Chapter 6

"You really need to learn to relax," Leyla sighed, shoving a pitcher of beer across the table to Nadine, who scowled as she poured her glass.

"I don't really have time to relax," she replied, sad that the best part of her day so far had been that she just poured a glass of beer with little foam. "Epiphany wants me to up my hours at the hospital, while and Nikolas wants me more available for planning this benefit, while and still keeping up my hours at the clinic. Not to mention that I've gotten entangled in the most awkward of circumstances with one of the possible contributors – a very wealthy contributor at that."

"Probably not as entangled as you could be," Kelly murmured, winking as tossed back a shot of tequila.

Johnny straightened at the bar, the corner of his mouth hitching as he nursed his whiskey, secretly anxious to hear Nadine's response. Their relationship had become very cordial; smiles exchanged at the clinic, teasing gestures over breakfast at the main desk, and sometimes she really laughed when he brought up her their deal.

Of course, she was probably just trying to ensure that he made his donation to the clinic, and it was sort of fun to keep her worrying, especially when he'd had the check written out for Nikolas prior to ever meeting the man.

She didn't need to know that – not yet anyway.

"Oh, I have no desire to be entangled with Johnny in any way," the nurse scowled, reaching across the table to snatch a shot as if the topic required such. "He is the most annoying man I have ever met in my entire life."

"If he's getting under your skin that much, he'll probably get under…or inside other things just as well," Kelly shrugged, causing Johnny to grin – at least someone on his side.

"Seriously, stop it right now," Nadine scolded, motioning for someone to hand her another shot. "I cannot stand that stupid, stupid man. It's bad enough that I have to be nice to him because he's my neighbor, and he could probably turn me in for having a cat when I'm not supposed to or something stupid like that, which I wouldn't put past him. However, Ricky Ricardo did take to him in the most unnerving of ways-"

"Wow, he's already made friends with the cat," Leyla teased, happily obliging the blonde's request for more tequila. "Seems you two are having more than just a business relationship, Nadine."

"I already explained that," she groaned, sloshing some of the tequila onto her hand. Johnny happened to glance over his shoulder just in time to see her licking the liquor from the back of his hand, and he almost would have enjoyed it had she stopped talking about him for just ten seconds. "I have to be nice to him. I don't want to be, so if he shows up on my doorstep needing milk, I have to give it to him."

So much for the kindness of neighbors.

"You don't have to do anything," Lainey chimed in, setting several more rounds of tequila onto the table before taking her seat. "I've told you this before, Nadine. You don't have to please everyone. Not everyone has to like you-"

"No, this is different," she stressed, waving her hand at her. "He has a lot of money – money that Nikolas needs, and if I'm not nice to him-"

"Let's be honest here, you are just a lowly employee," Kelly interrupted, forcing a smile at her friend, and sliding a shot across the table as if to make up for her comment. "You work for Nikolas as a nurse. Your job doesn't entail public relations. He should have people for that. Someone as wealthy as Johnny Zacchara isn't going to make his decision based on whether or not he likes you."

"No, but he's making his decision on whether or not I can convince him to donate," she explained exhaustedly, her speech beginning to slur. "He wants some life-changing reason behind giving money to a free clinic when he should just want to donate because he's a nice guy – because it's the nice thing to do." Sitting back, she sighed and sucked down the shot, slamming and then slammed the glass against the table. "Except that Johnny Zacchara isn't a nice guy."

Clearing his throat, he rocked back on his stool, wondering how the nurse hadn't noticed him sitting in the corner of the bar. She huffed under her breath and took a sip of her beer, completely oblivious despite his attempts to cough or kick his stool, anything to get her attention.

"He's – he's the most stuck up and spoiled asshole I have ever met," she hissed, causing him to hang his head and lift his hand for the bartender. He was definitely going to need more whiskey if he was going to survive this. "He acts so proud of the fact that he has all this power that comes with money, not realizing that it just makes him as foul and evil as his father. You've read the headlines about Anthony Zaccharra. And I honestly thought that maybe he Johnny cared to do something good, but he's so hell bent on making everyone miserable – making them fall at his feet."

