“No, your brain’s fine. I’m more concerned about your ankle,” I say, sliding in to wrap my arm around her waist. “What do you think, short stack? Can you hang on for a piggyback ride downstairs?”
“Yes,” she says with a heavy sigh. “But let’s go quick or I might barf in your hair.”
“You’re not going to barf in my hair.” I turn and squat down low enough for her to climb on my back. Hooking my arms under her knees, I hoist her up and add in a softer voice, “But if you do, it’s not a big deal. No worries. That’s what showers are for.”
“Thank you, you’re the best,” she says, clinging to my shoulders as I start around the table.
As we pass her ex, I make a point not to look his way.
We’re nearly past him, and I’m debating whether I should text Whitney once we’re downstairs and tell her I’m going to help get Evie home, when the guy surges to his feet and says, “Holy shit, you’re Ian Fox! From the Possums. Aren’t you?”
Well…fuck.
Chapter 4
Ian
I reluctantly turn his way, summoning a soft groan from Evie. “Yeah,” I say, “but I’m kind of—”
“Totally. I won’t bother you, man,” the guy says, his eyes bright above his dark, evil-villain-shaped beard. He looks like he escaped from a cartoon. Or 1910. “Just wanted to let you know I appreciate everything you do for the team. They’d suck even harder than they do already without you.”
I force a tight smile. “Thanks.”
“So, how do you know Evie?” he asks, his nearly black eyes darting to my left shoulder, where Evie is still moaning softly beneath her breath, a long—uhhhhhhh—sound that isn’t comforting.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m okay with getting barfed on if it can’t be avoided, but I’d prefer we both make it to her place without baptism by bile.
“She never mentioned you,” he pushes on. “Not even when we went to a game last February, though I wondered how a college kid could afford seats like that.”
“I’m not a kid, asshole,” Evie slurs into my ear. A second later, her arm flops limply over my shoulder to point a finger at Beard Guy’s face. “I’m a fully grown woman with wants and needs and urges, just like everyone else. Yeah, that’s right, I have urges, too! Tons of urges.”
Heat creeps up my neck. I have a high-tolerance for embarrassment but apparently a low tolerance for hearing my surrogate little sister talk about her “urges.”
I squeeze Evie’s leg. “Okay, Evie, I think—”
“Dark, sexy urges,” she continues, wiggling her finger closer to his face. “Urges so naughty you would swallow your tongue if you knew half of the things I thought about when we were kissing. And you weren’t even the best kisser I’ve ever kissed! So there!”
“Come on, Ian, we need to get her downstairs,” Harlow urges, tugging at my sleeve.
“No, I want to stay,” Evie says, “I’m not finished yet.”
“You should have been finished two old-fashioneds ago, doll,” Harlow says, before adding in a voice for my ears only, “She’s never had this much alcohol at once. We need to get her home and get water and crackers in her. Stat.”
“Gotta go,” I mutter to Beard Guy and the blonde, who is doing a shit job of concealing her amusement at Evie’s meltdown.
I turn to follow Harlow, but Evie lets out a wail that has the half of the beer garden not already staring turning to gawk.
“No, I’m not finished,” she insists, pointing more emphatically at her ex’s face. “Here is what people don’t understand, Vince. Women can be more than one thing. I can be cute in the street and a savage in the sheets. I can draw adorable baby animals and still make deep and meaningful art. And I shouldn’t have to choose between being a ‘good girl’ or a ‘hot girl.’ We, as humans, contain multitudes. Multitudes!”
That last “multitudes” is said with such force, such passion that I’m not really surprised when it’s followed by a stream of projectile vomit a television comedy sketch team would be proud of. It emerges as a churning tornado of whiskey-and-cherry-scented sickness that whizzes over her ex’s shoulder as he ducks to the right to splatter all over his date.
Now it’s Blondie’s turn to wail in a thick, Jersey accent—“Oh my God, Vince. Oh my fucking Gawwwwd!”
Evie lets out a soft burp and mutters, “Oops. Sorry,” as Harlow tugs more urgently at my sleeve and demands, “Out of here. Now. Before they start naked vomit wrestling or something equally heinous.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I hustle to the elevator behind her, slipping inside as Vince is stripping off his jacket to help clean Blondie up and she’s screeching, “Somebody stop her! She’s gonna pay for this damage. My Balenciaga bag is ruined. It’s fucking ruined!”