The door to the elevator opened, and I found myself just outside the condo. I had to lean heavily against the door as I tried to fish my key out of my pocket. Once it was between my fingers, getting it into the lock and turned was a whole other problem. Eventually I managed to make it work and gave myself a mental shove to get through the door. I turned to close it by throwing my hand out and slapping it, which hurt a bit but got the job done. I looked down to my palm and began to laugh again.

Then I fell backwards and landed on my ass.

Deciding it was as good a place as any, I lay backwards and watched the room spin around me. There was that niggling bit in the back of my head that told me I needed to pull my shit together before Raine came home, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover up the ringing in my ears.

Fuck, I didn’t like this part.

I wasn’t completely sure how many shots I had done, but I didn’t think it was enough to have such a profound effect on me. So many months of sobriety must have driven down my tolerance quite a bit.

Raine will be home soon.

“Shit.” I pushed myself up with my arms and leaned back on my elbows for a second. I rolled, or maybe fell, over on my side and tried to get my bearings enough to stand. It didn’t work, so I crawled a little way across the living area until I realized I didn’t actually have a destination in mind.

“She can’t see me like this.”

I took a deep breath and tried to regain some concentration, but all I could focus on was my alcohol breath.

“Gotta brush my teeth.”

At least now I had a plan.

Though I made it to the bathroom, the toothpaste and toothbrush just weren’t interested in cooperating with each other. I ended up spurting fluoridated gunk all over the sink then rubbing the toothbrush around in it, or at least trying to. Once I brought the brush up to my face, I realized I had missed.

“Fuck it.”

I dropped the brush in the sink and stumbled to the kitchen. I pulled open a couple of drawers, looking for gum but came up empty-handed.

“Better to smell like smoke,” I announced to the room. My cigarettes were still in my pocket, so at least it didn’t take any effort to find them. I made my way to the balcony, slid down the wall until I was firmly planted on my ass, and lit up.

I chain smoked for a few minutes until I was pretty sure there wasn’t any other stench on me but that. Of course, the brief amount of time that had passed had done nothing to sober me up, and everything around me was still spinning a bit.

It was brief, wasn’t it? How long had I been sitting here?

I shook my head to try to clear it, which was a big mistake. I tried to count the cigarette butts that lay between my feet to judge how long I’d been there, but those little fuckers were less cooperative than the toothpaste had been. Staring at them nauseated me. I took a long breath through my nose and let it out my mouth as I stared at a single cigarette butt that had made it into the bucket and tried to add it to the count. Focusing on a small object helped to slow the circling motion of the world around me.

I heard the door open.

My hand started shaking a bit as I pushed myself back onto my feet and straightened the edge of my shirt. I just needed to keep myself focused long enough to say I wasn’t feeling well and go lie down.

I can do this. I can fake this. Done it plenty of times before.

I turned, checked my breathing, and opened the balcony door to see Raine placing her book bag down by the coffee table and turning to smile at me.

Her smile faded immediately.

“Bastian?”

I bumped into the kitchen island and winced as my hip jarred against it.

“Hey, babe,” I said…or maybe I slurred it.

“What’s wrong?” Raine asked as she narrowed her eyes.

“I’m ferfectly pine,” I said with a serious nod. At least, I hoped it looked serious—that was the goal. I took a couple of unsteady steps toward her.

“You’re what?”

I stopped and thought about what I had just said. It had made sense, hadn’t it? I tried to repeat the words in my head but found I had forgotten what I had said. With wandering eyes, I finally found Raine, still standing in the middle of the living room and staring at me. I smiled and walked toward her.

Well, I tried to.

Instead, I lurched off to the side a bit and had to catch my balance. A chuckle escaped from me, but when I looked at Raine, she didn’t seem amused.

“Oh shit, it’s not funny, is it?” I snickered. I didn’t intend to snicker; it just came out that way.

“Oh my God,” she murmured. “Bastian, you’re drunk.”

Shit.

Our exchange from the airport bar where I almost took a shot ran through my head. We had just returned to civilization, and I’d gone from blissful isolation to being surrounded by crowds demanding Raine’s attention. At the first opportunity, I found a place that would serve me vodka.

“Bastian…don’t do this.”

“Do what?” I barked out a laugh. “Drink? I’m a fucking alcoholic, Raine. I told you that the first fucking day. That hasn’t fucking changed just because I didn’t have any alcohol available. I never stopped wanting it. Never. You know this shit.”

“You aren’t that person anymore, Bastian. I meant that. I wouldn’t be with someone like that. I couldn’t be with someone who I thought would hit me again.”

“I love you,” Raine said softly, her hand still on my arm, “but when you drink, you become someone else. I can’t be with that man, Bastian.”

“I won’t be.”

She took a couple of steps backwards, and I knew—I just knew—she was going to leave. My mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t form any words at first. I couldn’t move, either. It was as if my central nervous system was trying to fire every neuron inside of it at once, and each and every one of them failed to respond.

Can’t let this happen…just can’t…For fuck’s sake, Stark, get your shit together.

“Don’t,” I whispered as I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

Even through my drunken haze, I could see it all in her face—the confusion, the sorrow, the anger. Her face seemed to fall as her shoulders slumped. I could see the tears forming in her eyes as she backed away again.

