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.

My mind went straight to my sister, Sammie. I wondered how she would’ve enjoyed this interaction with Oliver. I wondered if she would’ve been irritated or completely smitten with the drunken man in front of me. I wondered if she would’ve sung along with him.

When we entered my apartment, I was finally able to let him go. He stumbled back and forth, running into side tables and lamps—which I caught before they shattered to the ground.

“Okay,” he muttered, as if someone had said something to him.

“What’s that?” I asked, confused.

“Bathroom,” he said, swaying back and forth.

“Right, of course. It’s right over—” I started to gesture toward my bathroom, but my words were cut off by the sound of a small waterfall happening behind my back. I whipped around at the speed of light to find Oliver, my idol, my celebrity crush, peeing straight into my houseplant. “What are you doing?”

“It needed water,” he mumbled.

My breath caught in my throat as I stared in shock. Even in his drunken state, Oliver Smith wasn’t lacking down below. My cheeks felt as if they’d been set on fire.

I turned my stare away from his body, trying to shake off the awkwardness of the whole situation. “Well, uh, perhaps we should get you to sleep. You can crash on the couch if you want and—” I glanced back toward him, and my eyes widened when I saw that now not only was Oliver showing me his lower half, but he seemed to have taken off his T-shirt, too, revealing his shredded abs. It turned out even whiskey couldn’t take those away.

And somehow, Oliver managed to slip completely out of his pants and boxers, so now there he was. Standing butt-ass naked in my living room with his hands on his hips like Superman, still swaying back and forth.

Just how I envisioned my first-ever night alone with Oliver—having him stand as a drunken, naked superhero.

“What are you doing?” I gasped, trying not to look at his penis, but still, kind of looking at his penis.

“Let’s do this,” he hiccupped, wiping his penis hand against his mouth again.

“Do what?”

“The sex.”

The sex?

He actually said “the sex.”

“What? No. We aren’t having sex, Oliver. Put on your clothes.”

“Why are you naked in my house if we aren’t having sex, then?” he asked, hiccupping as he gestured toward me.

“Um, what?”

I legit had to look down at my body to make sure I was still fully dressed and hadn’t accidentally tossed my clothes to the side of the room due to my idol standing before me.

It was clear that he was so far gone that he hadn’t even a clue what he was saying. I wondered how embarrassed sober Oliver would be when morning came and he realized his actions—if he’d even remember them.

I cringed at the uncomfortable sight taking place in front of me. “Please just put on your clothes, Oliver.”

“You put on your clothes first,” he argued.

I glanced back and forth around my apartment, somewhat thinking I was oddly being Punk’d. Or perhaps I’d slipped into a coma somewhere along the line, and all of this was a very weird manifestation of my mind.

Either way, I needed Oliver to put on his clothes, because the longer he stayed naked, the more uncomfortable it all became. Yet he seemed determined to not get dressed until I put on my clothes first.

So, like a complete weirdo, I began putting on invisible clothing in front of him.

“Okay, all dressed,” I stated, placing my hands on my hips.

“All right, I’m going to bed.” He lifted up all of his clothes and headed to Reese’s bedroom. Before I could stop him, he was already crashed headfirst into her twin-size bed.

And there he was, folks. My Prince Charming, butt naked, passed out on my daughter’s Disney princess bedsheets.

Oh, was it a sight to see. I had to say, his butt was quite plump in all the right ways.

I closed the bedroom door and headed straight for my kitchen for the bottle of two-buck wine I kept in the top cabinet for emergencies.

After that night, I needed a drink.

Or maybe the whole bottle.

5

OLIVER

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I awakened with the strongest pounding to my head, completely unaware of what had taken place the night before to get me to that level of pain. I groaned as I felt a repeated poking feeling in my left side.

I groaned again as I sat up on my elbows. My head felt as if it was splitting into two from the simple sitting-up motion, so I lay back down. Why did my face hurt so much?

“Hey, mister, are you dead?” a voice asked.

A small, tiny voice.

Why would I be in a place with a small voice? I opened my eyes and looked over to the tiny figure standing beside me. A young girl stood there repeatedly stabbing me in the gut with a Barbie doll.

“What are you doing?” I muttered. “Where the hell am I?” I asked, swatting my hand toward the doll for her to stop.

Her mouth dropped open. “You owe a quarter to the swear jar!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”