Chapter 100
That night, thoughts of Nick had driven me crazy long enough, so I drove my car instead. The windshield wipers beat in time with my heart as I found myself on the Northeast side of town. Somehow my car just happened to make the turns to Northeast Prescott Street. The Toyota was in the driveway, but the Subaru wasn't around. I pulled out my cell while humming along to Melissa Etheridge on the radio.
"I wanna come over.
To hell with the consequence.
You told me you loved me.
That's all I believe.
I wanna come over.
It's a need I can't explain.
To see you again.
I wanna come over…"
I texted Nick.
Are U alone?
I waited impatiently for a reply. The words popped up as my phone beeped.
Not for long.
I smacked the steering wheel with my hand then texted back.
How long?
His reply was faster.
15 mins. Maybe less?
I typed back.
I'm outside. I need to see you.
The curtains moved in the window upstairs. My heart skipped as Nick's face poked out between them. I received another text back.
It's not safe.
I typed furiously.
Please? 5 mins?
His reply came back quickly.
Ok. 5 mins. But I don't know if I can let u go if I see u.
I wrote my reply.
1 kiss & I will go.
The reply came back.
Ok. I'll be out soon.
I set my phone down, heart racing like a Kentucky Derby horse in my chest. Nick walked down the stairs, through the rain, and to my car. He barely had time to close the car door when I leaned over and kissed him hard. Oh, God. I'd missed him so much. His lips were ambrosia. The beachy, ocean scent wafted off his neck as I moved my lips down, kissing off the raindrops that had beaded down from his hair. Our mouths explored one another much longer than five minutes.
"Juliette… went… out… to… pick… up… dinner…" He said between kissing from my ear back to my lips. He leaned away from me. "I've got to get back inside. She could pull up any second."
"Don't go. Feign a robbery, a murder, a murder and a robbery. Feign something, but don't go back in."
"I have to go back." He held my face in his hands as that wonderful, toothy grin emerged. "Tomorrow. Come by tomorrow night at the trailer. Juliette is working late tomorrow."
"Okay." I nodded as I held back the tears. "Just go before I drive off with you in the car."
Nick left as he walked hurriedly back to the porch through the rain.
All at once I was home. How did I even get home? My autopilot was on as Nick beat at my brain. The ten minutes it took was a blur. The usual scenery of shops and eateries on Northwest 23rd Street didn't even register. No, I didn't see anything but Nick's bright, blue-green eyes and that wonderful toothy grin.
I sprayed the car, washed my clothes, and took a shower to remove the scent. Tomorrow was too long to wait. Kissing him had just made it worse. There was an old Chinese proverb that said, 'Kissing is like drinking salted water; you drink and your thirst increases.' Those few kisses were like gulping down an ocean of Nick. Now I wanted him more than ever.
Monroe was still at Helvetia, so I was on my own tonight. I watched Friday's Jeopardy on my DVR, but I couldn't answer any of the questions. The only one I got right was the when Alex Trebek asked for the first name of actor Nolte. Thank goodness I wasn't playing any strip games tonight. Although, then at least I'd be having sex instead of feeling like this.
After Jeopardy, I went to the kitchen. I needed something to distract me. I opened cabinets, rummaging for something to eat, drink, or clean out. The bag of passionflower tea was on the counter, but that hadn't helped earlier. I opened the fridge, and my eyes rested on the bottle of tequila. It was better than tea, by far.
Two shots later, I was feeling pretty good. I didn't need any men tonight... None of them. I had Mr. Jose Cuervo, and it was a happy union.
A couple shots more, and I was singing loudly with Avril Lavigne on my MP3 player as I danced around the living room.
"Hey! Hey! You! You!
I don't like your girlfriend!
No way! No way!
I think you need a new one…
You're so fine.
I want you mine.
You're so delicious.
I think about you all the time.
You're so addictive.
Don't you know what I could do to make you feel all right?"
Nick just needed to leave Juliette and come over. I held my phone, debating with my drunk self to call him. Dammit, alcohol was a bad idea. To be safe, I turned my phone off and stuck it under the couch. After more tequila I probably wouldn't be able to turn it back on anyway. Avril continued to sing from her hits album as the alcohol worked its magic.
Another two shots later, I was propped up against the coffee table, singing Avril's 'I'm With You.'
"It's a damn cold night.
Trying to figure out this life…
'Cause nothing's going right,
And everything's a mess,
And no-one likes to be alone...
Isn't anyone trying to find me?
Won't somebody come take me home?
I wanted them both. Either one of them could pick me up and take me home with them tonight. Hell, they both could come over and make my dreams come true.