He slapped two hundreds on the bar, motioned for Coleman to leave the bottle sitting close, and tossed down an extra hundred when the bartender obliged.

"I bet he's spent his entire life with a bunch of ass-sucking idiots telling him how great he is, how smart, how Johnny Zacchara is going to change the world," she continued, laying out one stifling blow after another. "And the worst part – the most infuriating thing about it – he's a nice guy when he's not being a complete asshole, but he's so busy being an asshole that he can't be nice."

"God," she muttered, pausing to sip her beer. "I just hate him. And his stupid classical music. And that screeching whore. And how my cat likes him more than me – my god, I should have just left Ricky Ricardo at the damn pound if I knew he was going to be an ass-sucker."

"Wow," Kelly laughed, shaking her head at her friend. "This is the most you've ever had to say."

"Normally, I don't have things to say, but I'm – I'm pissed off," Nadine replied, smacking the table with her hand. "And drunk. You all got me drunk so I would tell you things."

"I just said that you should probably do him," Kelly defended, shrugging it off as she reached for a shot. "And apparently doing him – well, once you get past how much you hate him-"

"I hate him so hard that I will never be able to do him – even – even if I wanted to," she cut in, pointing across the table at her. Johnny briefly wondered if she even realized her statement made no sense at all, but that probably wasn't really the point. "Ever. I do not have sex with spoiled rich kids who are hopped up on their daddy's name and money and fancy things and – and Bach. Stupid fucking composer – he just had to make something so good that Nadine's stupid neighbor played it all the fucking time."

"Okay," Leyla murmured, scooting her chair back as she slipped Nadine's beer out of her hands. "You are completely wasted, so I think it's time to let me take you home."

"Oh, I'm just getting started," Nadine argued, allowing her friend to pull her up from the table, probably because she was such a people pleaser.

Stupid woman.

He rolled his eyes as Leyla hooked her arm through Nadine's and helped the blonde stumble out of the bar, waiting precisely five minutes (he didn't know how long it took to stuff a drunk, angry woman into a car) before leaving. The second his feet hit the floor, he knew he'd need a cab, which was so damn annoying because he never got drunk.

Ever.

"Whatever," he muttered, shoving open the back door to the bar. He swore under his breath when he saw Leyla holding Nadine's hair back as the blonde threw up in a trashcan. He rocked back on his feet, debating on whether or not to help, finally deciding to walk over. "Hey."

Leyla's eyes widened when she looked up and saw Johnny standing across from her, and she couldn't stop herself from laughing. "Uh, were you in…" He nodded. "Oh, well, I suppose you know then that she's had loads to drink and-"

"Yeah, whatever," he interrupted, rolling his eyes as he batted her hands away from Nadine's hair, replacing them with his own. "I'll get her home. You can go back inside."

"I don't know if I should," the nurse hesitated, glancing at Nadine who was still slumped over, oblivious to the exchange going on behind her. "She's really drunk and-"

"I was going to get a cab back to my place. She's my neighbor," he shrugged, wrinkling his nose when the scent of tequila made its way into the air. "So, it works out."

"Alright," she nodded, looking across the parking lot as a cab pulled into the parking lot. "That should be ours – are you sure? I mean…" She leaned down and tried to look at Nadine, who simply nodded because words were of no use at this point. "Okay, well…be nice to her, Zacchara. I'm warning you."

**********

"Drink this."

Nadine snatched the bottle of water from Johnny and did her best to curl against the door as furthest from him as possible, but he seemed to grow closer despite her attempts.

She fumbled with the lid of the bottle, prompting him to reach over and unscrew the lidit. "Thanks…I think," she muttered, closing her eyes as she savored the taste of the water.r.

She hadn't the slightest idea as to where the water had come from, but aAnything would have tasted better than the combination of tequila and beer in reverse form.

"You're welcome," he replied, sitting back against the leather seat, his eyes focused straight ahead.

