Page 48 of Elusion

“Want to fill me in?” I drop onto the couch, and he joins me.

“We’ve been drinking together since she was fourteen, so I know Cal will remember everything up until around two this morning. That’s about when we went to our friend Pete’s grandparents’ farm. Highlights after that include her falling out of a tree, smashing mailboxes, and crashing a four-wheeler into a barn. I stopped her from doing anything crazy.”

“None of that’s crazy?”

He shakes his head. “She sobered up a little this morning, and I made her eat. I turned my back for two seconds, and she added vodka to her orange juice and started all over again.”

“Who the hell is this girl?” I mumble the thought to myself, but Trey volunteers an answer.

“Someone who’s tired of other people dictating how she lives her life. But she hasn’t been this determined to forget in a long time. Graham might have finally broken her.”

The same unease from yesterday settles in the pit of my stomach. I have no understanding of Callie’s life. Not with the long talk from the other night or what I uncovered yesterday.

“I’ll venture to guess this is all new information,” he says.

I nod.

“That’s not surprising. She’s wanted to get away since we were kids. This was supposed to be her chance.” He pauses, looking down at his hands. “And I helped fuck it up.”

I start to ask what she so desperately wants to escape, but Felicia comes out. “She’s asleep.”

Trey gets to his feet. “Good news is if she hasn’t puked by now, she’s not going to. The bad news, she’s not down for the night. Expect a short rally in a few hours.”

Felicia and I exchange glances. Drunk Callie sounds like quite an undertaking, especially if someone who apparently knows her much better than us has such trouble handling her.

Not giving me a chance for follow-up questions, Trey retrieves her bags from his truck and hands over her phone and keys. Halfway out the door, he turns around. “Tell her…” His eyebrows draw in as he focuses on Callie’s room. “I know she’s still mad at me but tell her to call me. She needs someone to fill in the holes for her, and I’d rather it be me.” He hesitates a second longer before leaving, his face full of regret.

“Are you staying?” Felicia asks, closing the door.

“I’m staying.”

“I’ll be on the couch then if you need me.”

It’s late when Callie’s hand runs through my hair. She licks a line up my neck and then over my jawline. That’s all it takes for me to get hard. Her leg hooks over my hip, and I cup her ass, pulling her against me. My mouth finds hers, a hand tangling in her hair when her lips part. I groan as her tongue teases mine. She playfully bites down, and holy fuck, it’s hot. Her hand slides between us, down to the button on my jeans—shit.

She’s drunk.

I release her and roll out of the bed.

“Come back.”

Her breathy voice does nothing to ease my erection. Still in a daze from the unexpected wake-up call, I sit on Cam’s bed. Callie moves in the dark and crawls onto my lap, straddling me. Her hands hold my face, and her lips are on mine again. I know we need to stop, but my recent stint of abstinence works overtime against me. Her mouth travels to my neck.

“Callie, you’re drunk.”

Undeterred, she kisses me again.

The outer limits of my self-control somehow stretch further, and I pull back. “We can’t do this.”

She stops. “You’re kidding.” She pushes off me and turns on the lamp by her bed. “You’ve been trying to fuck me for two weeks.”

She’s mad at me for not taking advantage of her? “Not when you’re drunk.”

She rolls her eyes and returns to her bed. “I suppose the plan to screw me and never talk to me again gives you the moral high ground.”

I have no response. She can’t possibly think the two situations compare. She needs to sleep it off.

“Callie—”

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