His Wicked Christmas Wager. Annie Burrows
the same time, and the tears were starting to come. I let myself in with the key that Mark had cut for me months earlier, and pushed blindly through the hall to his first-floor unit.
“Mark!” I called in a quiet, desperate voice as I opened his apartment door.
“What was that noise?”
“Nothing, baby.”
I stopped dead in my tracks at the feminine voice that asked the question, and at Mark’s casual reply. I inhaled deeply, catching a whiff of perfume, mixed with the dizzying sent of marijuana. I stepped more cautiously into the living room.
I heard a choked sob come from somewhere deep in my throat, and a woman, sprawled on the sofa and clad in a satin thong, turned to look at me. Her gaze was angry and offended, as if I was invading her boyfriend’s house, and not the other way around. I felt the bile rise in my throat at the view. Mark was standing there naked, and his back was to me, but I knew every line of his body as well as I knew my own. I tried to look away, but there was nowhere for me to focus. A joint was burning in an ashtray on the table, and a satin bra was slung over a near-to-empty vodka bottle.
“Mark?”
My voice was very small, and held none of the fury I knew it should.
Shock. The word came to mind, taking a life-size meaning it had never had before. This is what shock feels like. Numbness and sadness and madness that won’t come out.
“Mark?” I repeated, a little more loudly, and he finally glanced my way.
“Jesus, Tucks,” he swore. “What are you doing here?”
“My parents died,” I told him.
His eyes went wide, and I noticed he wasn’t wearing his glasses, either.
“You never take them off when you’re with me,” I whispered.
“What?” Mark stared at me stupidly.
“I have to go.”
I grabbed the vodka and fled the apartment, seeking solace in my own bed. I shoved off my roommate’s attempts to comfort me, and drank the liquor straight. I sobbed until I ached inside and out, and I didn’t know if the tears were for my mom and dad or if they were for Mark and me. It didn’t matter. I cried until all the fight went out of my body and then let sleep start to take me. My final thoughts were of the stark, heart-wrenching headline.
No Survivors.
In the morning, I knew I would pick up the pieces of my life as I had done in the past and move on. Because the headline wasn’t quite true. There was one survivor. It was me.
Joey
I couldn’t feel my face, and that probably wasn’t a good thing.
“I can’t feel my face!”
Saying it out loud to the room didn’t help, even when someone replied with a whooping cheer.
“Gotta get some air,” I muttered, and tried to shove myself up off the couch.
I couldn’t move, and I knew I was way past my limit, even though I was the kind of guy who could—who did—go hard most of the time.
“You need some help?”
I peered around, looking for the source of the voice, and finally zeroed in on the petite girl beside me. Her face was close to mine—inches away—and I couldn’t make her features focus properly. Why was she so damned close?
“S’okay,” I slurred in her direction, and vaguely hoped that my breath wasn’t overtly noxious.
I tried to make sense of what was going on. I could hear people all around me, still partying. I swiveled my head. The room was a little dark, but I could see the blurred outline of a couple making out against a nearby wall, and another pair dancing lazily near a tall speaker.
“Wheremeye?” I muttered, and I knew it came out a garbled mess.
“Joey?”
I automatically turned my face at the sound of my name. It was the too-close girl again. What was she doing there, draped across me? Her legs were bare, and wrapped around mine. I gazed down at them, dragging my eyes across their tanned smoothness and up to her lacy underwear.
Oh no.
I could see she was wearing my oversize T-shirt, and I realized my own chest was bare.
“Whadeyedo?” I asked.
I flipped the girl off me, and I heard someone laugh as she hit the ground. I felt bad for a second, but then nausea overwhelmed me. I grabbed my keys and my wallet from the table, and I crashed through the house, searching for the door. I found it just in time to puke my guts up into the bushes. Which was better than into the pile of shoes in the foyer.
I stumbled out to the street, searching for my truck.
“Wherezstupidthing?” I mumbled.
I finally spotted it, parked crookedly right in front of a hydrant. I lurched toward it, knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I shouldn’t—couldn’t—drive, but wanting to get out of there bad enough to try it anyway. I shoved the key into the lock and turned.
“Whoa.”
A soft hand accompanied the word, and it tried to yank the key ring from my shaky grasp. I managed to hold on. Barely. I squinted at the woman attached to the grip. Dark hair framed a familiar face, and the effects of alcohol weren’t enough to block out the pain any longer.
“Amber! I know you,” I slurred.
“And I know you, Joey. If you get in that car, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“What’s it matter to you?” I demanded harshly, drunkenly.
“We’re friends. Or at least we were before—”
I cut her off. “I don’t like to talk about that.”
“I won’t make you talk about it. If you give me the keys.”
“No.”
“Where you going, anyway?”
“Home.”
“Is it close?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll give you a lift.”
“I’ll drive myself.” I hiccuped. “Thank you very much.”
With an exasperated sigh, Amber reached forward and reached for my keys again.
“Can’t catch me!” I shouted gleefully.
I dove sideways, tripped over a bush and landed on my ass. My keys sailed from my hand about three feet away.
“Whoops.”
I struggled to grab them, but one of Amber’s high-heeled boots kicked them out of my reach. When I looked up, there were three Ambers glaring down at me. That, or the alcohol was seriously inhibiting my ability to see properly.
“S’matter with everybody?” I asked.
“Everybody?”
“All three of you.”
She grabbed the keys from the ground and rolled her eyes. “Joey, we were friends once, right?”
“Once,” I agreed. “With one of you, anyway.”
“Then please. Let me take you home.”
After a moment, I shrugged and climbed into the passenger seat. In seconds, we were on the road, and the familiar rumbling of my diesel engine lulled me into a drunken sleep.
When