to get a better look at him. "Is he okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, he just needs some sleep. He's gonna be mad as hell at himself in the morning, though, once that hangover sets in."
She lifted his arm, not thinking, and I stepped up the next second. "Can you help me take him inside?" she asked, as if I'd let her do such a thing.
"It's cool. I have him. I just needed to set him down while I waited for you to get the door."
She went back in, but stayed close, watching as I basically dragged her friend's lifeless body across the threshold.
"Can you get him up to the guestroom?" was her next question.
I glanced at the stairs to gage. When I nodded, she led the way, peering back over her shoulder every once in a while to make sure I was managing.
We reached the top of the stairs and she directed me to the second door on the left where I found a neatly made bed and a wall stacked waist high with boxes of diapers of all sizes she'd apparently been collecting.
I set Naseem down kinda rough and he moaned. Brynn came over next to pull off his shoes and I stopped her when she attempted to lift his legs to the bed, taking over so she wouldn't strain herself.
She hovered over him for a moment and I saw something. At the hospital, the connection between them was missing. There was coldness behind their eyes when they looked at one another, a chill to their tones when they spoke. Their argument had hidden it from me. It had hidden their love for one another. There was no denying it now, though, as I watched the concern on Brynn's face while she looked him over.
It didn't upset me, but it was there plain as day. It wasn't like the love I believe she carried for me, but it existed nonetheless and I recognized it right away. It was familiar to me because it was the same kind of love I have for Justin, for Carlos, and for Logan. She loved Naseem, but it wasn't a form of the emotion that threatened me. Maybe once, it'd been more, but now, at least on Brynn's part, their bond was clearly only one of friendship.
I left her up there alone to care for him in whatever ways she saw fit. As long as she didn't hurt herself doing so, it was okay with me.
Leaving tonight wasn't an option, so I hoped she was okay with me crashing on her couch. All I could think of was this guy getting up in the middle of the night, falling all over himself, falling all over her, and she'd get hurt. Or if he fell and she tried to lift him, or if he tossed his cookies again-she'd try to take care of that, too, and those kinds of things would be difficult in her condition.
I had to accept the fact that, if Naseem needed anything tonight, that'd be on me.
I heard the faucet running upstairs and I could only guess what Brynn was doing-either getting water to set by the bed for him in case he woke up in the middle of the night, or she was cleaning him up after his ordeal in the grass. My wipe down was far from thorough, so chances are that's what she was taking care of.