The Wright Brother(64)

Landon plucked it out of my hand and unlocked the door for me. He shoved the door open. “Here you go. Inside with you,” he said, helping me blunder inside.

A light flickered on, and Kimber appeared around the corner. She stopped short, her mouth hanging open and her eyes darting between the two of us.

“Hey, Kimmy,” I said happily.

“Landon?” Kimber asked softly.

“Hey, Kimber,” he said with a short wave.

“That is not the Wright brother I was expecting,” she confessed.

Landon’s cheeks turned pink, and I giggled at his embarrassment. Man, I am loaded.

“Just wanted to make sure she got home safe. Caught her at Flips with Heidi, and they needed a ride home,” he told her.

“I see.” She crossed her arms over the top of her pregnant belly. “Don’t you have a wife to get home to?”

She was using her mom voice, and I wanted to tell her to stop. But Landon seemed to take a cue from her and backed off. I stumbled onto the couch and watched the ceiling spin.

“Good seeing you again, Kimber. Good night,” Landon said.

“Good night,” she said, closing the door behind him. She turned back to face me with a sigh. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Clouds.”

“Clouds?”

“They’re twirling on the ceiling.”

“Oh God, you’re so drunk. Why didn’t you answer Jensen’s calls?”

“He didn’t call,” I said, trying to sit up. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tried three times to light up the screen before realizing it was dead. I sheepishly glanced up at her. “Um…it’s dead.”

Kimber sighed heavily again. “Well, charge it, and give him a call. He was here earlier, looking for you.”

“He was?” I asked, sobering up a bit at that revelation. “Why?”

“He wouldn’t say, but he seemed concerned. And, since I just saw you with his brother and your ex-boyfriend, I could see his concern.”

“Whoa! Wait a second, Kimmy. Reel that mom voice back in. There’s so nothing going on with me and Landon. He just apologized to me for blowing up on me when he found out about Jensen. He played pool with Heidi. We had a few drinks. He drove us both home. No big.”

“All right. What do I know? Just happily married with no drama in my life.”

I giggled. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now, go. Charge. Now.”

I nodded at her and gave her a quick salute. Then, I meandered the way to the stairs like I was walking through a hedge maze, and I more or less crawled up the stairs. I found my charger resting on the nightstand and plugged it in, waiting for the signature beep, beep to let me know it was ready to use again.

Then, it beeped and beeped and beeped.

Kimber had not been joking. Jensen had definitely texted me. And called. And texted some more.

Holy text messages!

They were very blurry though and kind of all melded together. I didn’t know what he was so desperate to tell me, knowing that he’d shown up here after I didn’t answer, but I might as well call him. Probably not the best idea I’d ever had, considering the amount of alcohol I’d consumed.

Imbibed. Drank. Drunk.

I flopped back onto my bed and stared at the spinny ceiling, contemplating which word was the best. Probably drowned in. Because I felt like I was on a boat adrift in the water, bouncing up and down and up and down on the waves.

Oh God, I was going to be sick.

I sat up in a hurry and tried not to think about vomiting. That was better. Now, I could call Jensen.

I dialed his number and let it ring about a million times before it got to his voice mail.

Then, I tried again. No luck.

I stared down at it in confusion. Why would he call and message me so many times and then not answer my phone calls?

I tried one more time and then gave up. I was too drunk for this.

Maybe he’d call me back tomorrow morning. He was probably already asleep or something. And I clearly needed to do the same.

Stripping out of my clothes, I crawled into bed naked and promptly blacked out into oblivion.



After puking my guts out all night, I remembered that I had to open the Buddy Holly Center today. I’d switched my schedule around so that I could get away to Austin for the weekend and had given myself the morning shift. I felt like shit and looked even worse. My face was pasty, and my hair was limp. I brushed my teeth three times to get the taste of throw up out of my mouth.

And then I checked my phone.

Again.

Still nothing from Jensen.

I’d called him in between bouts of vomiting and texted him before I hopped into the shower. I double-checked that I’d contacted him as I put on clothes for the day.