Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 139(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
I regret nothing. I'll fuck her against a tree any day of the week.
But as soon as the question leaves her lip, I tense on instinct before forcing myself to relax. Whatever she wants to ask, I doubt it's any of the nine thousand asinine questions everyone else always asks me. That isn't Loralei. I may not know everything about her, but I've learned enough about her to know that much.
"Ask away," I say, leaning back in my chair with my hands clasped behind my head.
"Why are you here?" She grimaces as soon as the curious question bursts from her lips. "I'm sorry. That came out way ruder than I meant it. I just mean…"
"Why the fuck am I hiding out in a cabin in the middle of nowhere?"
"Yeah," she says, shrugging apologetically.
"Good question." I frown at a tiny divot in the wooden tabletop, still not entirely sure I know the answer to that question or that I'm comfortable with the answer, rather.
"You don't have to tell me," she whispers after a moment. "It's not really my business."
I'm not so sure that's true, not anymore. I think it might have become her business the second I found myself outside of the bathroom yesterday, hoping she'd let me in.
When I woke up this morning and she wasn't in the cabin, I panicked. I keep telling myself that this can't last, that we're too different. Truth is, even if that's what she needs—for me to be a fleeting moment in her life—it's not what I want.
I don't want this to be over when she goes back to her life tomorrow. I want to keep seeing her. I want to keep feeling the way I do right now. I want her, goddammit. Any way I can have her.
"I had a problem with alcohol fifteen years or so ago," I admit, my hands flat on the tabletop. "I was young, dumb, and didn't have enough people around to tell me no, and I spiraled out of control. My publicist managed to keep the worst of it out of the press, but it got really bad for a while." I swallow hard. "She found me passed out behind the wheel in my driveway after missing a recording session. She sobered me up, and told me that I either get help or she was firing me as a client."
"You got help?" Loralei asks.
I nod. "I knew I could have killed someone had I actually managed to take off that night. I didn't even remember getting in the fucking car," I rasp. "That scared the shit out of me. So Jess, my publicist, had me in rehab in a matter of hours, and I haven't had a drink since. But I've been working my ass off for the last five years straight. We've put out two albums, gone on a stadium tour, and have another album in the works. A few days ago, I found myself sitting in the dark, staring at a bottle of whiskey, thinking about how nice it'd be to just…drink the whole goddamn thing."
Loralei makes a soft sound of distress, reaching across the table to place her hand in mine. I link our fingers together, grateful as hell.
"I knew I couldn't do that shit, so I told the band I was taking a hiatus, rented the first cabin I could find, and took off," I say, brushing my thumb across her knuckles.
"You needed a break," she says softly, empathy painted across her face.
"I've needed one for a while, but when everyone is counting on you, it's easy to put it off, you know?"
"I'm glad you didn't pick up the bottle, Ash."
"Me too."
"Do you still want to? Drink, I mean."
"You want the truth?"
She nods.
"It was never about the alcohol, beautiful. It was everything you find at the bottom of a bottle that was so fucking tempting—the silence, the numbness, the escapism." When you're too drunk to function, shit doesn't feel so heavy, at least for a little while. But when you come out the other side of a bender, it's always heavier than when you started.
I don't think I even realized when I started drinking back then why it appealed to me so much. It wasn't until I was two weeks into rehab that I figured that part out—it wasn't the parties or a lack of self-control that led me there. It was how fucking heavy everything had become.
I never intended to end up right back in the same goddamn place, carrying the same weight. I thought if I just worked hard enough and kept myself busy, I'd be fine. It's a fucking stupid thought to have when working so goddamn hard all the time doesn't silence the noise. It only adds more on top of it.
"Is it still?" she asks.
I stare at her for a moment, not entirely sure she's ready to hear the whole truth. And then I say fuck it and give it to her anyway. "Not since I almost ran over this sexy little librarian who likes to read filth and talk about possessed vibrators."