Until We Fly (Beautifully Broken 4)

I stare at the words again and they run together and I can’t breathe.

So instead, I drink because I don’t know what else to do. I won’t know what he intends to do until William actually does it, so all I can do is wait.

Wait for the other shoe to fall.

I sit in Brand’s shirt in the sand, smelling his scent on my skin and drinking wine as I stare at the stars.

Before long, after most of the bottle is gone, my nose goes numb and my fingertips get cold.

I take the last drink left in the bottle, then cast it aside.

I don’t know when I fall asleep.

All I know is that the sand feels ever so good against my cheek.

Chapter Eighteen

Brand

I wake up in the middle of the night alone, although it doesn’t take long to find Nora.

She’d left the front door wide open. Her car is still in the drive, so I wander down to the beach.

That’s where I find her passed out in the sand. She’s wearing my tuxedo shirt, and an empty bottle of wine is about a foot away from her, resting in the dirt.

She’s had a hard night.

Obviously.

I ignore the twinges in my leg and bend, scooping her up and carrying her back into the house. Each step is torturous with the added weight on my knee, but there’s no way I’m leaving her outside.

She nestled into my chest without waking, and I find that one side of her face is covered in sand. As are her arms and legs.

With a sigh, I carry her into the bathroom. I bend and lay her in the tub, and remove the hand-held sprayer before I turn the water on. I let it get warm in the sink, before I pick it back up and rinse off her legs, her feet, her arms.

She doesn’t stir until I’m wiping her face off with a washcloth.

She wakes with a start, her hands automatically flying up to shield her face.

“No!” she protests wildly, her eyes glazed, striking out at me, clenching her hands into fists, blows raining onto my chest.

“It’s just me,” I grab her hands, restraining her. “Shhh. It’s ok. It’s only me.”

She flails for just a moment longer before her eyes register who I am and she breathes my name. “Brand.”

She doesn’t question why she’s naked in the bathtub or why I’m bathing her. She doesn’t say anything, actually. She just lets me wash the dirt away.

When I’m finished, I ask her to stand up and she does it obediently.

I towel her off. She’s so drunk, she’s only hovering on the edge of consciousness. I know that the second she’s in bed, she’ll pass out once again.

Her eyes are still closed as she stands.

But then, as I pull the towel away, she opens them.

“Why don’t you want me, Brand?”

I yank my hands away from her in surprise.