He went back to bed and knew sleep would be a long time coming, if at all.
Brad angrily stewed as he walked. In his back pocket he carried the folded-up drawing. He needed to talk to Mandaline, alone, and see if there was any chance whatsoever of salvaging a relationship with her.
For the three of them.
He knew, given time, Ellis would apologize. He wouldn’t leave the angry words he’d said hanging in the air for all times as the final statement. If Brad knew anything about his friend, it was that Ellis hated hurting people’s feelings.
Especially in a case like this.
Whether or not Mandaline would allow them in her life again remained to be seen. Julie had begged him to get up and go see her tonight, to walk there, not to call her and give warning he was on his way. He couldn’t ignore her plaintive requests.
He also knew he couldn’t pursue a relationship with Mandaline that didn’t also include Ellis. He couldn’t force the two of them together.
He walked into the night, his anger fading as he left the house farther behind him. Ellis was in a lot of emotional pain. Over what had happened to him in the Middle East, over the accident. Guilt Ellis refused to put down despite Brad’s repeated attempts to get him to do just that.
He wanted Ellis to be happy. He knew they could be happy, all three of them together, with Mandaline at the center of their lives.
He’d seen the vision in the kitchen, too. His dick had immediately hardened against Mandaline’s ass as the vision hit. He’d hoped for a few seconds, until Ellis had his meltdown, that their evening would end in Mandaline’s bed.
Something finally occurred to him as he walked. “Did you make me get the condoms?”
Julie, however, remained aggravatingly silent on that matter.
He sighed. He couldn’t force her to answer him any more than he could force Mandaline and Ellis to mend fences and try again.
Mandaline waited twenty minutes, until after she’d finished cleaning up the kitchen and the dishes, to walk Pers. She also turned her phone off in case Brad tried calling or texting her.
She knew Ellis damn sure wouldn’t.
I get my frakking hopes up about a guy, hell, two guys, and look what happens! Just more proof to her that she should have stuck to her guns in the first place.
Eschew love.
That was the safest bet. To keep her heart protected. If there was a guy willing to work himself through her defenses, he would.
He damn sure wouldn’t do something as ludicrous and offensive as accusing her of drugging him and being a gold digger, to boot.
She locked herself in and set the alarm after Pers finished his business outside. At least she’d decided how to finish her evening. Up in the kitchen, when she looked in the fridge, she found an opened bottle of blueberry wine in the back. She and Julie had started the bottle three weeks ago, each of them having a small glass with dinner one night.
She fished it out of the back of the fridge, popped the cork, and carried it back to the bedroom with her.
Fuck the glass. I’m drinking alone. I can get drunk alone in style.
She undressed and crawled into bed, with Pers on one side and Damiago on the other. She propped herself up with pillows, started channel surfing, and took a long pull straight from the bottle. It only took her twenty minutes to empty the contents. She tipped it up, letting the last dregs drip onto her tongue before she set the empty bottle on her nightstand.
She had a nice buzz going.
Fuck both of them. They could have had me screwing their brains out tonight.
She’d drifted off to sleep to M*A*S*H reruns when something woke her up.
She sat up, wobbling a little under the grip of the wine’s influence.
Pers also sat up, ears cocked.
“What was that?”
He let out a bark and bolted out of bed for the stairwell.
“That’s it, Lassie,” she said. “Did Timmy fall in the well again?” She let out a drunken snort.
Then she heard it, a pounding sound, like someone knocking on the back door.
She stumbled out of bed and grabbed for the wall as the world spun around her.
Oh, yeah. This is why I don’t drink. She had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol.
Yep, definitely someone knocking. She barely remembered to grab her bathrobe and pull it on before carefully making her way down the stairs with a death grip on the railing for support.
Whoever it was wasn’t going away. Now downstairs, she could hear the muffled sound of a man’s voice calling her name.
She lurched for the back door. “Who is it?” she yelled.
“It’s Brad. Please, Mandaline. I need to talk to you.”
Oh, she wanted to talk to him, all right! To give him a piece of her mind. She almost forgot to turn off the alarm before she fumbled the door’s locks and got it opened.
He stood there in the light of the almost-full moon.
“He better not be with you.”
He shook his head. “He’s not. I walked. May I please come in and talk to you?”
She snorted. “Fine.”
She stumbled as she stepped back. He caught her.
“Are you okay?” He helped her back to her feet.
“I’m fine except that men are assholes!” She poked him in the chest. “Even cute ones like you. And…and him.”
He frowned. “Are you drunk?”
“Betcher ass I’m damn drunk!” She shut the door and locked it. She meant to dramatically whirl around and yell at him, but she overshot, her feet refusing to cooperate as she nearly smacked face-first into the door.
“Whoa, hold on there, kiddo.” He grabbed her and scooped her into his arms and carried her toward the stairs.
She poked him in the chest again. “Fucker thinks I drugged him? Whaddafuck’s wrong with him?”
Upon seeing her condition, Brad felt horrible.
“She can’t handle her alcohol,” Julie sadly said. “She’s in a lot of pain.”
He carried her upstairs as Mandaline drunkenly raged at him. “I didn’t ask fer dis ta happen! I didn’t ask to fall fer two hunks or have…have great make-believe sexy time with you…or…or…” She burst into tears. “Or fer my best friend to get murdered!”
He tried to hold back his own tears. Even he could feel the waves of emotional agony washing from her, finally unleashed by the liberating effects of the blueberry wine Julie told him she’d drank. When he carried her back to her bedroom, he didn’t even feel the slightest bit surprised to realize it was the bedroom from the latest visions.
She sobbed against his shoulder as he gently put her on the bed and lay down next to her, shoes and all. He’d spotted the empty blueberry wine bottle on the bedside table from the light of the TV.
Ellis would be ready to be committed if this was him.
For his part, Brad now took anything Julie told him as a matter of fact. He refused to deny what was happening.
He refused to make excuses.
Mandaline clutched at his shirt as sobs wracked her body. He held her close, his face buried in her hair and his arms securely wrapped around her. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”
So much for the conversation he’d wanted to have with her. He’d wanted to show her the drawing, tell her about the trip to the store for condoms.
Obviously, like Ellis, she had things bubbling below the surface, waiting to explode. The night’s events had pushed her past her breaking point.