Page 51 of The Caretaker
Knowing just what to say and when seemed to be his specialty, and my heart made more room for him in that moment. “I know the perfect place for the three of us,” I said, dragging a finger across his burgeoning smile.
“Where to, beautiful?”
“Haley Cove.”
Noon
Now
“IT’S PERFECTLY NORMALto wake up disoriented, and headaches are to be expected.”
I played back my doctor’s words as I woke up both confused by my surroundings and with a migraine that threatened to split my skull down the middle. Even with the low embers burning in the fireplace, the room was cloaked in darkness, and I gripped the sides of my head, blinking until my vision adjusted.
Swinging my legs off the bed, my gaze landed on an open bottle of painkillers on the nightstand. I couldn’t recall if I’d taken any before falling asleep. If I had, the effects of them had worn off, so I shook more than the prescribed dose into my palm and swallowed them dry. Noticing the glass of water too late, I downed that too.
Behind me, Solace lay shirtless and asleep, his features twitching with tension as though he didn’t do so peacefully. We were in his bed.How did I get here?
Breathing through the pain, I thought back on the night, remembering the last thing we’d said, the last thing we’d done.
“Why do I know that you taste like mint with a dash of sin?”I’d asked, to which he insisted he didn’t.
“Prove it,”I’d demanded next.
We’d kissed, and although he hadn’t tasted like mint then, I knew without a shadow of doubt that he used to. As I’d worked through what that had to mean, he’d managed to get from under me. I latched on to his thin sweats, attempting to hold him there, to hold on to the memory climbing the bottomless abyss in my mind. I’d ripped them clean off of him, which explained why he slept next to me naked, the translucent sheet covering his lower half.
A blinding headache had followed, one that made the flames of the fireplace too bright for my eyes. I was left shaking, the rolling nausea causing me to fold in on myself.
Solace had gotten me into his bed and held me until the pain subsided enough to fall asleep. He’d dabbed my neck and face with a cold, wet cloth while whispering that he…that he loved me.
Stumbling over to the sitting area, I shoved my hands between the couch cushions until I found my phone, then checked the time. Almost midnight. I’d been asleep for three hours.
Next stop was the guest bedroom where I kept my things. I struggled into a pair of jeans, stopping twice to cradle my aching head before gritting my teeth and getting it done.
I looked in on Solace once more, debating if I should slip back under the covers with him, remain ignorant, keep ignoring the signs, and continue to pretend I couldn’t read between the lines. I couldn’t do it. I needed answers, and while maybe he’d ultimately be the one to give me most of them, he wasn’t where I wanted to start.
Downstairs, I laced into my boots and snatched up my coat. I took one last glance up the stairs before leaving, heading for my truck.
By the time I pulled into the parking lot of Pauly’s Bar and Bistro, my migraine had begun to recede. The pain now pulsing instead of stabbing.
The sign on the glass door said “Open,” but other than a few waitresses clearing tables, and a guy swaying in his seat at the bar, the place was empty. I hung my coat and took up a stool, deciding too late to ask the waitress passing behind me if Pauly was in. She was already disappearing down a hall in the back.
I spent a few minutes staring at my hands, fisting and releasing them, but whether curled tight or splayed out on the bar top, they shook.
“I’m cutting you off, Neil.”
I snapped my head up to find Pauly talking to the drunk guy at the other end of the bar, the one still attempting to right himself. Pauly confiscated his beer, dumping the remaining dregs of it into the sink.
“I should’ve cut you off a long time ago. I’m calling Maggie to come get you.”
The older man grumbled, but Pauly ignored him, turning for the phone near the register when he noticed me. “Hey,” he said, peering around for Solace, I assumed.
“I’m alone.”
“Alright,” he drawled, clearly confused. “What can I get you?”
“You know me,” I said. “You know who I am.”
“Sure I do. You came in for dinner with Solace.”