Oh why is everything so confusing?
Maybe I'm just out of my mind…"
I laughed in spite of myself. Maybe I really was out of my mind, or maybe I was just really drunk. No, it was definitely C, all of the above.
With the next shot I managed to press buttons on my stereo remote until I found Bowling for Soup's Punk Rock version of 'Lil' Red Riding Hood.' My head tipped back on the coffee table as I set it to repeat. The ceiling was spinning. My brain was spinning, too. Maybe Monroe was home by now. I could call him. No, I was too drunk… Drunk meant I'd tell him everything… No, bad idea.
The room spun a bit more as the song played for the third or fourth time. I'd lost count by then. Maybe Monroe could be a good wolf. Maybe this crazy dark side of his was all in my head. Maybe…
The loud knock on the door stopped my thoughts.
I lifted my heavy head and glanced toward the front door. It was all the way over there, and I was all the way over here. Hmm…
After several presses on the remote, I stopped the music and managed to lift myself off the carpet as the knocking continued. Maybe it was Nick… or maybe it was Monroe. Hell, maybe it was Bud with more pie. In my condition it was bad if it was anyone. But someone was knocking, so there was someone…
Slowly but surely one foot moved in front of the other until I made it to the door. I checked the peephole. Monroe. Crap… I stood for a moment or two.
Another knock.
"Are you gonna open the door?" Monroe asked on the other side. "Or have you had too much tequila to operate it?"
"Your senses are too good, Mr. Monroe," I slurred through the wood.
"So, uh, are you gonna let me in?"
"Umm… Can you come back tomorrow? Better yet I'll come to your place after work… tomorrow."
"Renée? Are you okay? Just let me in."
I leaned against the door. No. He couldn't come in. No… "Umm… Not tonight, Monroe."
"Come on, man," he coaxed. "Open up."
"Not tonight," I drawled out. "Respect my wishes… please?"
"Renée, unlock the door." The tone was a bit more authoritative.
"No, Monroe. The only way you're getting inside is… is if you huff and puff and blow the door down." I laughed loudly. "'cause I can't let you in right now."
"Ha-ha, funny." Monroe replied sarcastically, but he wasn't laughing back. Well, maybe I wasn't a funny drunk after all. "You're kidding right?"
"Monroe, I'm too drunk to successfully argue, much less kid. But I'll be sober tomorrow and then it'll be good."
"From your song choice in there, it sure sounded like you wanted to see me," he said as his devilish grin permeated through the door. "And I kinda like you when you're drunk."
I'm sure he did, since I talked incessantly about nothing.
"It's not always incessant," Monroe replied, startling me. "And sometimes it's really good conversation. Sometimes it's even better than good."
Dammit, talking out of my head again. No, he couldn't come in.
"I won't stay long, I promise," he continued. "Don't leave me outside in the rain. That's not cool, man."
He had a point. That wasn't very nice.
"Fine, but you can't stay," I replied quickly, letting my manners take over. I unlocked the door, holding on to the doorknob to balance myself as it opened.
"See? Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" he asked as he walked inside, surveying me. He was dry as a bone.
"Hey, it's not raining." I squinted outside. "And hey, I have a roof over my porch even if it was." I'd been duped, big time.
"Well, it might rain, so you never know," he idly replied, like that was logical. Perhaps it was. I wasn't the best one to judge at the moment. "So, umm how many shots are you up to?"
"Uh…seven? Six? No, seven…" I said while leaning against the wall.
"Need some help?" he offered, holding out his arm.
I nodded slowly. I took his arm as we somehow made it to the couch in the living room.
"Any rhyme or reason for the self-debauchery?" Monroe asked, ensuring I was seated before letting me go. "Or were you just bored?"
"Stressed," I replied with confidence. One word answers were good. I'd keep going with those.
"Why are one word answers good?" he asked while tilting his head slightly.
"It's easier than trying to form… full sentences," I lied as I leaned back into the couch. If I just shut off my brain then I wouldn't say anything more.
"I was over at the spice shop today, and Rosalee mentioned you came in, asking for something to relax you," he said, resting his hand on my knee. "She was worried about you."
That darn Fuchsbau shared everything. "Yeah, work stuff. Been stressed," I managed to say. "How was your meeting?" I asked him. He needed to answer questions, not me.
"It was fine-ish." He cleared his throat as he said it. "Had to discuss some specific things, but it was better to talk them over than just hold on to them."
"Oh, God." I rolled my head toward him. "Did you talk about us and the…?" I sighed to complete my sentence since the words weren't coming.
