Page 51 of All Bets Are Off

“It’s curtains for him,” Connor says.

Sprawled across one of the beds like a sunburnt starfish, Liam is already asleep on his stomach with his face buried deep into a pillow. I heave a sigh and sit down on the edge of the bed next to him, unscrewing the cap from one of the waters.

“Liam?” I say gently in a quiet voice, my hand rubbing his back in an attempt to stir him to consciousness. “Babe? You can sleep this off, but you need to drink some water first. Here, take some of this.”

With a grumble, Liam lifts his head from the pillow. He doesn’t even open his eyes as I press the bottle to his dry, dehydrated lips and force some water down him. It splashes down his chin and onto the bedsheets. Oops. He’s too drunk to care about the wet spot, and promptly passes back out.

I cast a hopeless look over my shoulder at Connor. He’s watching from the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t think we should leave him here alone. What if he throws up and chokes to death?” I ask, glancing back down at Liam with a deep line of concern etched into my forehead. “I’m going to stay here with him. You can get showered and head back out to meet up with the guys again. Well, maybe not Theo, because he’s on the loose with Hailey . . . But I’m sure John and Tyler are desperate to hit the casino again.”

“It’s your bachelorette party, Addy,” Connor reminds me. “You’re not spending your Saturday night camped out in this hotel room listening to Liam snore off the tequila.”

“He’s my fiancé,” I remind him. “I’m going to look after his sorry drunken ass.” I tighten the cap back on the water and set down all of the bottles on the bedside table alongside the pack of Tylenol. Next time he flits into semi-consciousness, I’ll force those pills down his throat, too.

“I’ll stay with him,” Connor says, and my gaze finds his again. “I’ll keep an eye on him while you go and get yourself a warm shower. I promise he will not die on my watch.”

That’s a big promise from someone who has been actively trying to sabotage his best friend’s relationship. I shouldn’t trust Connor to have Liam’s best interests at heart, but also . . . It’s Connor. Our Connor. The world would burn before he’d ever let anything bad happen to the people he cares about, no matter how pissed at them he is.

“Okay,” I agree with a small nod of defeat. Before I leave, I pull off Liam’s shoes and remove his shirt, adjust the pillows, pull the thin sheets over him. I press a quick kiss to his temple and reassure him, “I’ll be back soon,” even though he’s sleeping soundly.

When I brush past Connor on my way to the door, he says, “Take your time. You don’t need to rush.”

But of course I rush—down the corridor, into the elevator, and all the way to my own room. My head feels heavy with too many worries, because I can never just shrug my shoulders and roll with the waves. I can’t stand the way this weekend is spiraling out of my control. Hailey’s perfect plan has gone to hell, Liam is out for the count, Evie is God only knows where doing God only knows what . . . Don’t even get me started on the unpredictability of Connor and what move he’ll pull next. Instead of enjoying my bachelorette weekend, I am just a bundle of stress and nerves.

I push open the door to my hotel room and—holy shit.

There’s already someone here. Two people, actually, whose heads spin to look at me in surprise at the same time I jolt backward into the doorframe, hand over my chest in fear. Talk about a damn heart attack.

“There you two are!” I exhale a long breath of relief that the intruders in my hotel room are not intruders at all—they have the familiar faces of Hailey and Theo. She’s hunched over the desk, he’s sprawled out across her bed. “Where have you guys been? Why did you leave the pool party?”

Hailey hastily shuts her MacBook and stands from the desk chair. “Oh, Addy! We’re sorry. We—”

“We weren’t enjoying it,” Theo finishes for her. He pushes himself up onto his elbows on the bed, and Hailey flashes him a stern look, before turning timidly back to me.

“Of course we were enjoying it—”

“No, Hails, we absolutely were not,” Theo interrupts again, and I just stare blankly at the pair of them, wondering what exactly is going on here.

It dawns on me that Hailey has obviously brought my brother back to our hotel room, which is incredibly out of character for her to willingly spend time with Theo. Is Evie . . . right? Is there something going on between Hailey and Theo? Unless I’m misreading this, and Theo has somehow barged in here to bug her, which is very possible.

“We left the pool party because it was too loud and too busy, and we didn’t let you know because you were occupied whipping your hair around in the mosh pit,” Theo continues. “We saw some sights, grabbed some food, and now we’re just . . . hanging out. Decompression time. Silence and some cool AC. Is that a problem?”

I furrow my brows at him, somewhat skeptical. When I look at Hailey, she smiles sweetly, but with cheeks tainted pink. Maybe I’d put the pressure on and straight up ask the question, “Are you guys into each other or something?” if I wasn’t in such a desperate rush to get back to Liam. But for now, it’s an issue that can wait. I’ll bury my head in the sand in the meantime.

“Everyone can do whatever they want this weekend,” I respond, throwing in the towel. “Tonight’s plans are out the window, anyway. Liam is messed up, so I need to get back over there to check on him.”

“See, that’s what pool parties do to you,” Theo says. “Mess you up. Look at me and Hails. We rode a gondola and are sober enough to actually remember it.”

“You rode a—never mind.” I squeeze my eyes shut, shake my head, then throw my purse down onto my bed and tear off my bridal sash. “I’m taking a shower. Is there a reason why you still need to be here, Theo?”

“Don’t be like that, Addy.” But he sits up properly now, swinging his legs off Hailey’s bed and getting to his feet. Maybe he can tell by my weary and drunk expression that I’m not in the mood right now to deal with that playful nature of his that I usually adore. He awkwardly steps around Hailey, very careful not to touch her, and gives her a small smile. “Catch you later, Hails.”

Silence falls over the room as Theo heads out the door.

“Addy . . .” Hailey says meekly, like she has something to tell me.

“Don’t want to hear it,” I say, my tone sharper than I intend, as I turn away and hold up a hand to silence her. “Not right now, Hailey. I can’t.”