“Leila!” he exclaims. “I’ve missed you so fucking much. I was just looking for my keys.”

“Come inside,” I tell him.

He stumbles into the apartment, bumping his hand on the countertop as he enters, spilling all but a few coins from his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m a little drunk.”

“No shit. Where the hell were you? I was about to go out looking for you.”

“You see,” he says, grinning and slurring his words, “this is why I love you so much. You care about people. You’re a good person, Leila.”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “You’re kind of an asshole. Where were you?”

“Now don’t be mad,” he slurs.

“I don’t see much chance of that,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says, completely misunderstanding what I just told him. “I was with Wriggle—Wriggsley—Wrig—”

“Wrigley?” I ask. “Why?”

“After the way she was following me today, I wanted to figure out a way to get her to leave me alone, ‘cause I don’t like her like that anymore.”

I really don’t see any version of this story making things better.

“So I called her up,” he says, “and I told her that I wanted to talk to her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “We met up for drinks, and I told her that no matter what, she had to stay away, ‘cause I don’t like the way she’s been following me around. It’s not fucking cool.”

I’m getting pretty sick of Drunk Dane, but maybe he actually accomplished something on his way down the bottle.

“And?”

“And what?” he asks. “Oh! Right,” he continues. “I told her that I wanted her to leave us alone, but she said I was the one who called her. I guess that’s true, but she told me that she was planting seeds and I didn’t want them to grow.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask.

“I think I—” he hiccups, and I swear to all that is holy, if he pukes on the floor, I’m going to get really pissed.

“You think you what?” I ask.

He laughs. “That’s a funny sentence.”

“How much did you have to drink?” I ask him. “It doesn’t look like you two just got together for a casual drink or two.”

“I’m not sure,” he says, “but I think it was a lot.”

“I’d say that’s a strong possibility.”

“You’re mad!” he whispers. “I thought you said you weren’t going to get mad.”

“That’s not what I said, you jackass, now did you figure something out or not?”

“She told me that she wouldn’t follow me around anymore,” he says. “So that’s a good thing. She also told me to pass along an apology on her behalf. She said the two of you talked a while ago and she said she came across kind of pretty rude.”

“That’s it?” I ask. “It’s over? She’s out of the picture?”

“She wasn’t in my picture,” he says. “I love you, Leilal.”

It’s close enough to a kind moment that my urge to punch him in the nose slowly fades, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy.

“But that’s it?” I ask. “Did she say anything else?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She told me that it’s not nice to call someone up just to tell them to leave you alone.” He leans toward me, his hand to the side of his mouth as if there’s anyone in the apartment for him to keep ignorant of the sloshing sound of his words. “I didn’t care.”

Well, on the one hand, it sounds like we might finally be free to actually start our relationship without having to worry about his old one trying to creep back in. On the other hand, I don’t think I could possibly be less attracted to him than I am now.

Hopefully, that feeling passes pretty quickly. Otherwise, this has been a lot of effort for nothing.

“Do you still love me?” he asks. “I still love you.”

“Why wouldn’t you still love me?” I ask.

“I do still love you,” he says and loses his balance.

He manages to catch himself before he falls all the way to the ground, but he knocks a stack of plates off the counter in the process.

“Okay,” I tell him. “You’re taking a shower and I’m going to bring you some coffee after I get all this cleaned up.”

“You’re so good to me,” he says. “You’re fucking amazing.”

“I must be,” I sigh as I put one of his arms around my shoulders and walk him to the bathroom.

All things considered, the only thing he really did wrong was got too drunk.

I’ve done that.

I don’t know why I’m so angry with him, but the feeling’s not going away.

We get into the bathroom and I stuff him in the shower and tell him to take off his clothes.

“All right,” he says, a grin working its way up his face. “Hey,” he whispers.

“What?” I ask, leaning toward him.

“If you jump in the shower with me, we can pretend it’s a waterfall.”

With that, I’m done talking to him.

I turn on the shower, hoping that the jolt of the cold water brings him back to a more tolerable version of himself, and I walk out of the room.

It’s a miracle that neither of us got cut on the shards of ceramic plate scattered all over the kitchen floor.

The dishes were nothing fancy, but that doesn’t make me any less angry. My only consolation is that it doesn’t take long to pick up the remnants.

I can hear Dane in the bathroom.

It’s unclear whether he’s singing or just talking really loud, but I could do without hearing that voice for a little while, so I walk over to the television, fully intending to crank the volume up and drown his voice out entirely.

That’s when I hear what he’s singing.

I step into the bathroom.

“…Leila, Leila, Leila, Leila…”

The guy’s a mess, but damn it, he’s my mess.

He’s drenched and I know how cold the water is, but he’s just sitting there on the shower floor, arms open wide, eyes closed, singing my name.

It’s pretty hard to stay mad at him.

Chapter Twenty

Rough

Dane

If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then the sunlight creeping through my window is hell.

I don’t think I’ve ever been that drunk in my life.

My only comfort from this massive hangover is the soft, warm body lying next to me.

With my eyes as near closed as I can keep them while still managing to see what I’m doing, I lean over and kiss Leila on the forehead. She takes a deep breath and continues to sleep.

I remember meeting with Wrigley yesterday.

To say that I’m confident in trusting her to leave us alone would be a lie, but at least she put forward the lip service.

I get up and stagger my way into the kitchen. Now would be the perfect time to have one of those coffee machines that starts brewing at a preset time, but that’s a luxury for a different morning.

There’s a bottle of ibuprofen on one of the shelves in the cupboard, but I’m not ready for the physical effort it’s going to take to reach for it just yet.

For now, I remove the old filter from the coffee maker and replace it with a new one. I don’t bother measuring the grounds I put in the filter.

It’s a minute before I realize that a coffee maker requires water.

I open the cupboard and grab the ibuprofen.

There’s a stir in my bedroom, and I have wild and wondrous fantasies of Leila coming out here and offering to make the coffee while I’m allowed to lie down on the couch, but it doesn’t happen that way.

As it happens, Leila comes out of the room, her hair beautifully messy and her eyes hardly more open than my own.

“Morning,” she says and plops down on the couch.

The television is on a moment later, and I’m left with this herculean task to conquer alone.

Somehow, I manage to put all the ingredients in all the right places and get the pot of coffee going, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to do much else if I can’t reign this fucking hangover in a bit.

There’s a bottle of vodka in the freezer, but I have a feeling Leila’s not going to be particularly understanding of my situation. The last thing I clearly remember is the icy shower she dumped me into.