"Yeah, well not everything. I mean, they still don't know you see what you do, and all. So, I mean, I kinda talked about the situation, just a little bit." He pinched his thumb and index finger together indicating his version of a little bit, but his voice pitched high on the word, 'kinda,' which meant he needed to spread those fingers wider apart.
"I don't think I want to know what you said," I groaned as my head rolled back.
"So, why weren't you answering your phone again?" he asked, cleverly changing the subject back to me. "It kept going straight to voicemail."
"It's off, so I don't drunk dial… anyone," I honestly replied, keeping my focus on the spinning ceiling. My brain was trying to push thoughts of Nick through, and it was taking all my mental faculties, as short staffed as they were in my drunken state, to keep them at bay.
"Well, no wonder it went to voicemail. You know that's not all that safe. Something might happen to you, or someone might need to get a hold of you, or I might leave more crazy voicemail messages… uh, like I did."
My head rolled toward him again. "Why are you here anyway?"
"Well, the first reason is because I was worried, hence the crazy voicemails, and the second reason is… when do I need a reason to want to see you?"
I stared at him, trying to interpret that sentence. My mental faculties could only do one thing at a time, so I gave up and just replied, "Oh."
"The big question is, why are you home, drunk, and listening to that messed up version of 'Lil Red Riding Hood' on some infinite loop?"
"I have a quite a few versions of that song, but that's a good one," I replied, dodging the question.
He scoffed then replied, "If you say so." His fingers trailed from my leg to my arm, then up to my shoulder. "So any reason you were listening to it?"
"Just thinking," I finally said. "I don't have a Helvetia where I can talk things out. I only have my music."
"Yeah, well, I guess you can't really share this stuff with Chloe, huh?" I caught him making a sour face before he added, "You don't tell her this stuff, right?"
"Monroe, you ought to know I don't," I replied as I chuckled. "She'd have killed you by now if I had."
"While that's, umm, not at all comforting." He shifted uneasily in his seat. "I guess it's probably better that she not know."
"No one knows. All my secrets stay right here." I attempted to tap my head, but almost hit my eye instead.
Monroe took my hand, gently setting it back in my lap. "I guess Grimms don't get the luxury of sharing their, uhh, secrets."
"Not these kinds." I sighed. "Not… at…. all." I swished my finger in time with the words. My brain was still pushing on thoughts of Nick, secrets I really couldn't share. I bit my tongue hard. I was too drunk for it to hurt, but maybe it would swell up and I'd be safe.
"Did you, uhh… wanna talk some more?" Monroe asked, curiously. "I mean, if it will help, then I'm willing to."
"Not like this." I shook my head as the world spun. "You're a lot of things to me, Mr. Monroe, but a therapist isn't one of them. Although… You'd look really sexy with your glasses, a bowtie, and maybe a pipe, sitting in a leather wingback chair and..." I bit my lip as I conjured the image. "Never mind." Wow, even I had heard that one come out aloud.
"No, you oughta keep going with this," he replied with an amused grin. "You have an odd sense of sexy, but now I'm interested where this leads."
"Hush." I scowled. "I'm drunk, and that's cheating."
He chuckled, brushing his fingers across my cheek. "Someday you'll learn."
"Don't listen to me right now. I'm having feelings, and smitteness, and emotions, and… lots and lots of emotions, and I'm in…" I held my breath, begging my drunkenness to shut up.
"And you're…?" Monroe queried. I glanced over to his smug grin. "I'm listening."
I'm sure I have a song that explains it," I replied. Maybe there was something that summed it all up, and then the song could say it, and it would be out there. Too bad no one had written one for something like this.
"It doesn't have to come from a song, Renée." He took my hand. "Your words are just fine."
"No…" I slurred. "My words are not good right now," I attempted to explain.
"Try it anyway," he coaxed.
Crap. I was too drunk for this. Too drunk for the verbal geyser to come shooting out of me and reveal every inch of my soul.
"What does a verbal geyser look like?" Monroe's grin widened.
"Like an alphabet soup explosion," I replied as I chuckled.
Laughing, Monroe said, "Well, how about you try words instead."
"Twitterpated," I replied. "I'm like completely twitterpated." Wait… That wasn't my word either. Wasn't that from Bambi? "I'm twitterpated and my feelings are spreading, and it's hard because I have to keep them locked away." I was quoting Disney. Yeah, the alcohol was winning tonight.
"The alcohol seems to have the unfair advantage, all right."
"Stop listening to what I'm trying to think," I said as I looked at him. "You're cheating again."
"It's not cheating if I can hear you," he reminded me.
"Let's talk about something else," I begged off.
