Page 70 of Fight For Me

I chuckle in spite of myself. “I think I’ll pass.”

“His loss, brother.” Fox nods towards a group of girls at the end of the bar. “Shall we?”

The two of them stride off towards the girls, leaving me standing alone with Alex.

“Think they’ll ever grow out of acting like unruly pre-teens?” she asks me.

I shrug. “They’re still young.”

She stiffens at my side, and I realize too late what I said. Fox might be only nineteen, but River is several months older than Alex. “I didn’t mean—”

She waves a hand. “It’s fine. I’m well aware of how immature you think I am.”

I turn to gape at her. “Ineversaid you were immature.”

“Whatever.” She runs a hand through her hair. It looks wavier than usual, tousled in a beachy way, maybe a shade or two more blonde from a few days in the sun. The urge to reach over and run my fingers through the ends is almost unbearable.

Before I can stop myself, I take a step closer. “I don’t think you’re immature, Alex,” I say, voice low and probably way too intense. I can’t seem to rein it in though. “You’re one of the most together, mature, driven people I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

She looks up at me with wide eyes, surprise written all over her face. She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it again. A wave of frustration rushes through me. I want to know what she was going to say. Want to know what she’s thinking. I want to know everything about her, and it’s driving me fucking insane to keep pretending that I don’t.

I take another step closer, satisfaction warming me when her eyes open wider. “Wyatt?”

Before I can do something dumb—like crash my lips against hers—my phone vibrates in my pocket.

Shit. I take a step back, breathing hard. I should probably be relieved by the interruption—my damn phone may very well have kept me from making a huge mistake. But all I feel is disappointment. And frustration. I want to kiss her more than I want my next breath.

My phone vibrates again and I bite out a curse as I pull it from my pocket. I glance at the screen and some of the irritation lifts. “It’s Silas,” I tell her, holding out my phone so she can see the picture on the screen. “He says George wants to check in.”

Her face brightens, smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. We left George at my parents’ for the weekend so Silas and CeCe could watch him. In the picture, my little sister has placed her trademark rainbow beanie on his head, smooshing down his ears, and George looks less than thrilled about it. He’s looking at the camera with his usual baleful expression, as if begging me to come home and save him.

“Poor George,” she murmurs. “He clearly misses you.”

“I think you’re the one he misses. Since he’s abandoned my room for your bed all week.” Ever since the night of our fight at the club, George has been insisting on sleeping in Alex’s room, crying by my door until I agree to let him go to her. It makes me feel…I don’t even know. I don’t like it, though I can’t verbalize exactly why. Do I miss the dog? Or am I fucking jealous of his nightly proximity to her?

Alex’s smile grows. “He’s only been visiting me because I let him sleep in the bed. You make him sleep on the floor.”

“I bought him a dog bed!”

“Georgie needs his cuddles at night.” She sighs. “I guess I do, too. I was sleeping a little better with him in there.”

“And now? Since we’ve been here?”

She shrugs. “It hasn’t been great. Everly and Rose stayed up to hang out with me the first night and I did end up sleeping a bit out on the couch with them.”

My stomach twists. I feel so helpless when she talks about not sleeping. I can see it weighing on her, see the exhaustion adding up. Worse, I can see how demoralizing it is for her. There’s a note of hopelessness in her voice whenever this comes up, and I hate to think about her feeling that way. Hate that she clearly believes this will never get better.

“Isn’t there some medicine or something you can take?”

She raises an eyebrow. “If there was, don’t you think I’d be taking it? This isn’t exactly a new problem for me, Wyatt.”

I run a hand through my hair, frustrated. “Sleeping pills don’t work?”

“Most of them make me so groggy the next day I may as well have not slept at all.” There’s a bit of silence while she chews her lip and I get the impression she’s weighing whether or not to say more. “There’s one med—a prescription I have—that does help. But it also sometimes makes me sleep walk and do other crazy shit. I only take it when someone is around to keep an eye on me.”

I study her face. “And you haven’t been taking it in the condo because…?”

She shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Everly and Fox both have tons of work to do for the show and the store, not to mention the website. I don’t need to be waking them up in the middle of the night because my drugged-up brain decides it’s time to frost a birthday cake in my sleep or something.”