Tethered Hearts | ✓ | Books 1 & 2

Episode 67| Dark Days

Bryce's P.O.V.

Before our trip to Las Vegas, I reorganized my home. I did this to calm the nervousness that was bound to slam into me like a storm on the day of the wedding. Sophia didn't know about the investigation. Something told me that I had to tell her before her bachelorette party in Nevada, but the other part of me – the less sensible part – procrastinated on the talk with Sophia.

It can wait.

It can wait until tomorrow, I said again and again. Or the day after tomorrow.

I was running out of excuses – fast. I wasn't making this easier on anyone the longer I waited, causing more harm than helping if I kept this from her. I didn't know how she'd react. Her relationship with her father had improved since the news of the wedding, meaning that this could end in only two ways.

The first option was obvious. She'd call the wedding off and the only thing she would vowed to would be to never speak to me again. The second outcome was that she'd let this pass and not wish death upon me. This was unlikely, given that I had waited so long.

On the drive to Las Vegas, I occupied myself. This would be the hardest forty-eight hours of my life. I would tell her now – right this second – but we were in two separate vehicles. Conner drove the car I was in. Kelsey was the driver for the vehicle all the girls were in (and Nicolas). We were both going to the same hotel, but on different floors. And from how Kelsey explained the night to me, she'd do her best to keep Sophia away from me.

"Lighten the fuck up!" Anthony elbowed me. "Why the hell do you look so damn mopey."

"Someone get him a drink." Ernie commented from the passenger seat. "That'll help."

"It won't." I grumbled, but Anthony threw a bottle of beer at me anyway. Using the lighter in my back pocket, I popped open the top.

"You smoke?" Anthony raised his brows. "I didn't know that."

"I don't smoke." I rectified. "At least not cigarettes."

"You haven't smoked pot since freshman year," Conner noted. "You would always bitch about the stench. What made you change your tune?"

"Are you freaking out about the wedding?" Anthony nudged me and I suppressed the impulse to flick my lighter at his eye. God, he was a real nuisance. "Huh? Huh? Is that is?"

"No, that's not the case." I took my first sip, wiping my upper lip of the fizzy liquid that splashed on me from lifting it too far. My motor skills were slowing down. Maybe not seeing Sophia tonight was a positive. I thought the pot would've helped get my thoughts in order, but it only made me oddly thirsty, hungry, and mellowed out.

None of those things helped create a plan to tell Sophia I was putting her father in prison. I chugged half the bottle, letting it drown out my worries. Warmth spread to my cheeks and all over my body, reaching my toes as the pungent taste of alcohol washed down my throat. I felt good – for once.

"Give me another bottle." I demanded.

"I just gave you that one." Anthony pointed at the empty green glass bottle I had dropped on to the floorboard. "W—"

"I said give me another one." I ordered. "You guys bought a lot."

"Okay, okay." Anthony caved, handing me another with the top removed. I knocked my head back instantly. "Hey, slow down. You're going to be passed out on the hotel floor if you don't pace yourself."

I temporarily paused to curse him out, then went back to consuming the beverage. My threshold was high. I'd need a lot more to get me to become black-out drunk. I could thank my two-year long crippling depression after Julia's death. I had a tolerance level that some would either call impressive or undoubtedly troubling.