“Alone at last,” I say to Lachlan who is sitting splay-legged beside me and puffing on a cigar that the waiter hasn’t said anything about. In fact, I think they purposely forgot we were all out here.

Lachlan lets out a small grunt, brow creased and deep in thought. I think he’s drunk, but it’s hard to tell. If anything, he’s gotten quieter as the night goes on.

“Are you all right?” I ask.

His eyes flit to mine. His stare is hard, flinty. “I’m just fine,” he says giving me a tight smile.

I swallow. “That’s such a girl answer.”

He blinks, intensity brewing like a thunderstorm. “Excuse me?”

Even Emily raises her head.

I lean back slightly, appraising him. Even though I was kind of provoking him just now, his mood switch is surprising.

Still, I refuse to be intimidated. We’ve passed too many bodily fluids between each other for that. “I said that’s a girl answer. You said fine, like everything isn’t fine, and if that’s the case, I just want to know what’s up.”

His dark brows lower, and it’s almost like he’s glowering at me. Still, he doesn’t say anything. He sticks his cigar in his mouth and looks away.

I sigh and put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey. You can tell me.”

He closes his eyes, his head leaning back for a moment. “Love,” he says, an edge to his voice. “I’m fine. I’m just…processing what’s going on.”

“And what’s going on?”

He shakes his head and leans over the table, pouring himself another glass of wine. I watch as he downs it. When he’s done, he wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “What isn’t going on?” he says. But there’s so much despair and bitterness in his voice that I feel like I’ve been backhanded.

I get out of my seat and grab his hand, tugging him to me. “Okay, the wine is gone. It’s time to go.”

He shrugs out of my grasp. “Go back alone then. I’m still smoking my cigar.”

He’s slurring a bit, so he’s obviously a bit drunk. He’s turning a bit Mr. Hyde on me.

I cross my arms. “No. I’m not going back without you.”

“Your loss,” he says, then laughs to himself as if he’s said something hilarious.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “It isn’t my loss.” I sit back down and stare at him imploringly. Ages pass. Finally, he puts out his cigar.

“Fine,” he says, none too happy about it. “We can go now.”

He gets up, a bit unsteady on his feet, and reaches down for Emily, but the dog is perceptive and growls at him, shying away.

He stares at her for a moment, frowning, like he can’t believe it. Then he rubs his lips together, his eyes beady and hard, and nods his head to some imaginary question.

“All right,” he says quietly. “All right.” He looks to me and seems to understand. “Do you want to take her? I don’t think I should.”

“Yeah, sure,” I say quickly, and grab Emily’s leash. She’s still staring up at Lachlan in confusion and he’s matching her stare. She knows that something has changed in him, and now he knows it, too.

Dogs with behavioral problems shouldn’t learn from people with behavioral problems. Now I understand it. Another piece of the puzzle that is Lachlan, carefully fitting into place. Funny enough that it has to be a dog to knock some damn sense into him and not me.

I grab hold of Lachlan’s arm but he doesn’t pull away. His gait is a bit awkward, but I manage to lead him around the hotel and all the way back to our room.

He goes straight for the bed, flopping over facedown.

I lock the door, turn on the lights, and let Emily off the leash before I go over to him and tap him on the shoulder.

“You can’t sleep with your clothes on,” I tell him.

He grunts. “Undress me then.”

“You weigh a literal ton,” I tell him, trying to reach underneath him to pull off his shirt.

“Hyperbole,” he mutters.

I smack him on the ass. “Just sit up, please.”

With a heavy sigh he somehow rights himself. I quickly manage to pull off his shirt, his chin dipped against his chest, before he falls back to the bed, creating a minor earthquake on the mattress. I roll him on his side and take off his pants, for once something entirely unsexy.

“How did you even manage to get this drunk?” I ask, even though I’m not sure he’s listening.

He swallows a few times, eyes still closed, and says, “I don’t drink much.”

“Right. The rugby,” I say.

“No,” he says with a slight shake of his head. “I just shouldn’t. I like it too much. I need it too much. Like I need a lot of things. Bad things. And then I’m useless. It’s ruined me before, you know.”

I pause at this information so casually coming out of his mouth, then I pull his pant legs off before untying his boots. “I see,” I eventually say.

“You want the truth, that’s the truth. I have many truths. That is one of them.”

I toss his boots to the ground and place my hand on his shoulder. “Well, thank you for telling me your truth,” I say earnestly.

But he doesn’t respond, and a loud snore escapes his mouth instead. Strange after everything he just did and said, I can still find him and his lips so damn kissable.

I sigh, getting into my t-shirt, and crawl into bed next to him, my back pressed against his back. “Goodnight,” I tell him, pulling the covers over both of us.

He’s fast asleep.

There’s one more day left.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lachlan

I wake up feeling like absolute arse.

My first thoughts are of regret. Not just because of how I feel but because of what I might have done. I knew being around constant company and constant wine was a dicey gamble on my behalf, but I hadn’t wanted to say no. I hadn’t wanted it to seem like something I couldn’t handle.

But she knew now. She could see it, and when I told her, she hadn’t seemed all that surprised. That was both a good thing and a bad thing. A bad thing because I couldn’t be sure how obvious I was. A good thing because she acted like she wasn’t bothered by it.

Unless she was a good actress. It was hard to tell with Kayla. Part of her wanted to wear her heart on her sleeve, but the other part was always trying to cover it up.

The sound of the patio door sliding open is like a cheese grater to my brain. I open my eyes carefully and see Kayla stepping inside with Emily on the leash.

She sees I’m awake and gives me a soft smile while closing the door.

“Good morning,” she says gently, unhooking Emily from the collar. The dog immediately jumps on the bed, licking me on the nose. I want to move my head, but it hurts too much. Shit, I can’t remember the last time I was hung over, and my body is making sure I’m up for maximum punishment.

“Hey,” I croak, wishing my voice didn’t sound so weak.

I also wish she didn’t look so bloody beautiful, the light coming through the gauzy curtains, lighting her up from behind like an angel. She walks over to me, dressed in another sundress I want to fuck her out of, her hair pulled back in a ponytail with not a trace of makeup on her glowing, fresh-scrubbed face.

Something inside me bleeds for her. It’s a nasty cut in the heart, a slow, deadly leak. It pains me to look at her knowing I’ll be leaving. That pain outweighs the one in my head. It’s no wonder I drank last night. It wasn’t just about the peer pressure. It was about relieving the pressure in my chest, the one that has been slowly building, brick by brick, all week.

I swallow, licking my lips, as she places soft, cool fingers on my cheek. I close my eyes, breathing her in, letting her touch soothe me.

“How are you feeling?” she asks. I open my eyes to see her crouched down at my level, looking at me with those warm dark eyes of hers.

Tomorrow I won’t see those eyes of hers again.

How am I feeling?

I’m not fine.

But I couldn’t quite tell her that last night, when I was drunk and trying to erase the feelings, feelings I do not know how to handle. It has been years and years since I was with a girl that I remotely cared about, and even that scared me halfway to hell. It didn’t end well for either of us. I drank myself into a rehab center and she went screaming the other way.