My jaw hit the floor.
The woman should’ve been offended by the comment, but I swore I saw a small grin find her lips. I bet there were a million women who would effortlessly leave their boyfriends and husbands for a night in Oliver’s sheets. Even though he was the more closed-off and quiet twin, he was still Oliver Smith. “Handsome” wasn’t a strong enough word to describe him. He was remarkably attractive, and with his normal mellow demeanor, he appeared that much more beautiful.
When he was sloppy and drunk, though? Not so much.
“I mean, honestly,” Oliver said, sounding cocky as ever as he nodded and winked toward the woman, “I bet she’s a great—”
Before Oliver could say another word, Big Guy slammed his fist straight into Oliver’s face, knocking the rock star off his feet and straight to the ground.
People shouted and crowded around the fallen star with their cameras in hand as Oliver tried his best to get to his feet but couldn’t accomplish standing up at all.
“All right, all right! That’s enough! Bar is closed! Everyone get up and out!” I shouted, but no one listened. I had to physically start shoving the customers toward the front entrance, and when they were all gone, I glanced over to Oliver. The Oliver Smith. The man of my made-up dreams. My biggest celebrity crush lying there drunk, dazed, and confused like a broken puppy.
It didn’t take long for the paparazzi to get word that Oliver Smith was at Seven that night, and they were swarming the outside of the bar, banging on the door.
It looked like they weren’t ready to leave anytime soon.
Great.
“Here, let me help you up,” I said, combing my hair behind my ears as I walked toward Oliver, who was still struggling to stand on his own. His left eye was already turning deep shades of black, with purplish tones beneath his eye. With one hit, Big Guy had messed him up terribly. He looked as if he’d been beaten over and over again, pounded until he was nothing. Yet it was one tamed, controlled hit that had sent Oliver flying.
“No,” Oliver muttered, waving me away but still allowing me to help him. I got him into the booth, and he slumped over as the paparazzi pressed their bodies against the window and flashed their cameras nonstop like freaking crazed maniacs.
I hadn’t a clue how celebrities dealt with it all. Fame seemed more like a curse than a blessing to me.
“Another one,” Oliver muttered, putting his finger up in the air.
“Yeah, okay,” I mumbled, walking over to the bar and grabbing him a big glass of water. I returned to the booth and sat on the edge of it. “Here you go.”
He didn’t sit up because, let’s be honest, he couldn’t. But he allowed me to place the glass in his hand, and he lowered it to his lips. The moment he tasted the water, he huffed and tossed the water out of the glass—straight onto me.
“Jeez!” I hissed, shooting up from the booth, drenched. “What the hell?”
“I wanted w-whiskey,” he stuttered.
A big part of me wanted to push him out to the hyenas standing outside the building. I wanted to get rid of him and start cleaning up the bar, pretending that the whole night hadn’t taken the most dramatic turn in the history of turns.
But I knew better. I’d worked in the bar scene long enough to know that sadness mixed with liquor was a dynamic duo. When the two were combined together, people acted out in ways they never would when they were sober. And I knew that if I gave Oliver to those monsters outside, they would destroy him more than ever. They would rip apart the small part of his soul that still remained intact and feed their families with his struggles.
I walked around to the windows and shut all the blinds so the animals outside couldn’t get any more shots of Oliver’s meltdown. I knew what it was like to go through dark days. I couldn’t imagine doing it with cameras flashing in front of my eyes.
“All right, come on now,” I said, moving over to Oliver and lifting his body up. He grumbled but didn’t argue too much as I got him to his feet. He leaned against me, feeling like pounds of exhaustion, and I managed to get him to the back employees-only entrance of the bar. I unlocked my car door and slid him into the passenger seat, where he slumped into a ball. And passed out.
I hurried back to the bar, locked it up, and then headed to my driver’s seat, hopped in, and turned on the engine. Before I drove off, I reached over Oliver to put on his seat belt, because I swore to God, I wasn’t going to kill a rock star in my 2007 Honda Civic.
“Don’t touch unless you suck,” Oliver muttered as I brought the seat belt across his crotch area to buckle.
Good lord.
There was a point in my life when that statement from Oliver would’ve made me giddy. Currently it made me want to sober him up, because clearly he wasn’t himself that night.
“Don’t worry. No one’s touching you tonight,” I said, but he didn’t even stay conscious enough to hear me.
As I put the car into drive, Oliver tilted his head toward me.
His eyes were narrowed, and I was certain he was seeing three versions of me swaying with his whiskey goggles on.
Then, he paused. His lips parted, and a rough word rolled off his tongue. “Whiskey?” he murmured.
I froze.
My foot sat against the brakes as he stared my way, a level of disconnect from reality floating around his pupils.
Was he asking me for whiskey? In his current state?
His lips parted again, but before he could speak, he lurched forward and decided right then and there that violently vomiting all over my dashboard was the right thing to do.
4
EMERY
“Come on, Oliver. Just give me an inch,” I muttered, trying to drag him up the front steps of my apartment building. Bringing the rock star to my apartment was my last resort. I tried to get him to tell me where he lived, but he couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. All he did was mumble and drool. Then I grabbed his phone to see if I could get a number to call, but his phone was dead, and I didn’t have the type of charger needed to charge his. Therefore, all I could think was to bring him to my apartment for the night. Getting him out of the car was a headache of its own kind, and now trying to get him to move his feet was a nightmare.
“I’ll give you a few inches,” he mumbled back.
I wondered how horrified the shy, distant Oliver would’ve been by his comments that night.
I wrapped his arms around me and pulled him to the best of my ability. He had the hiccups, and he kept muttering something under his breath, but it wasn’t clear what he was saying. Honestly, I wasn’t even interested in his words. I just wanted to get him onto the couch and let him pass out so I could go into my bedroom and do the same thing.
I called Abigail on my way home to ask if she could keep Reese overnight. Most of the time when I worked late shifts, I used the key Abigail had given to me for her apartment, went inside, and grabbed a sleeping Reese to take over to our apartment. Yet that evening, I thought it would be best to keep her away from the drunk celebrity.
When we finally got inside the building, we headed for the elevator. The moment Oliver’s feet hit the elevator floor, he leaned hard against the railing and began singing one of Alex & Oliver’s songs with his eyes closed.
Even though he was drunk, he sounded like perfection. It wasn’t the concert of my dreams, and Oliver definitely smelled like old cod, but he was singing, and I didn’t hate it all that much.