My breath catches at the sight of her. She’s wearing a long blue dress, the thin straps crossing in a pattern across her back in a way that shows off her beautiful pale skin. Her blonde hair is hanging in a curtain in front of her face, and when I finally bring myself to crouch down beside her and brush her hair out of the way, I smile when I see some drool on the corner of her lip.
My gaze trails down her arm that’s hanging off the couch to where a beer bottle is placed on the floor at her fingertips. It’s barely halfway empty. I only see one other beer bottle around me, and although it's empty, from where I'm sitting, it looks like Hailey barely had a beer and a half—a Corona, no less, so hardly a beer with high alcohol content.
I place my hand on her back and rub gently. "Hailey. Hailey, wake up. Let me take you home."
She mumbles something in her sleep but doesn't wake up. I try again, harder this time, but it's no use. She's out cold.
There's zero chance of me leaving her here, so I realize I'm going to need to carry her outside. Carefully, I roll her over so I can reach under her back and knees to lift and cradle her to my chest. I swear under my breath when I realize how light she is. She's always been tiny, but it's easy to tell that she's too small right now. I don't know what's been going on with her the past few weeks, but she definitely hasn't been eating enough.
I make a silent vow to stuff her full of greasy, hearty food in the morning.
With Hailey tucked against my chest, I make my way back down the hallway. Somewhere between the front door and my car, a breeze ruffles her hair and she curls in tighter against my chest. A small whimper escapes her lips, and I hug her even closer to me.
When I finally have her curled up in my passenger seat, I buckle her in and cover her with my suit jacket. Then I quickly hurry around to the driver's seat so I can pull away from this godforsaken place. I hope Steve enjoys coming home to an empty apartment tonight.
Hailey starts to stir as I park in front of my house. By the time I've walked around to open her door and crouched down beside her, she's sleepily blinking her eyes open. She lifts her head from where it was resting on the seatbelt and looks around in confusion before her gaze finally settles on me.
"Jax?" she says with a sleep-heavy voice. "Where am I?"
"We're at my house," I answer softly. "I picked you up after you told me you and Steve broke up, remember?"
At the reminder, she frowns. I'm wondering if she'll yell at me for breaking into her apartment when she finally huffs and glares at me.
"I hate that fucking guy," she growls.
I bark a laugh at hearing her curse again. She continues to glare at me, so I just straighten up with a grin and hold my hand out to her. "I agree. Let's get you inside, so you don't have to deal with that fucking guy anymore."
She mutters something under her breath but grabs my hand. She doesn't let go until we reach my front stoop and I'm ushering her inside with a hand on her lower back. And she’s talking the entire time.
“Do you know that I actually wrote aFuck SteveListnot long ago?” she babbles as she tosses my suit jacket on the couch and heads straight for the fridge to grab two beers. I open my mouth to ask if that's a good idea, but the words never make it past my lips because Hailey quirks an angry eyebrow at me. The car nap seems to have dropped her from drunk to buzzed, so I raise my hands in mock surrender and crack the beer she's slid across the kitchen island to me.
“It was basically just a list of shit that Iwantedto do but couldn’t because Steve was a pussy. Want to know what was on it? You’ll never believe how boring this stupid list was.” She starts counting off on her fingers. “Get drunk, get a tattoo, smoke weed, smokehookaheven, kiss a girl, travel someplace by myself. I literally created a bucket list for when I break up with my boyfriend.” She spreads her hands out wide in victory. “Well, joke’s on him because I’m already checking my first thing off the list.”
It doesn’t seem like she’s really expecting an answer, so I don’t say anything. But while I'm debating if I want to ask her if she wants to talk about what happened tonight, Hailey jumps up to sit on the counter and then chugs half her drink, making me stare at her in awe. Not just because she’s a sight, drinking like a frat boy while looking like a goddess in that dress, but because she’s actually opening up to me. She’s never been vocal with me about her relationships, so I’ve never really understood that side of her. Part of me is frustrated that it took booze and a breakup for us to have this conversation, but the other part of me is thankful that it’s happening at all.
"Let me ask you a question," she starts angrily. "Does everyone know Steve is a piece of shit? Was I the only one completely blind to this fact?"
I wince and look down, which she immediately notices and correctly reads. She lets out a harsh laugh and drops her head back against the cabinets.
"God, I'm so fucking stupid," she sighs. "For the past few hours, I've been trying to figure out how that's even possible. I mean, I get that he's perfect on paper, but I like to think I'm not a total idiot. How did I not see him for what he really is?"
"You are not an idiot," I say forcefully. "No one thinks that about you. You just saw other sides of him that we… couldn't necessarily see. That's all."
She jerks her head up to glare at me. "The other sides of him are even worse. Don't you get it? That's what makes this so annoying. There isnothingdecent about him."
At her words, my heartrate speeds up. A mixture of fear and anger that I've never felt before starts to churn in my gut, and I'm trying to figure out how to fight the temptation of shredding Steve apart for long enough to ask the question that's always burned in my brain.
"Hailey," I say with a tremor in my voice, "did he hurt you?"
Completely oblivious to the chaos currently holding me hostage, she waves me off as if it's nothing. "Of course not," she replies as she swallows another few mouthfuls of her beer. "He's way too big of a pussy to ever lay a hand on me."
The anger in me abates just enough for me to take a deep breath. But I'm still not sure what could be worse than what we already know about Steve, so I'm not exactly at ease yet. I finally manage to ask, "So… then what happened? Why tonight?"
A flash of pain crosses Hailey's face, and I almost jump out of my seat to move around the island to her. But I don't. I give her space to process this how she needs to.
With a sigh, she drops her head against the cabinets behind her again. "He called Remy a whore," she finally mumbles.
My brow furrows in confusion. Remy has had a handful of boyfriends over the years, but she's not exactly the type to sleep around or juggle multiple guys at once. I'm also convinced she's in love with my roommate, so I doubt she's spending her time hooking up with a bunch of guys. She's as far from a whore as a normal 25-year-old can get.