stop any more blood from coming out. “Paulie, I’m going to get you some help, and they’re going to take you to the hospital and make this better.”
I was holding his wound hard enough where he should have been groaning from the pressure. But he wasn’t making a sound. He wasn’t moving. There was just silence and so much fucking blood.
I didn’t know when I saw the plastic sleeve—if it happened while I was holding Paulie’s chest and waiting for the ambulance to come or if it was when Billy showed up and broke down when he saw his brother or if it was after I got back from the hospital. But, at some point, I saw it lying on the ground halfway between my apartment and Kyle’s. The sleeve was open, and the doughnuts inside were crushed. There was a single doughnut smashed onto the sidewalk. Sugary white powder was all over the pavement, like little piles of coke.
And Kyle?
She was nowhere to be found.
Four
Kyle
“Bring us another one, please,” I said to the waitress, pointing toward our half-empty glasses. Or maybe they were three-quarters full or only a quarter. Or there were more than two glasses on the table. I wasn’t really sure. I’d stopped caring after the fourth round. That was when I’d stopped seeing straight, too.
But I didn’t really need to see straight. I only needed to see to the right of me—where Garin sat. My childhood bestie. The boy I’d been in love with for as long as I could remember. And the boy I’d given up because I was forced to leave New Jersey.
I hated that.
I hated it more than anything.
When I looked in his direction, I couldn’t believe he was here, sitting so close, his face filling my vision. Those eyes…their intensity.
I wasn’t cold, but my whole body was covered in goose bumps.
He was cold though. Freezing, icy. He hadn’t warmed even the tiniest bit since we’d gotten to the bar and the drinks started flowing.
“Maybe I should have ordered a water,” I said. “And gotten you some coffee to melt all your icicles.”
“You know what would make me less cold?” His eyes narrowed. “If you slowed down on the drinking and started answering some of my questions.”
I laughed, covering my mouth with the back of my hand, so I wouldn’t say anything stupid. The last time he’d said slow was during a sexy memory…the only sexy memory I had of us. “Slow doesn’t apply to drinking.” My hand must have fallen away because something incredibly stupid had slipped out.
His tongue swept over his bottom lip, reminding me of a time when he had been so possessive of my mouth. “It only applies to when I tried not to fuck you on the same night I kissed you for the first time.” His tongue swept in the opposite direction. “The first and only night I ever got to kiss you.”
So, he was thinking about it, too.
A shiver passed through my entire body, leaving a tingling sensation in my chest. I could still feel his hands and that kiss. The tingling wouldn’t budge when I tried to rub it away. It grew instead, spreading to my breasts and down between my legs. I crossed them, squeezing my thighs together, hoping that would help alleviate it.
It only made it worse.
So did the way he stared at me. His gorgeous eyes looked straight through me, the alcohol practically unzipping my soul so that he could get a better view.
A view that needed to stay hidden, so I looked away.
“Yeah…that night,” I breathed.
“And then you ended everything.”
There was the sound of anger again.
I lifted the glass to my lips. “Something like that.” I swallowed however much was left. I couldn’t feel it go down my throat. I couldn’t taste it. I was completely numb, except for the tingling, and the tingling was only getting worse. My body shouldn’t have been reacting that way. This was all wrong. So wrong.
“I’m back in Atlantic City, drinking my face off, and Billy has died from an OD. This is so fucked.”
“Kyle…”
I liked the way he said my name a little too much.
I set the glass down, my hand still clinging it for support, and I slowly met the eyes that made me so unsteady. “I know my face is still on. It just feels like it’s off.”
“Tell me why you left.”
“I left to go to school. You know that.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. You know that.”
He wanted to know why things