Rafe shakes his head. “Forget ask, I offered. You know Sin, though. Prideful bastard. Had to be at his house.”
“Maybe they?
?ll have Nicky’s at your house.”
“Maybe,” he offers, his tone non-committal.
Now that I’m finished blubbering all over him, we slide right back into having fun together. I expect Rafe to cut me off before I finish the giant drink, but he lets me finish the whole damn thing. I stumble to the bathroom, then come back, take his hand, and drag him to the gift shop where we bought Skylar’s giant lollipop. It’s in the bag already hanging from Rafe’s hand, but I insist we should get candy for the road, and he lets me haul him around, getting impressed as only a drunk girl (or a tourist) can over all the candy.
“Here you go,” Rafe says, grabbing my attention. “I found the perfect thing for you.”
He holds up a blue lollipop.
I cock an eyebrow. “You trying to say something, Morelli?”
“I just know how much you love blue. And sucking on things.” With a pseudo-innocent shrug, he says, “Match made in Heaven.”
“Just for that, I’m going to suck on it really good the whole ride home. The bluest thing in the car will be your balls.”
Rafe chuckles at my threat and leads me over to the cash register so he can pay for my sucker.
27
Rafe
When I get Virginia home safely, I follow her inside her apartment. Despite my urging her to move and the thick fucking envelopes of cash I gave her, she still lives at the same apartment. I thought about taking matters out of her hands and making her move, but I guess if she likes this tiny-ass apartment so much, it’s her business.
Virginia kicks off her shoes, swings and drops her purse, then wanders into the kitchen. She’s completely wasted. Can’t hold her alcohol for shit.
Smiling fondly as she roots around in her cupboards, I lean against the arch in her kitchen. “May I ask what the hell you think you’re doing?”
“I’m gonna make a cake,” she informs me, knocking the bowl in the sink. “Whoops.”
“You’re not going to make a cake,” I tell her, pushing off the wall and going over to take everything she just got out away from her. None of it is perishable, so I push it into a neat pile on her counter, grab her wrists, and drag her away.
“Mm, don’t do that,” she complains, looking at my hands locked around her wrists.
“Don’t do what?”
“Your sexy wrist lock move. Don’t do that. Why can’t I make a cake?”
“Because you’ve already consumed your weight in sugar tonight, and you’re drunk, so you’ll probably set your apartment on fire. Not that I wouldn’t jump on the excuse to move you out of this one, but arson probably isn’t the way to go.”
“Did you ever cook when you were a kid? I used to get these big ideas in my head of grand breakfasts I wanted to make my parents, but I wasn’t allowed to use the stove without supervision, so I would whip up these horrific omelet-like creations, and then I wouldn’t be able to cook them. One time my parents got up before everything spoiled and they cooked it for me, but it was so gross, they fed it to the dog.”
“I bet the dog was happy.”
She shakes her head. “Nope. Even the dog didn’t want it.”
Smiling faintly, I tell her, “If this is your way of convincing me to let you make a cake, you’re gonna want to rethink your approach.”
“But you love when I serve you,” she teases.
“I do. How ‘bout you make me breakfast in the morning when you’re sober? That sounds like a better plan.”
She has reached the playful drunk point. She shakes her head at me, a teasing smile on her face. “You can’t stay the night. Bad things happen when you spend the night.”
I shake my head, tugging her wrists and pulling her closer until I can grab her and pull her against my chest. “Good things happen when I spend the night.”