Seth wakes to daylight, to cottonmouth, to his head resting in the cradle of Lacey’s lap.
Shit.
Lacey.
Craning his neck, he blinks his eyes and stares up at her. She’s asleep, sitting uncomfortably to accommodate Seth, her lashes dark against her tan skin. His chest strains. He reaches up a hand, barely grazing the tips of his fingers against the angular, cutting curve of her cheek, when her eyes snap open.
“What’re you doing?”
He retracts his hand. “Nothin’.”
He ain’t stupid enough to tell her the truth. That she looked beautiful. That he couldn’t have survived last night without her.
That she saved him. Brought him back from the edge of too-far-gone.
With a groan, Seth eases himself up. Every bone in his body hurts, including his head.
Lacey suddenly starts like a bull with a red flag. She’s let her guard down with Seth a second too long. She hops up, leaving the couch abruptly, and glides to the counter to check her phone. “How do you feel?” she asks after a minute, her eyes still on her phone.
He rubs his face. “Like shit.”
“I have some ibuprofen,” she offers. “If you want it.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.”
As she rifles through her purse, Seth watches her observant eyes survey his apartment. Some kind of cross between the Grand Ole Opry and a bachelor pad. A brick accent wall. The white kitchen with a stack of songwriting notebooks on the counter. Seth’s fiddle case nestled on a leather chair. Hatch Show concert posters. Enormous windows that overlook the same river Luke’s farm does.
A little impressed murmur leaves her lips.
“What?” Seth asks.
“This is nice.” Her mouth purses around the compliment like it’s a lemon. “Your apartment.” She runs a hand down her rumpled silk skirt, her green stare finding him over her shoulder. “I always pictured you living in a barn or something.” Her eyes rove. “You have curtains, Seth. A blender.”
He chuckles. “Blender’s hard to come by these days?”
“You’d be surprised.”
For a brief second, Lacey smiles. A real, gorgeous smile. And it’s easy to pretend like last night’s kiss was meant to be. Like she’s made to be in this space with him. One where Lacey is in his house having sleepovers. But he can’t pretend. At least not for long, because suddenly, the other side of last night all comes rushing back.
Luke. His drunken bender. How close he came to using again. To breaking his promise to Luke and Sal.
Seth clears his throat. “About last night.”
She holds up a hand. “We don’t have to discuss it.”
Seth flinches at the look on her face. Impassive, shuttered, her eyes dodging his. As if she’s regretting last night, how much she gave him. It’s then he’s reminded that Lacey knows nothing about his past. Sal never told her, so of course his idiot actions have knocked her for a loop.
He scared her. The thought has him cursing himself.
“It was a mistake,” he admits, squeezing the back of his neck. “I don’t know what I was thinkin’.”
He means the coke, but he doesn’t know if he means the kiss. Because goddamn, if she asked him to kiss her again, he would.
He’d kiss her and this time, he’d hold on.
To his surprise, she meets his eyes. “We all make mistakes, Seth.” A quick toss of her hair and then she’s dropping her gaze. “Let’s just agree not to do ... whatever we’ve been doing anymore. Okay?”
Her desire to end things between them cuts like a knife to the chest. But before he can say anything—agree, argue—there’s a buzz from his phone.