“It was too tight,” she complained.
“I don’t care. When your roommates come home, if you’re undressed, they’ll think I took advantage of your inebriated state.”
Riley giggled like that was a hilarious idea. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” He picked the dress off the floor and handed it to her, still averting his eyes. “Do you need help getting this back on?”
She didn’t take the dress. Another glance showed that she was lying on the couch, knees drawn up to her chest, and her eyes shut. Quite a lot of her toned legs were showing.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll get you a robe or pajamas.”
He could’ve called an Uber and gone back to the wedding reception. If anyone else had been lying on the couch drunk, he might have. But Riley seemed so vulnerable.
Lucas was afraid if he left, she would try to drive back to the church. He would stay with her until she’d sobered up a bit.
Riley’s bedroom was clean and orderly, nothing out of place. That hadn’t changed. The only difference was that a picture of him no longer sat on the dresser next to the one of her with her grandmother. He vaguely wondered what the fate of his picture had been. Death by fire? Shredding?
Lucas was trying to be helpful, trying to be a gentleman by going through Riley’s dresser to find her pajamas, but the first two drawers he opened held underwear and seeing all those lacy,silky things made him feel like some kind of perv who’d come here to paw through her stuff.
He shut the drawers and went to her closet. It was safer.
Wow. The woman hung her clothes up by color. Who did that? Well, this sort of relentless organization was why she made such a good assistant manager. There you had it.
Also, she didn’t seem to own a robe.
He was afraid if he brought her pants and a t-shirt, she’d peel off her slip and fling it on the floor with the rest of her clothes, so he plucked Tshirt dress from the closet, and because it was winter and she was probably cold, he took the extra throw from her bed and brought that out to the living room too.
She was lying stretched out in the same spot, eyes shut, one hand on her forehead.
“Riley, are you awake?”
“Yeah, everything is just a little spinny.” She opened her eyes and saw the blanket and dress in his hands.
“I brought you something to wear,” he said.
She sat up, ignored the dress, and wrapped herself in the blanket. “Thanks. You’re the best.”
It had been a long time since she’d called him that.
“I found some crackers. Do you want me to make you tea? Your favorite is the ginger type, right?”
He realized as soon as he asked the question that he shouldn’t have been specific. Jace didn’t know about her selection of herbal teas or which was her favorite.
She put her hand to her chest. “You remember. I’m touched.”
Busted. Okay, so even when Riley was drunk, she could tell the difference between him and Jace, but she’d let him take her home and help her; that was the important thing. “Yeah, I remembered. If you could drink a gingerbread house, you would.”
“That sounds lovely,” she said. “Bring me a liquid gingerbread house, please.”
While he’d been carrying her, his tie had gone crooked. She reached out and tried to straighten it but failed. She frowned at her botched attempt.
“Speaking of ties,” he said because she was in a good mood and likely to tell him the truth, “why did you learn to tie a man’s tie?”
She shrugged. “Grandma had a friend in assisted living who needed help.”
Not a boyfriend then, an act of kindness.
That was the old Riley he knew.