the middle of the bed. Dizzy, I closed my eyes to block out the spinning room.
“You’re not going to sneak out, are you?” I asked the question as my whole body suddenly started to feel heavy and lethargic.
I heard Salinger sigh heavily, and a moment later, the mattress shifted as he moved from the edge of the bed to one of the velvet chairs that decorated the room. It creaked under his weight, and I heard the sound of something tapping as he appeared to settle in.
“No. I told you I’d stay until you fell asleep, so I will. I’m the kind of guy who keeps his word these days. So, not all men lie.” He snorted as he tossed my earlier words back at me.
If I wasn’t about to crash from the booze and the adrenaline burnout, I would have laughed at the solid burn. I wanted to tell him not to hold my drunken words against me, but if anyone was allowed to have a bit of a grudge against me, it would be him.
I had to admit, having a truce with him was much better than treating him as enemy number one. He said he’d like to get to a place where we could consider each other friends, which I previously wouldn’t have thought possible.
However, he kept showing up and proving it would be foolish not to give him a chance to show me how much he’d changed. Honestly, I needed to look to him for pointers. He seemed to have made peace with the past, even the darkest corners of it. I needed to figure out how to shake the shadows when they tried to pull me back into all my bad memories.
I fell asleep feeling his eyes on me and secretly hoping he would still be there when I woke up. After all, when I told him I didn’t want to be alone, it was my injured heart crying out for someone to soothe it. Who would’ve thought Salinger had the ability to do that?
Certainly not me.
Salinger
I TRIED TO talk myself into leaving close to twenty times.
However, when Maren kept calling out in her sleep, and I noticed she was crying even though she wasn’t awake, I couldn’t make myself go. Rarely did she seem fragile, and I had no idea she was so talkative and expressive when she was drunk. I was pretty sure she was going to forget blurting out all that personal information about her marriage when she was sober. At least I was the one she unloaded on. I knew how to keep my mouth shut and honestly wanted to protect her, even more so now that I knew what she went through with her dirtbag ex. Had she stayed in the bar and blabbed to anyone, she would never forgive herself for letting her vulnerable side show. She liked to pretend she no longer let herself be wounded by the actions of others, but the truth was, she’d just gotten way better at hiding the hurt.
Her heart wasn’t hard like I originally thought when she dismissed me. No, it was just battered beyond belief and bruised so deeply that it was too tender for anyone else to touch.
I hated that for her and wanted to dropkick her sleazy ex into a different hemisphere.
Eventually, I moved from the expensive, uncomfortable velvet chair to sit on the floor with my back to the mattress. I was playing a game on my phone when Maren shifted, and her hand landed on the top of my head. I glanced up to see if she was awake, but her eyes were still closed and her breathing was low and even. Her fingers threaded through the spiky strands as she stroked me like I was a fluffy pet. It was a sweet gesture that made me grin, but I moved away when my phone vibrated with a call, and I noticed it was her agent.
I already told Jeno I was sticking around until Maren woke and I made sure she was all right. I wanted to ensure she got something to eat and left the hotel back to her regularly polished and pristine self. I didn’t want her diving back into a bottle and wasting tears on someone who was clearly not worth it. I had my brother reschedule the few meetings I had for the rest of the day and let him bitch at me about being professional and keeping my private and personal life