Page 149 of Wildest Dreams

“As a former sex worker, I’m diligent about ethically sourced porn. You’d be surprised to know how hard it is to come by. All puns intended.”

Row picked up the container in front of me, sniffing it and making a face. “Definitely day-old vomit. I’m staging an intervention.”

“Great.” I jumped off my couch nimbly. Or maybe I was more drunk than I realized, because I bumped against my coffee table and almost smashed it. My toe did feel like it was bleeding. “Tell your sister to come. She might convince me to go to rehab.”

Row made what I guessed was his version of a sympathetic face, scratching at the stubble on his jawline. His wedding band gleamed. Cocky asshole. What did he care? He’d gotten his happily ever after. I should probably ask how Cal was doing, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care about anyone who wasn’t my own sorry ass.

“Look, man, I’m sorry. I always thought you’d be the one to break her heart, not the other way around.” Row sucked his teeth.

“How come?”

“Figured you don’t possess one.”

I grunted in response. I hadn’t thought I owned one either. Not until Dylan avalanched her way into my existence with that sassy mouth, which also happened to know how to suck my nutsusing just the right amount of pressure. I stared off into the middle distance.

Row flicked the nape of my neck.

“Ugh. What was that for?”

“I could practically see across your pupils a porno of you and my sister. What the fuck?”

I pushed him off, staggering my way to the hallway and into the bathroom for a piss. I bumped into every wall, piece of furniture, and goddamn atom in the air on my way there. How shit-faced was I? The answer was probably thirteen.

Wait—what was the question?

“Why’re you here?” I slurred as I flicked the toilet seat up (a habit I’d never possessed before Dylan), aimed my cock, and started pissing.

“Bruce is blowing up my phone asking where the fuck you are, and I was in town, so I thought I’d check on you.” I heard my best friend weaving around the house, picking up dirty dishes, planting them in the sink. “Oh, and Tate mentioned something about how you might have offed yourself sometime this week. He said you were unhinged on his plane.”

“I broke my own phone,” I ground out. “Fucking hell, I witnessed the man nutting into someone’s eyeball in the halftime of a high-stakes poker game just to take the edge off. He needs to seriously reexamine his life if he has the audacity to call me unhinged.”

Row’s head popped out from the hallway into my bathroom. “You need to haul your ass into the shower, down three gallons of water, and shovel the pizza I’m about to make you down your throat while I clean this pigsty—you hear me?”

“Why?” I grumbled.

“Because Marshall is on his way here, and you’re not losing this fucking deal. Now, are you too drunk to take a shower?”

“What do you take me for?” I spluttered. “Of course not.”

Lies.

I was too drunk to take a shower.

Turned out I was too drunk to recognize one too. At first, I strode into my walk-in closet and took a nap inside my hamper. Row eventually fished me out of there and tossed me into an ice-cold shower, clothes on, and that was what finally woke me the fuck up.

“Hey. What the shit?” I skidded up on my feet like a deranged baby gazelle, slapping the glass door with my open palm. “I could get pneumonia.”

Row was standing on the other side, arms crossed, looking like he’d finally run out of every single fuck he’d ever possessed. “And?” He arched an eyebrow. “You already have alcohol poisoning. You’re headed to the hospital either way.”

I ended up scrubbing myself back into something semicivilized, brushing my teeth three times, and chugging down water and Row’s authentic thin-crust Italian pizza. The apartment looked spotless. I didn’t know how, but he’d somehow gotten rid of the puke stench too. A good friend. Especially considering the fact that up until four days ago, my dick was so far in his sister’s ass I knew the shape of her kidneys.

Row glanced at his watch. A Rolex. Funny, but I didn’t miss mine. Somewhere in the past nine weeks, I’d realized I was obsessed with designer crap because I figured it would fill the void my parents left. But that never happened.

“Look, Bruce should be here any minute. I’m going to dash out. You’ll be okay, Rhy.”

I was sitting at my kitchen island, pouting like a little bitch, feeling very much the opposite of okay. “How do you know?” I asked, surly.

Row gave me an incredulous look. “I don’t. It’s just shit people say, you know.” He shrugged. “But in all likelihood, you will survive.”

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