"Okay. Let's go back to that other scenario. So I'm sitting in this wingback chair, right?" His fingers traced the collar of my shirt. "And you're lying on my couch, wearing…?"
"I'm drunk here on my couch, and I'm done talking about therapy." I held up a wavering finger at him. "Besides I've had my fair share of therapy for one lifetime, so…"
"You've had therapy before?" Monroe asked.
I nodded as the world spun a bit more. "Didn't I mention that?"
"Uh, no. But you seem to do that a lot with the, umm, not mentioning of things."
"Sorry," I replied. "The downfall to seeing this all your life is when you're young, you tell everyone what you see, because you don't know any better, and then you get pegged as crazy when they don't see what you do. I spoke of it so much my mom told my dad that I needed to see a child therapist. Dad tried to talk her out of it… And now I know why." I let out a sarcastic chuckle. "But Mom pushed, so I spent seven years off and on talking about my vivid imagination, popping pills, and drawing wonderfully accurate pictures of Wesen for my human therapists, who thought I was the most creatively eccentric child they'd ever seen." I was over sharing and rambling. I needed to just shut up.
"Wow, not so fun times," Monroe remarked, pulling me in close. My head dropped to his chest. "Sorry, you had to go through that, Hun. And here I thought just talking at my meetings was difficult."
"I'm sure your meetings don't involve crayons and puppets."
"No puppets, but we did have a mime come sit in once. He wasn't very, umm, open to the idea of verbally sharing, though."
"Why does a mime go to a meeting to talk about…? Never mind." I was too drunk to try to figure that one out. I closed my eyes as Monroe's heartbeat lulled me a bit. "If it wasn't for Chloe, I'd probably still be in therapy. She saved me from a future life of insanity. I owe that bunny of mine everything. And then I don't listen to her when she's probably right about what I should do… When I know she always knows. Okay… Well, she told me not to get involved with you at first, which wasn't right, but then she told me to choose you instead of…" My hand somehow found its way to my mouth before I kept going.
"Instead of…?" Monroe questioned.
Thoughts of Nick tumbled from my mental filing cabinets, so I held my mouth until the mental faculties could corral them back inside.
Once it seemed safe, I replied, "You saved her life, so now she thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread. I think she's creating a Monroe fan club." I laughed louder than I'd meant to. That part was the truth. I just needed to stop talking.
"Really?" he chuckled. "Glad I'm in her good graces. We need to, uh, keep her amenable."
"Yeah." I nodded into his chest, stifling a yawn. Amenable meant…? Oh, too drunk and tired to recall. "If I keep my head here much longer, your heartbeat is gonna put me to sleep."
Monroe stroked my hair, and I nuzzled his chest a bit. He was so good, just like the 'Lil' Red Riding Hood' song said.
"I'm trying," he murmured. "Just try to, you know, make it easier on me, okay?"
I was beyond thinking internally. Shifting my head, I looked up at him. "I'm sorry for the huff and puff comment earlier."
"I'll forgive you this time," he said. "Thanks for letting me in, so I didn't have to use gale force." Tapping his chest, he took in a deep breath. "The ol' lungs might be a little out of practice."
"I have wind damage insurance," I replied. "I would've been covered." Was he kidding? I was too drunk to know for sure.
"Kidding?" He smirked. "Guess you haven't gotten to that part of the books yet, huh?"
"Guess not." Nope, none of my words were safe in my brain.
While laughing, Monroe slid his hand down my back. "I still dunno why you put up such a fight with me coming in, though. You got an answer for that one, man?"
"Because I'm stupid when I'm drunk," I mumbled. That was the truth, too.
"Drunk, yes. Stupid, no," Monroe replied, leaning down to kiss me.
"I'm more stupid than you know," I said against his lips. It was pointless saying it in my head, because he'd figure it out soon enough anyway.
A/N: Chapter 100! Woot!
So the Grimms just couldn't stay apart a whole weekend... Oh well...
Poor Renée has found her way back to the tequila again. I love, love, love Bowling for Soup's rendition of "Lil' Red Riding Hood." Check it out, it's on YouTube.
I love the word twitterpated. It's a wonderful word. (:
In an effort to maintain accuracy, your author has "researched" many tequila shots to ensure the state of drunkenness for these kinds of scenes. (I think I might have been drunk when I wrote this one... Not sure if I remember.) Only the best for my readers, and I will sacrifice sobriety for my craft if that's what it takes. LOL!
Somehow Renée was able to keep her thoughts about Nick inside her drunken head, although there were some close calls.
2 chapters to go tonight and only 20 chapters left in this story...