Bounded By The Brother

STRANGER

Lily's POV

It was strange. He didn't compliment my hair, nor my lips like most other men would. He didn't even try to make me laugh. He simply sat in silence and drank like we had an unspoken agreement to be miserable together.

Then he spoke.

“Why have you been crying?”

“I haven't been,” I said without looking at him.

“Your face says otherwise.”

I remained silent. The bartender was wiping the counter at the far end. The stripper had left the stage. The crowd had almost decreased to nothing.

“Did you lose a loved one?”

“No.”

“Then what happened?”

I turned my head sharply, frowning.

“Maybe it's none of your business.”

He smiled gently. “You are a hard one.”

He didn't push further. He just resumed his drinking. Seven rounds. He didn't stop. He just kept drinking shot after shot after shot, long after I had given up. His words began to slur, and his body started leaning sideways on the stool like a tree, hesitating whether to fall right or left.

I managed to grab him before he hit the floor. His weight nearly took me down from the stool.

No music. No laughter. The club was empty. Just me and this stranger.

“Nova,” he slurred. “Take me home.”

I kept my eyes on this stranger leaning against me in a bar that was about to close and thought about how nothing had gone the way I wanted it to. He looked exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that doesn't get fixed by mere sleep.

“I’m not Nova,” I said.

He didn't hear me.

It was late. The bartender wanted to leave. There was no one else at the club. The music was off and the man beside me was barely conscious.

“He's been here since nine,” the bartender said, hurriedly arranging shot glasses in their crate.

“Did you know him?” he asked.

“No.”

He glanced at the door. “I have a bus to catch. Can you get him to his car? I'll call his estate.”

I glanced at the slumped white-haired man and a dangerous feeling of responsibility settled in my mind.

Guiding him to the black SUV outside the club was more difficult than I imagined. His weight pressed down on me and he kept mumbling sentences I couldn't make out.

I finally got him to the car and helped him sit in the driver's seat. I was already exhausted.

“Stay here,” I said to him. “The bartender is calling your estate. Someone is coming.”

I turned back to leave, then heard the engine turned on.

“Are you out of your mind?” I yanked the door open and forced the key out of the ignition. “You are not driving like this.”

He muttered a statement I couldn't pick out.

I stood on that empty and silent street waiting for the estate security to come, making sure a stranger didn't kill himself. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then twenty. No one showed up.

Did the bartender lie? He was long gone. The street was empty except for the hooded figure that popped out of a corner. The figure disappeared back into the shadows but a moment later, he came back with two other guys. My heart trembled.

I hurried back to the car, almost tripping on the gravel ground.

“I will drive you home,” I said, climbing into the driver's seat.

“Where do you live?” I had to shake him hard before he replied.

“Hopston Estate,” he mumbled.

Hopston Estate? The kind of place you can't enter without an invitation. The estate that had its own security team. I had never had a reason to be there even though I'd lived in the city all my life.

The drive to the estate was quiet except for his occasional mumbling and the gentle hum of the car. At one point, he turned his head toward me and said quietly.

“My mom passed away.”

My fingers loosened around the steering wheel.

We were the same tonight. Two people trying to drink away the pain of loss. I had lost the man I thought loved me. He had lost his mother.

Him taking ten shots of Long Island alcohol made sense all at once.

Was he looking for a grief partner? Maybe that was why he asked if I had lost someone I loved.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

He didn't respond, but I was not sure he heard me.

When we reached the gate of the estate, the security took one look at him before they took the car and drove him in after I answered several questions.

One of them offered to drive me home. I accepted without argument because I was tired.

It was already 1 a.m by the time I got back to my apartment, an old looking bungalow on the edge of the street.

I forced myself to take a shower. The water was cold but I didn't mind.

After several minutes in bed, sleep still didn't come. I just lay there with my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

My mind was heavily clouded. How would I settle my mother's medical bill now that Dorian had fired me?

I had thought the alcohol would numb my pain, but the image of Dorian's mouth locked with Bella's was scarred into my mind.

I wish I hadn't met him.

There were signs but I chose to ignore them. When he introduced me to his friends as a staff member and not his girlfriend, I should have known that he didn’t love me. He was only using me.

Do you expect him to be with you forever? Bella's sharp voice echoed just as it had been doing all night.

The more I thought about that statement, the more I felt like losing my memory and starting my life afresh.

I closed my eyes, telling myself this too shall pass.

But I wasn't sure I believed it.