I knew him better after one night than I’d known Sean after months.
“Okay, okay, I’ll drop it.” Jeremy raised his hands again. “You just seem distracted lately, that’s all. Figured it was guy trouble.”
“It’s not guy trouble.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, hoping he’d take the hint. “I’m taking classes, working full time, and trying to fit into a small town after moving for the third time in three years. It’s exhaustion.”
He was quiet for a moment, and I almost thought he’d leave. Then his hand landed on my knee. “You know, if you ever need someone to talk to?—”
“Jeremy.” My eyes shot open and I glared at him. Hard. “Move your hand.”
To his credit, he did. But his ego-filled grin didn’t falter, which meant the message hadn’t fully landed. It never did with guys like him. They just shifted and tried a different angle.
“I should get back to work,” I said, even though every cell in my body wanted to crash.
“You should rest. I wasn’t kidding about that. Take another twenty minutes.” He stood, straightening his shirt like he was about to meet the Prime Minister instead of walking back to a half-empty bar. “Boss’s orders.”
“You’re a shift manager. Not the boss.”
His smile pulled to a thin, tight line. He didn’t like that. Jeremy liked feeling important and reminding him of his actual role here was the fastest way to deflate him.
“Right. Well. Shift manager’s orders, then.” He turned and walked out, leaving me alone on the world’s most disgusting couch.
Finally.
I flopped down on my side, too tired to even lift my feet off the floor. The break room was quiet, the muffled music from the bar a distant hum through the walls.
I should have been thinking about school. About the assignment I’d missed. About the text I still hadn’t sent to Sean. About whatever Chantel was hiding from me, and why the distance between us was growing wider by the day even though we were living under the same roof.
Instead, I thought about Caleb.
Dark, wavy hair. Sharp blue eyes. That wicked, confident smile that shouldn’t have worked on me but absolutely did. The way he’d listened to me ramble about my shitty life like every word mattered.
The way he’d kissed me like I was the air he needed to keep breathing.
Three weeks, and I still replayed that kiss. Still imagined what would’ve happened if I’d been sober. If he’d stayed the next day. If I hadn’t bolted across the hall like a coward.
Chantel said he’d gone back to Toronto, to school and his life. A world where I was probably nothing more than a funny story about a drunk woman at a party.
The thought sat in my chest like a stone. I needed to put him out of my mind.
I closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion take over. But the second I did, he was there again, waiting like he always was when I let my guard down.
Chapter Nine
Zadie
The feeling of warmth and safety mixed with a woodsy scent.
I was wrapped in my blankets, and it felt like I’d been dreaming for days. Maybe years. It was a deep, peaceful sleep that had no edges and no end.
“They said she wasn’t feeling well.” His voice drifted in from somewhere down the hall, low and muffled. “She slept the entire way home… Yeah, okay. Fine.”
Caleb was here. In Chantel’s house.
What the hell?
“Caleb,” I croaked, because getting out of bed was not an option my body was willing to negotiate.
“Hey.” He appeared in my doorway, shoulder against the frame, looking way too comfortable there. “How are you feeling?”