Chapter 53: 53__Sleep over

“Wait!” Erin was doing mental gymnastics. “She’s really your mom? I thought there was a chance she might not be. How did you find out where she lives? Does… does she know you’re here?!”

Sighing, Braden started the car and turned on the windshield wipers. “After our dinner party… when she came to see me-”

Erin gasped. “That’s where you were that night? With your mom?”

“No, I wasn’t with her, I only followed her home.” He leaned back, looking up at the window. “I panicked, Erin. I was such an ass to her and a part of me doesn’t give a fuck because she deserved it but… I suddenly freaked out. I felt like I’d never see her again if I let her leave. So, I ran out after her but I couldn’t bring myself to speak to her. I just followed her. Followed her home and then got drunk at a bar down the road.”

His eyes fell closed and he released a long exhale. He’d been such a mess that night. And now Erin knew every single detail. Embarrassing as fuck.

He felt her hand gently touch his arm.

“That’s also normal, Braden,” she said. “She’s your mom and you haven’t seen her for twenty years. I don’t blame you for being anxious that you could lose her again.”

His eyes remained closed. God, he wished it would stop raining. The entire atmosphere was making her voice softer and her words kinder and he couldn’t handle that right now. It was causing chaos in his heart.

Carefully, he pulled his arm out from under her hand. “Yeah… I guess.”

She smiled. “So, are we going up to talk to her?”

Braden looked at her. “Are you nuts?”

“Why? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“You know…” He sighed, smiling. “I feel like if you keep saying crazy shit like that, it might actually help me get over you.”

Erin glared at him. “There’s nothing crazy about what I said.”

Braden shifted gears and slowly pulled the car out of parking as the rain got heavier outside.

Scowling, Erin yanked on her seat belt. A sudden memory came to her and she turned to him with a gasp. “Oh, my God... Remember that one time you taught me how to drive? Back when we were seniors in high school? I’ve just remembered that.”

He glanced sourly at her. As if he could ever forget. “I see you still have a habit of forgetting stuff I can’t.”

“What?” He said nothing so she waved it away. “Anyway, is my brain lagging, or did you nearly kiss me in that car?”

His hand tightened on the steering wheel, his ears turning pink under his hair. “How casually you say that.”

She smiled. “What? I just wanted to know if I’m remembering correctly. You fell on top of me when you were… I’m not sure if you were trying to put my seatbelt on—”

“Your seat was faulty, I was trying to pull it forward for you,” he corrected hoarsely.

“Right,” she nodded, smiling. “So did you nearly kiss me?”

Braden groaned. “Why are you even asking?”

She gasped playfully. “Did you have a crush on me?”

Braden’s blush spread from his ears to his cheeks. “Erin, please leave me alone.”

She burst out laughing, collapsing against her chair and Braden vowed to kill Jackson for giving her alcohol.

This was great, Erin thought. Maybe they could just be friends who joked around like this.

“I’m just playing,” she laughed. “I know you hated me, a crush is beyond impossible.”

No, it wasn’t, Braden thought. It wasn’t impossible at all.

"But you could still let me know if you were crushing," she teased.

“I don’t give free information,” he muttered, stopping at a red light.

She gasped, covering her mouth and staring at him over her hand. “How cheap. You want something in exchange, don’t you?’

An idea slid into Braden’s head and he smiled deviously at her. “Actually… yes. Yes, I do. What I want is—”

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Braden froze.

His heart thumped and his blood rushed, his mind gripped by the sudden pleasure of having her lips against his. Sliding his hand around her neck to cradle her head, he pressed her closer, coaxing her lips open to deepen the kiss.

Instantly, he tasted the alcohol on her tongue and so delved deeper, appreciating the hypnotic fusion of whiskey with the usual sweet taste of Erin.

Her fingers curled into the front of his black hoodie, pulling him close. Apparently, she wanted the kiss as much as he did. The thought made his insides feel embarrassingly tingly and warm.

A loud honk snapped that feeling in two, making Erin jolt away from him. Her eyes were bright, her lips a deeper shade of the pink on her cheeks.

God, he didn’t want to stop kissing her.

Slowly, Braden turned away, looking dazedly at the green light as angry drivers sped past them.

Clearing his throat, he shifted gears and the car moved forward in silence.

She’d kissed him and sent a flood of thoughts crashing through his mind, filthy thoughts of the things he’d done to her by the dresser in her room. He wanted a replay, immediately.

Clenching his teeth, Braden killed the raging desire before it could kill him.

“Uhm…” He could barely string words into a sentence. “I was just gonna ask what secret plans you have for your presentation, but…” A kiss would do too. He stifled a smile.

Erin pressed her lips together, staring straight ahead. Why the hell had she kissed him? Was she insane? After all the preaching she’d done about them not taking risks, she went and kissed him? So much for being “friends who could joke around”! Not even the alcohol in her blood could excuse this. “Sorry…”

“Don’t apologize.” He sounded annoyed. “It ruins it.”

She glanced silently at him but he didn’t meet her gaze so she looked away again. “You have to go home, your grandfather’s worried.”

“He’s worried I’m getting high and drunk like my father,” Braden muttered. “I don’t feel like going home, just let him know we’re together and I’m fine. Send him a little video if you want. Ironically, he trusts you, the one who’s very drunk.”

