Page 55 of Wright Kind of Trouble

“Come here. I got you.”

I tried to step toward him and tumbled forward again. He caught me in his arms before I could fall. I started giggling. Suddenly, it was all hilarious.

He shook his head, kicked the door closed, and lifted me effortlessly into his arms.

“Oh!” I gasped.

I was a rag doll, limp, my head lolling back. The whole world felt upside down.

“I’ve never had this much to drink in my life.”

“I can believe that,” he said as he carried me across the threshold.

“It’s so freeing to not care.”

He pursed his lips. “How so?”

“I always care so fucking much.” My hands knotted in the leather jacket. “I have to be perfect. In school, I have to maintain a 4.0. I need to keep my scholarship. I have to get into the best law school.”

“I understand that life. I went through that.”

“Yeah. Yale. Where did you go to law school?”

“UT Austin.”

“That’s a good school.”

“My dad was disappointed,” he said flatly.

“Fuck him.”

Chase laughed. “Yes, well, I mean to say that you can only make the decision for yourself.”

“I don’t even know if I want to be a lawyer.”

The words hit me in the gut. The words I’d never uttered to anyone. Certainly not to my mom, who had slaved to get me the best education so I could pursue my dream. Or my brothers, who always believed I would change the world. Definitely not to my dad, who I never told anything.

It was hard enough, admitting it to myself. Let alone to someone else.

“You don’t have to decide today,” he said wisely.

I just laughed. “No one makes you think you have time to wait.”

“No one else matters right now.”

“Just you?”

“Just you,” he corrected. “Can you stand?”

“Maybe.”

He tried to put me down on my feet in the living room, and my legs gave out.

He chuckled and set me down on the infamous leather couch. “What are we going to do with you?”

“I can think of a few things.”

He ignored me and then began to slowly unlace the heeled boots that brought the entire outfit together. He pulled one shoe off and then the other.

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