Boost by Vi Summers

 

Chapter 39

-Greer-

 

 

Roxiee eyed me from over the rim of her mojito glass, one perfectly pencil eyebrow arched high in question.

“Don’t say it,” I snapped, then took a long sip of my own mojito.

“I told you so?” She smirked and let out a snigger. “I wasn’t going to breathe a word.”

I swallowed a large mouthful. “Bullshit.”

God, I needed this drink so bad. Today had been literal hell, and between Christian’s bouts of pacing, ranting, researching, pulling together a plan and a new media release, and not being able to contact Rafael, all I wanted to do was have Jethro drive me home and soak the hours away in the bathtub.

Roxiee had other ideas. “Okay,” she reneged, “I was totally going to say I told you so, because I told you we would be having mojitos over Rafael Ortiz before long.”

I groaned into my cocktail. “I wish it wasn’t over this sort of shit though, ya know?”

She hummed. “I do, babe. Though, I have no doubt you can handle it.”

I scoffed. “You have more faith in me than Tian right now.”

Roxiee eye-rolled. “Oh, come on. Christian’s got a rod so far up his ass it gave him an ego complex years ago. You, my dear, can handle this,” she stated, with a finger jab at me. “This is just another passing storm that will blow through, leave a little destruction, then be forgotten by next week.”

“I hope so, hon. I haven’t felt this insecure about a job in a very long time.”

“I know so. And fuck insecurity. You don’t have time for that.” Her fierce pout made me smile.

“And this is why I love you.”

Clinking my mojito glass against hers, I finished it off and relaxed into the booth while she ordered another round on our tab. We’d argue later over who was paying, then decide to split it, just like every other time we encountered that dilemma. Though, tonight I couldn’t pull a big one; I was shattered, and definitely couldn’t afford to be hungover tomorrow.

My thoughts broke when Roxiee slid back into the booth with fresh cocktails. “I ordered food too. You’re welcome.”

I burst into laughter and brought the straw to my lips. “Thank goodness—these are going to my head tonight.”

Her eyebrows lifted up and down. “Easy to drink, eh?”

“Too easy.” We lapsed into silence and scanned the bar.

“So, what are you going to do?”

I sighed. “About?”

She gave me a dry look. “The reason why we’re sitting in a bar getting drunk on a Monday night.”

Rafael.

I sighed. “Try to track him down, I guess. He’s been ignoring my calls all day, and you know what? That’s the part that really pisses me off. I mean, we all have pasts, right? I get that. But he could at least have the decency to accept a damn phone call.”

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “He’ll come around. I’m sure it’s all one big misunderstanding. Besides, he’s still under contract with Colton, so it’s not as if he’s going to skip the country; he’ll be close by and lying low for a day or two.”

“I hope you’re right,” I murmured.

I feared Raf had purposely gone to ground in Portland after finding out about the breaking news, and it was worrying me that I couldn’t get a hold of him.

While I didn’t know the full extent of the abuse he suffered as a child, I understood what it was like to endure abuse as a young adult. The memories of the effort it took to hide those emotional bruises still made my heart heavy. To this day, simply thinking about those scars was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

While the press release had taken a turn for the worse this morning, I knew it wasn’t the full story, and I owed Raf to hear it directly from him. The good, the bad, and the outright ugly. I recognized evil when it presented itself, and I wholeheartedly believed that Rafael wasn’t possessed in that way.

“Babe.” Clicking fingers snapped me from my thoughts. “Earth to Greer.”

I shoved her waving hand away. “I’m back. Was just thinking…”

“About the impressive dick you’re missing tonight?”

I snorted. “Not the dick per se, but yes.”

Our conversation paused while the waiter delivered the next round of mojitos and then returned with the food. Roxiee looked him over like a piece of meat, and it had me smiling around my straw.

Once he left, she lifted a mozzarella stick to her mouth. “What?” She popped it in and chewed with sass.

I smirked. “Nothing.”

“I’m allowed to look, especially when it’s as fine as that.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t; I didn’t miss the wedding band though.”

Scooping up a loaded fry and managing to get it in my mouth without dropping cheese down the front of my designer beige dress, I eyed her while I chewed.

Roxiee hummed nonchalantly. “So, are we going dancing after this?”

After the day I’d had, I didn’t feel physically up to hitting the dancefloor.

“Dancing? Really?”

“Shake off the day and leave it behind us,” she said, with a shoulder shake that made her boobs jiggle within her loose-fitted top.

“No promises,” I stated, with a direct point of my finger.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Five mojitos and two hours later...

 

The moment we stepped into the club, my day turned from average to better. Roxiee and I danced the songs away until my feet ached and my head swam with the pumping music. Just shy of midnight, the dancefloor became crowded for a Monday night when a large group of women arrived, evidently celebrating someone’s promotion at work.

They joined us on the dancefloor, drinks raised high and spilling around our feet. We were all in high-spirits and drunk enough to ignore each time we bumped and jostled against each other as we danced, and we all sang at the top of our lungs to each song.

One woman in particular was noticeably more inebriated than the others, and she spilled more wine on the floor than she managed to drink. She headed to the bar, and came back with another glass raised above her head, stumbling as she went.

I saw the moment she lost her footing on the wet floor. She teetered on her high-heels, over-balancing forward and back as she tried to stay upright.

Pure reaction to help had me reaching for her, but her erratic movements were hard to predict in my intoxicated state. I got a hold on her waist and tried to steady her stumble. It seemed to work for a moment, until she snapped backward again.

Pain burst through my nose and mouth when her head slammed into my face. Releasing her as I reeled from the impact, I then bent in half and cupped my nose as blood began to drip from my clasped fingers. The group of women around us split in two—half of them helping their friend, and the other’s gathering around me. The bartender pushed his way into our circle and handed me a cloth for my nose, then dropped another on the floor to mop up the blood.

Roxiee led me to the bar, and I perched on a stool while she fussed over me. My nose throbbed and already felt alarmingly swollen. Only once the bleeding had stopped and I could stand without getting dizzy, did she hail an Uber. I needed today to be over already.

We sat in the back seat on the journey home, and remorse scrunched Roxiee’s expression. “I’m so sorry this happened, babe. They shouldn’t have served her more drinks. She was already hella drunk—anyone could see that.”

“It was still an accident,” I replied in a muffled voice, while holding a cloth filled with ice to my nose.

An accident that signaled the moment my life started to completely unravel around me, and no amount of ice and band-aids could stop it.