In the slice of light from a streetlamp, the concerned look on his face melts away. It’s quickly replaced with that smirking grin I know all too well.
“Just don’t puke on the dress. I don’t think you’re going to be able to shower and change by yourself if you do.”
I shiver as images of him stripping and bathing me inexplicably flitting through my mind. I can practically feel his hands on me, smell the soap he always uses making circles on my skin.
I force my gaze back to the road, but watching it move isn’t helping with my dizziness and nausea, so I turn back to Grey. “I’m watching you because looking at the road makes me want to throw up. Don’t let it go to your head.”
That half smile. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“I wouldn’t either.”
It’s not long before he’s pulling into the small parking lot behind my apartment building. My flower shop, Unlikely Places, is downstairs, but my studio that overlooks Main Street is upstairs. In the morning, the sunrise is going to shine into my apartment and make me want to kill someone. Probably myself. And Jose Cuervo. He’s never been nice to me.
“Don’t get out,” Grey says, putting the truck in park and killing the engine.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
A moment later, he’s opening the passenger door and helping me out. It’s not helping my nausea, but I force myself to wait to throw up until I’m in my apartment.
It’s a good thing he’s here, because I would never have made it up the stairs on my own. I lean heavily on him, thankful that I gave him a key when I moved in a few years ago, because I just realized I left mine back at the farm. My car too.
I’ve always wondered what rock bottom feels like.
“This isn’t rock bottom,” he says, fitting his key into the lock.
I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud.
I barely make it into the apartment and to the toilet before heaving again. Grey is there once more, holding my hair, crouching beside me, waiting with toilet paper so I can wipe my mouth.
I stare at him in the dark, only my night-light illuminating the small bathroom. “Sure feels like rock bottom.”
His calloused fingers are rough against my skin as he pushes a lock of hair behind my ear and scans my face with soft eyes.
“Looks like starting over to me.”
I slump back against the cold bathtub, drawing my knees up to my chest. I’m horrified to feel my bottom lip quiver. “I don’t want to start over.”
His fingers thread with mine, squeezing gently, tethering me to reality. “I know, Fin, but you’re not alone.”
“I feel alone,” I whisper.
Something in his eyes changes. Maybe it’s just a trick of the dim light, a flicker in the shadows of the bathroom. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” He pauses and, almost as an afterthought, says, “Holden and Wren and your mom too. And Nora. You’re not alone.”
I want to say thank you, to tell him I think he just talked me off the ledge of an epic panic attack, but my stomach chooses that moment to revolt again.
Grey draws circles on my back and keeps my hair out of the bowl. He finds a hair tie in my bathroom drawer and wraps itaround my hair when I slump against the seat. This is an all-time low.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs into my ear. I try to nod, but I’m too tired, too miserable.
He returns a moment later and tells me he’s going to unzip my dress. I might be half-asleep, but I can’t stop the way my body shivers at the feel of his knuckles gliding down the length of my spine. The zipper snags, and he has to slide his free hand into the gaping fabric, hot against my skin, to make it unzip the rest of the way.
I think my breath catches. I think he hears it too. I think I hear his grow more shallow. I think I’m imagining things.
The zipper finally stops at the base of my spine, and when Grey speaks, his voice is hoarse, the scrape of sandpaper. “I’m going to put this shirt on you and then you can shimmy out of the dress, okay?”
Thank God it’s strapless. I really don’t think I’d be able to handle straps on my own tonight.
