I’ve had enough alcohol to agree this is a great idea. We should break all the rules.
Nope, thinking about that brings me back to Mia. A burst of anger pierces the alcohol fog, but I don’t know why I’m angry.
“People can have leftover feelings, right?” I ask Carly.
“Huh?”
The music in here is really loud and she’s waiting at the counter for the bill. I lean forward to wait with her so she can hear me better. “Leftover feelings. You’re good at all that psychobabble bullshit. Can people have leftover feelings that don’t mean anything?”
Carly grimaces, grabbing her cup and taking another gulp. Once she swallows it, she nods. “They can, but you don’t have leftover feelings. You have an addiction. Mia’s not a person to you, she’s… something else. A substance. An idea. A feeling. You love to chase her, but you’ll always be disappointed when you catch her. It’s not her you love. It’s just an idea.”
“I don’t love her, I love you.”
“Another idea,” she mutters.
I scowl at her. “Hey. No. You’re not an idea. It’s not the same with you. We’re happy together.”
“Yes, we’re approaching blackout drunk in a city neither one of us should be in so we don’t have to go back to Hell house, where your ex-obsession is probably cuddling your rape baby right now. This is what happiness looks like, ladies and gents. Take a picture so you can post it somewhere with the goals hashtag!”
“Whoa, that’s a whole lot of… I don’t feel like dealing with any of that right now,” I inform her honestly, taking a drink of my whiskey.
“Can I be honest? I love that you’re a mess. It doesn’t even bother me. It makes me feel better about being a mess. Sometimes. Other times it makes me feel like an asshole and a fraud.”
“You’re the realest person I’ve ever known,” I inform her.
“That’s because you were raised in a bubble of toxicity. That I’m normal to you is sad.”
I shake my head, finishing my drink and pulling out my wallet. “Man, drunk Carly does not hold back.”
“I love being with you, but I hate the feeling that I’m taking advantage of you. I hate the certainty that there are things you could find out that would just… they’d make you walk away.”
“Nah. I’m not walking away. I know this week is hard, I’m sorry about that, but nothing has changed between us. Not for me, anyway. I hope not for you.” I blink a few times to focus on the bill, second guess how big a number that is, then grab enough money to pay it anyway. Oh well. Fuck it. Mateo pays thousands of dollars for a single bottle of alcohol, I can blow a few hundred on drinks.
We better get some water on the way to the hotel so we don’t die.
“We had a lot to drink,” I inform Carly.
She nods, pleased. “He took ‘keep ‘em coming’ very literally and I love that in a bartender and a boyfriend.”
“How come Laurel couldn’t come out?” I ask, realizing she was supposed to call her or text her when we first got here.
“I didn’t ask her to. I felt like my lips were going to be loose tonight and Laurel doesn’t know I was a whore for a minute, so I didn’t want to accidentally tell her.”
I slide my hand around her waist, tugging her close. “Hey, no calling yourself a whore in a mean way. I’m only allowed to be an asshole about it when I’m fucking you. You’re not allowed.”
“Mm.” She snuggles into my side. “How about you go treat me like your little whore right now?”
“Yeah?” I ask, warmly.
“Oh yeah. I need your dick like I need my next breath.”
We drift around the empty city streets for a little while, completely fucking unprepared. I’m too drunk to pay attention to where I’m at so I assume she knows, but we might just be wandering around aimlessly.
We finally stumble upon a hotel, but Carly stands in front of it, glaring up at it like it offends her. “Not this one.”
“Does it have beds? Then I vote for this one,” I inform her.
“This one’s expensive.”
“Remember how we just talked about that inheritance I’m getting? I don’t care.”
“I miss our apartment,” she states. “I miss our cold, small, stupid apartment.”
I smile faintly, taking her hand and dragging her inside the hotel lobby. Once I’ve rented out a room for the night, I try to focus on following the directions to get to said room. It takes a while, we linger longer in the elevator than we need to, but eventually we make it to our room. Nothing too fancy, but it has a bed, and that’s all we need. Right now I just want to fall face-down into the white sheets and pass out.