She was drunk so she could have been wrong, but nothing sounded welcoming about his reply – not that she could blame him. She wasn't sure whether or not he had been in the bar, but unless Johnny frequented poorly lit parking lots in sketchy areas of town, he had undoubtedly heard every word she'd said to her friends.

"Tequila does really strange things to me," she said, lifting her head from the window to look over at him. "I know that alcohol is an aphrodisiac for some people. Like Kelly – one of my friends at the bar. She drinks and she likes to have sex…which you probably didn't want to know, but I'm not like that. No tequila doesn't make me want to have sex – I just talk…a lot."

His lips didn't so much as twitch in amusement and his eyes didn't soften even a little bit.

"Sometimes I embellish things," she continued, fumbling to put the lid back onto the water, only this time he didn't reach over to help. "And I speak without thinking-"

"That's not just alcohol induced," he muttered, glaring at the cab driver when he gave Johnny a curious look.

He probably thought they were having some stupid lover's quarrel or something.

Ew.

"Well, I don't always mean-"

"You don't have to apologize," he interrupted stiffly, leaning forward to tell the driver to turn at the next corner. He was taking the short route home, probably because being this close to her was infuriating, but she hadn't asked him for help. He'd just taken it upon himself to shove her into a cab and Leyla had just let him.

Oh, her best friend was in for it.

"Something tells me you aren't the type of woman who says things she doesn't mean," he added, finally shifting his eyes tolooking at her. "And if you say that I'm some selfish, spoiled rich kid who doesn't know a fucking thing, then you probably believe thatit."

"Well, not exactly," she murmured, groaning as she pushed herself up.

"That's comforting," he huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Will you let me explain?" she asked, swearing when the can cab ran over a bump causing her to slosh and she sloshed water all over herself.

"I don't need you to," he smirked, leaning over and narrowing his eyes at her, "because contrary to what you believe, Nurse Crowell, I don't think very highly of you either."

"Now you're just trying to be mean," she replied, looking away from him as she pulled at her wet jeans.

"No, I'm just being as honest as you, only I don't need whiskey tequila to do it," he said spitefully, glaring at her despite her refusal to look at him. "I'm sorry that I'm not some lonely, people pleaser who only does nice things for the sake of looking goodbeing liked. You're so caught up in doing things for other people so they'll like that you're not even living your own life."

"Oh, you don't know enough about me to say something like that," she argued, turning towards him, relieved to see that they were just a couple of blocks from their building.

"Do I even need to list off the things you said about me at the bar? When to my face you're on your knees and begging me to write Nikolas a fat check?" He scoffed and held out his hand, proudly ticking items off on his fingers. "You live by yourself with a bunch of stuffed Muppets and a cat named after a damn television character. He's probably your best friend because it's easier for you to be around animals than it is people. And that's because you're always talking about how fulfilling being a nurse is and how great it is to help people, and you can't understand why some people just don't give a shit. The funny thing is that allAll you've done since I met you is complain – about your schedule, your hours, and the stress of being Nikolas' friend – and that's because you're too afraid to tell these people to back off and leave you alone. You'll bend over backwards for anyone because no one can dislike you. And you like that they like you – that everyone raves about how nice and dependable Nadine is, when they probably just see a girl they can use to do anything they want."

"Shut up," she warned, clenching her fists at her sides, imagining in her tequila haze what it would be like to punch him in the face. "You don't know anything about my life or where I come from and why I do the things I do, so shut the hell up."

"For once, I'd just like you to do something that you wanted to do to do – not something that works for everyone else, but something that works for you, but you can't. You have to think about how your choices affect Nikolas or your stupid cat – Hell, five minutes after meeting youme, you were ready to grovel at my feet because, one, Nikolas needed me, and two, you thought that meant I had to like you." He rolled his eyes as the cab pulled up to the front of the building, both of them lurching forward as it stopped. "I think I liked you more when you were the bitch of a nurse in the break room – at least then you were acting like a real person."

She cleared her throat, fighting the urge to throw up again as she dug through her purse for a twenty and tossed it over the seat to the driver. She opened the door, glancing at Johnny before she slid out. "You can have the elevator," she muttered. "I'll take the stairs."