“No…no, Raine…” I reached out for her, but toppled forward and down onto my knees. My head pulsed and my eyes couldn’t focus well, but I could still see her in front of me. Reaching out and crawling forward, I found her thigh with my hand.

With my chest tightening around my heart and lungs, I grabbed for her and pulled her closer until my head was against her stomach.

“Don’t leave!” I begged. “Please, baby. I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to…please, please, God, Raine—don’t go!”

I clung to her.

Raine.

My lifeline.

The sails of my ship.

The only calm for my storm.

My only reason to exist in this fucked up world.

“Don’t leave me!” I sobbed against her. If she pushed me away, if she turned around and left me, I wouldn’t survive. No tournament game would matter. No orphaned child would matter. I couldn’t do any of it without her.

When I felt her hand cradle the back of my head, I almost dropped the rest of the way to the floor. If I hadn’t been clutching her so tightly, I probably would have. Tears burned as I clenched my eyes shut, and I was sure Raine’s shirt was getting soaked with them. I didn’t care. None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was holding on to her.

“Don’t go,” I pleaded again.

“I’m not going,” she said quietly. “I’m right here, Bastian. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m sorry,” I cried. Raine said something under her breath, but I couldn’t hear it through my own sobbing. Her hand ran through the hair on the back of my head as she sunk down to her knees and held my head against her shoulder.

We stayed like that for a long time, kneeling on the floor and holding on to each other. I wrapped my arms underneath hers and up around her shoulders, trying to keep her as close to me as possible. Even though she said she wouldn’t leave, I was afraid she could change her mind at any moment.

The dizziness of overindulgence wrapped itself around my head. My nose was stuffed up, and I couldn’t breathe properly. A moment later, my stomach joined the party.

Fuck.

“Gonna be sick,” I muttered as I pushed away from her. I blundered my way into the bathroom just in time to fall against the toilet and start puking. My stomach heaved and my hands shook. My back arched as my body tried to eliminate all the shit I had put into it. I could hardly hold myself up when I was done, but Raine was right there with her hand on my shoulder, offering me a glass of water.

I rinsed my mouth and spat into the toilet before reaching up to flush it.

“What the hell happened with the toothpaste?” Raine mumbled quietly.

I glanced up to see her picking my toothbrush off of the floor and wiping the paste out of the sink. She carefully distributed a little onto the brush and knelt beside me.

“Do you think you’re done?” she asked.

I thought about it for a second before nodding.

“Do you need help with this?” She held up the brush, and I shook my head. “I’ll be in the bedroom when you’re finished.”

My head was a little clearer as I leaned against the sink and cleaned myself up. I brushed my teeth, splashed water all over my face, and looked at myself in the mirror. My normally blue eyes looked almost purple with all the bloodshot lines running through them. I was pale, and my hair was a mess. I tried to calm it with my fingers before I put everything away as best I could and headed to the bedroom.

I looked at Raine where she sat up on her side of the bed. She had the blankets pulled back on my side, so I crawled in beside her, reaching out tentatively. I was relieved and a little surprised when she accepted my embrace and pulled me close to her.

“What happened, Bastian?”

“I ordered a drink,” I whispered.

“Where?”

“Bar Crudo.”

“The place down the block?”

“Yes,” I said. “I go there every day.”

“You go to that bar every day?”

I nodded.

“And…and what?” her voice broke. “You usually just sober up before I get home?”

“No!” I looked up to her, pleading. “I never have before—I swear. I’m there every day, but I never order anything. This was the first time. Please believe me, Raine—this was the only time. I didn’t mean to…it just…it just happened.”

Raine’s lips mashed together as she stared at me.

“I don’t know if I should believe you or not,” she said.

“I swear,” I repeated. “I never drank anything there or at that other place.”

“What other place?”

Shit.

I really wasn’t handling this well. I was just sober enough after puking to know how much worse I was making it.

“There was one other bar I went to,” I admitted. “That night I got pissed and left you with Lindsay and Nick.”

“That’s why you were gone so long,” she surmised.

“Yeah,” I admitted, “but I didn’t drink anything, not a drop.”

She nodded her head slowly. I wasn’t sure if she believed me or not, but when she started stroking the back of my head, I decided not to care right at the moment. I tucked my head into her shoulder. She smelled so nice, and her hands were warm on my head. I felt my dick getting hard from the proximity of her body, and I pulled her a little closer.

“My cock still wants you,” I said.

“I kind of doubt you are up for that right now,” Raine replied tersely.

“It’s up for it,” I countered. “Anytime I’m near you.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

I debated if I should confess about the cage fighting but decided against it. She might have forgotten about me coming home battered, and I didn’t want to make an already painful situation worse by adding additional transgressions. I thought affirmation was a better idea.

“All I ever want is you,” I proclaimed. “Even when that other girl touched me, I just thought about you and came back home.”

Raine tensed.

“What girl?” she asked. Her voice was hard and flat. Her hand cupped my cheek, and she turned my head to face her. Raine’s eyes were dark, and I realized what I had just said.

Ah, fuck.

Bad affirmation.

“What girl?” she demanded.