I leaned heavily against the passenger seat of Nix’s shiny new truck then fumbled with the door panel until I found the button that controlled the window. I cracked it, and the cool night air rushed into the truck and over my face like a slap.
It eased some of the dizziness, though. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink, but the drive was proving that maybe I’d had more than I realized. My head spun with every jolt of the truck, and my stomach roiled threateningly. I swallowed purposefully around the bite of bile in the back of my throat.
The cold breeze helped, at least.
Nix tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shot me a questioning look. “You all right? Need me to pull over?”
I shook my head, which made the spinning worse. “I’m fine,” I muttered. “Just hot.”
“You sure?” Nix sounded very unconvinced of my being fine.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said a little snappishly.
I was just a little drunk, I wasn’t going to get sick on the side of the road like a teenager. I knew how to hold my booze. And yeah, maybe I’d gone a little overboard tonight at Ballast. These days, one or two wasn’t quite enough to take the edge off. But I was a grown adult, and I deserved a few after a hard day. And it wasn’t like I was dependent on it—I knew what that looked like. Mom was a textbook drunk, and I was nothing like her. I prided myself on that.
“All right,” Nix said as he turned his eyes back to the road. “We’re almost there, at least.”
I grunted my acknowledgment and closed my eyes, focusing on the cool air blowing over my face. Admittedly I was a little embarrassed about how dizzy I was—that hard kiss against Nix’s truck had been enough to pierce through the haze of booze, and when he’d pressed his body against me, I’d wanted him. Wanted him badly. But now, woozy and nauseous in his passenger seat, I knew there was no way I was going to be able to fuck him tonight. I’d be lucky if I could get out of his truck without stumbling.
I usually didn’t get quite this drunk. And when I did, I preferred to deal with it myself—either taking a cab, or just crashing in the back of my own truck. Having Nix haul me home was more than a little demeaning.
Finally, right when I was about at the limit of how much nausea I could actually endure, and I started thinking that I might have to ask Nix to pull over, the truck stopped. Nix turned off the engine and hopped out. I wrestled with my seatbelt a little—my hands wouldn’t quite work exactly how I wanted them to—and by the time I got it unhooked, Nix was at the passenger side, opening the door.
“Come on,” he said, offering his hand to help balance me.
Now this was seriously demeaning, being helped out of my seat like a damsel. But his truck was a little lifted off the ground, and honestly, I didn’t trust my feet to step down without me falling flat on my fucking face. I was dizzy, and nauseous, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep the booze off, and then the inevitable hangover.
I gripped Nix’s forearm as I stepped out of the truck and kept my hold on him as we walked across the gravel parking lot.
Gravel? Wait. Fuck.
I looked up. Nix hadn’t driven me home—he’d taken me back to the Crew Motel. I bit back my complaints. If I raised enough hell, I could probably convince Nix to take me to my place, or at least call a cab for me—but honestly, I didn’t know if I could make it through another car ride. I needed to be horizontal. Walking was hard, and I was suddenly exhausted, even with Nix’s steady presence beside me.
He led me up the stairs and down a narrow hallway, then into his little apartment. Then, without a word or any hesitation, he guided me to a wide, overstuffed couch, and sat me down.
And wow. Comfortable. Nearly as comfortable as my bed. I sighed with relief as I stretched out—the couch was big enough that I could lie down fully. But I did have to keep one foot on the floor to keep the room from spinning too much. Lying down eased my nausea, and the exhaustion settled over me like a blanket.