With a sigh, Erin picked up her phone and turned on the camera, facing him and filming a short video. “Found him. He’s alive,” she said awkwardly. “Driving.”

She ended the video and Braden allowed his lips the tiny smile he’d been fighting.

“So, where will you go?” she asked, sending the Chairman the video.

He glanced at her, that kiss still making his head buzz. “Where are you going?”

Erin looked puzzled for a second. “Me? I’m going to Phoebe’s.”

“Then I’ll just go to Phoebe’s too.”

She jerked forward in shock. “What?!” Braden calmly smiled. “You can’t do that!”

He made a face. “And why not? Have we not hosted Phoebe Lee’s snooty parents at several Stone Towers hotels over the years? The least she can do is give me a bed for the night after we provided her family such luxury.”

Erin smiled like she was dealing with a kindergartener. “That’s because they paid for that luxury, Braden.”

“Then I’ll pay for the awful conditions I’m sure to spend the night in.”

“Just go home to excellent conditions then, your bed is free!”

“No, I’m tired, I’m not driving all the way home again.”

“Braden.” Exhausted, Erin collapsed into her seat. “Why are you like this?!”

He smiled, the smile turning into a grin. He knew it wasn’t right to have fun frustrating her, but he couldn’t help it. She looked adorable, exasperatedly trying to get something through his thick skull.

What could he do? He didn’t want the night to end. That kiss had undone any effort he’d made to detach himself from her.

He was hooked on her. Hooked on Erin.

She was biting her lip in worry, shaking her head like she was repeatedly inwardly realizing how bad an idea it was.

“You know Jackson’s there?” she tried again. “You two don’t get along.”

“I can be civil,” he said easily.

“Braden, this won’t work, let’s both go home then.”

He was silent, firmly rejecting that idea. She didn’t understand that he wanted to be around her until morning. With no ulterior motives, just to be able to lay sight on her and talk to her and listen to her. They couldn’t do that at home. They sure as hell couldn’t stay out on the street all night.

“No?” Erin asked after his silence. “Okay, if you really hate the idea of being home, then we can go to the Stone Towers. It’s like five minutes from here—”

“I know how close the Towers is from here, Erin.”

She nodded. “Let’s go there, then.”

“You really want to put the idea of spending the night together at a hotel in my head? Are you trying to run me mad?”

His voice had darkened, making Erin pause. The meaning of his words sunk in and she bit her lip, turning away. “That wasn’t… it wasn’t what I meant. We’ll sleep. Only sleep, in seperate rooms.”

“What if it gets out that we were at the hotel together for a night?”

She gasped, gripping her seatbelt at the startling thought. “You’re right. In such a case, the truth wouldn’t matter, only people’s rumours would get heard. Forget it, no hotel.”

He smiled. “We’re going to Phoebe’s place.”

Exasperation had Erin sagging into the seat in surrender.

After Phoebe’s suspicions about what happened on the boat, the whole thing was sure to take a vile spin. Hopefully, Jackson and Braden didn’t start exchanging blows over some testosterone-charged challenge. Sighing, Erin prepared herself for the worst.

By the time they got to Phoebe’s place, the place was in darkness with the occasional flash of brightness from the lightening outside. The rain had graduated into a thunderstorm. Music still filled the place and Erin found the remote, turning it off. Those two must’ve been piss drunk to leave the music on.

Braden looked about the dark living room, unimpressed. “What’s with the bottles and beer cans? You drank this much?”

“Shh!” She grabbed his arm, putting a finger over her lips. “Keep it down, Phoebe and Jackson must be dead asleep by now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

Turning, she sneakily led him to the stairs. “Maybe I can hide you until morning and you can sneak out before they wake up.”

He grimaced, following her upstairs. “Are they your friends or your parents?”

“A bit of both,” Erin whispered back. “They’re very protective.”

Her heart was pounding in her ears, so she rushed Braden to an empty spare room before anybody could appear in the hallway.

She shut the door behind them and sagged against it. “Oh, thank God!”

Unbothered, Braden kicked off his slides and shook the raindrops out of his hair.

Erin finally felt the strength return to her legs and managed to stand upright, taking off his trench coat. “This is giving me anxiety.”

“Everything gives you anxiety,” he commented tiredly, getting into bed.

She marched over, standing over him with crossed arms. “You can say that because you’re not the one who’ll have to deal with an angry Phoebe in the morning!”

A hand snatched her into the bed and Erin squeaked.

Braden rolled her into his arms like a warm burrito. “Shut up and let me hold you for a second.”

Her wide eyes stared past his shoulder. “H… hey, we… we can’t sleep in the same bed.”

His warm hand rubbed her cold back through the thin t-shirt. “And why not?”

The depth of his voice this close to her ear was sending shivers down her back. “Uhm… because…” The reasons she thought of sent butterflies speed racing through her stomach and she failed to form the words.

He waited but she said nothing further. Smiling, Braden eased her onto her back and looked down at her. “See? No valid reasons.”

She blinked nervously. “Well, you have no valid reasons for holding me either.”

“Yes, I do.” Lightening suddenly flashed behind him and, to Erin, he looked both glorious and villainous. “I want revenge. You stole a kiss from me.”