“Hold still.” Alex sat back with an exasperated sigh and put the Ziploc baggie of ice he’d been holding on the bar counter. “If you keep flinching, people are going to think I’m the one who gave you the black eye.”
“They’ll already think that even if I wasn’t flinching.” She took the ice, which was wrapped in a stained bar towel, and grabbed hold of Alex’s hand. This time he was the one to pull back. “Who’s being a wuss now?”
Someone had bandaged up the cuts on his knuckles where the skin had split, but a swell of redness across the back of his hand showed where bruises would begin to crop up in the morning. Guilt bubbled up in her chest for the role she’d played in his injury. If his hand hurt too much to catch or bat, his position as the starting catcher could be in jeopardy. She would feel pretty bad if he missed opening day because he’d decked a guy for her.
He must have sensed her tension because he held his hand still and let her place the ice on it with no further complaints.
“Do they think you broke anything?” she asked. Alex had been required to have a full checkup after the game, as was typical of any injury. Only this injury was anything but typical.
“Nah.” He wriggled his fin
gers under the bundle. “I’ll be okay. It just feels tight, that’s all. It’s going to look pretty badass, though.” When Alice didn’t laugh, he added, “I’ve gotten hurt worse by rebounding hits on the plate or flying bats. Trust me, if it was broken, I’d know.”
She let out a small sigh of relief. Catchers bore the brunt of in-game injuries, so if Alex was confident he would be okay, she’d have to trust his judgment.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” He seemed hell-bent on ignoring the question, raising his good hand to the bartender and flashing two fingers. Whatever it was he’d ordered, either he was double fisting, or he was expecting her to join him. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.
Drinking with him seemed awfully close to a date. But she’d agreed to come with him after the game. It had been hard to resist his sweet hangdog look, and he had defended her against that belligerent asshole Teddy Donaldson. Joining him had been the least she could do, but did that extend to drinking with him?
Alice didn’t make the best decisions when she drank.
Matt had convinced her he was charming because she’d been drinking when she met him. And while he was still alluring when she was sober, when she was drunk he’d been downright irresistible.
She already thought Alex was cute and sweet and more than a little dangerous to her defenses. It probably wasn’t the best idea in the world to give him additional ammunition to bring down her walls.
The bartender set two beers in front of them, then poured two shots of whiskey into lowball glasses and put one in front of Alice and Alex each.
“Whiskey? Seriously?” Alice asked.
“What? It’s good for you. Makes bruises heal faster.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
Alex picked up the shot and tipped it towards her. “Be that as it may, drink up.”
“Is that your idea of an argument?”
He nudged the glass towards her. “Take your medicine.”
A whole series of arguments scrolled through Alice’s head like the credits of a movie on fast forward. She shouldn’t, should she? But hell, what was one drink? She had taken an elbow to the face only a few hours earlier. Didn’t that give her some freedom to drink a little?
“Oh, what the hell? Cheers.” She clinked her glass against his and tried to ignore his triumphant smirk. “One drink.”
Alice could count strikes like nobody’s business, but she was not as gifted in counting shots.
It didn’t help that the bartender kept taking the empty glasses away. How on earth could she be expected to keep track without having the evidence lined up in front of her?
She was drunk.
There was no disputing the evidence. Everything around her had a slightly hazy quality, and she was feeling awesome. It was an interesting side effect, the way drinking chased away the heavy bitterness that followed her day in and day out, and replaced it with a buoyant cheerfulness.
And flirtatiousness unfortunately.
She knew she shouldn’t be touching Alex’s arm so often, and deep down she was also aware he wasn’t as funny as her giggles might suggest, but she was helpless to stop herself. Once the drunk-Alice ball got rolling, there was no stopping it.
She really shouldn’t have taken the first shot.