Page 40 of Hero Next Door
“But I’ve been here for dinner,” she slurred.
That was true. But still not relevant to the current situation. “And what a dinner it was,” I told her. “Come on, let’s go.”
She looked around like she’d forgotten where she was. “Where are we going?”
God, thatwasgood wine. We’d only finished the bottle between us, but it had definitely gone right to her head. “We’re going to one of the guest rooms, where you’re going to put on one of my old shirts and go to bed.”
She looked actually offended at that. “Why would I go to bed? I’m not in my house.”
Look, I would be lying if I said I didn’t consider taking advantage of how much she’d had to drink. No, not like that. My mother raised me better. But she’d had enough to drink that her defenses were down for quite possibly the first time, and I had questions.
Questions that she might answer now that she was drunk enough to be acting like a college chick who’d just had her first margarita.
But something stopped me from asking them. Maybe it was respect or maybe it was the knowledge that she might only give me a drunk version of the truth. More likely, it was the fact that when I asked her the questions I wanted to ask her, I wanted her to remember having told me. So I showed her to one of the guest rooms, then left to go to my room to find an old shirt for her to sleep in.
When I returned, she was passed out on the bed.
I laughed, unable to stop myself, and paused for a moment to admire her. God, she was beautiful. Rosy-cheeked with wine, her dark hair spread out in a fan around her face. Those dark eyes were closed, but her lashes were fanned out across her cheeks and her mouth was relaxed in a sleep so deep I didn’t think I’d be able to wake her if I tried.
My heart grew three sizes, and I shook my head at myself. If you’d told me, a week ago, that I’d have Parker Pelton sleeping in one of my guest bedrooms, and that she’d have had too much wine during a dinner I cooked for her, I would have called you insane.
If you told me that I’d be standing in the doorway and wondering what it would be like to lay down next to her, curl up against her back, and hold her all night, I probably would have called 911 and told them you’d gone crazy.
And yet here we were.
I took off her shoes, covered her with the quilt, and then turned out the light, closing the door gently and creeping away like my footsteps might wake her. And I went down the hall to my own bed, where I was quite sure I would lay awake all night, too aware of her presence under my roof to sleep.
CHAPTER24
Dev
“Ican’t believe you don’t even have a hangover,” I muttered as I drove her back to her house at 8 the next morning. We’d had enough coffee to drown an entire herd of rats and far too many pancakes, and I wanted nothing more than to sit in the library, open a book, and stay there for several hours.
Parker, however, had insisted that I drive her home. I didn’t know why she thought I had to drive, which would leave her car at my house, but I’d thought it might be because she didn’t feel up to driving. Then we got into my truck and she started talking a million miles per minute about all the butterflies she’d been seeing around.
“I don’t have a hangover because I have a good metabolism and eat right,” she said, her voice way, way too perky.
I gave her my best side-eye. “You don’t get hangovers because you’re skinny? That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I didn’t say it was because I was skinny. I said it was because of my metabolism. I burn through alcohol more quickly than most people.”
“And yet it took two full glasses to get you so drunk you weren’t even capable of driving home,” I pointed out.
She narrowed her eyes and made a face. “You’re the one who insisted I couldn’t drive. Not me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
I didn’t think she’d forgotten. I hadn’t even realized she was sober enough to have heard me.
Wait.
“Did you... Did youfakebeing drunk?” I asked, flabbergasted.
She giggled and shrugged. “Hey, I was having fun. I didn’t want to go back to a big, lonely house by myself. Can you blame me?”
I didn’t know if I believed her. For all I knew, she was making this up, too, just to get a rise out of me.
But I also really, really liked the idea that she might have made an excuse just to be allowed to stay at my house, so I was willing to let it go. I felt the start of a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth, and looked back at the road, trying to contain the whirling sensation in the pit of my stomach.
Okay, so maybe she’d been right about me driving her home.
