Free One Shot Too Many by Nikki Winter

One Shot Too Many
     
    Chapter One
     
    Two a.m. It was two a.m. Yet the asshole banging on her door apparently hadn’t caught that memo. Billy Calleira ran a hand down her face, trying to wipe some of the blurriness from her eyes. For a second she considered lying in bed and pretending she didn’t hear him, but then came, “Biiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllllyyyyyyy! Open the door! Pleeeeeeeeease. I need to....I need to talk to you.” Pause. “It’s....It’s important. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllyyyyyyyyyy.”
    Her brows lowered. “Oh Jesus Christ.” She knew that voice. With a groan, Billy slid out of bed as the banging and the pleas continued. Finally she reached her condo’s front door and stood on her tiptoes to peer through the peephole.
    With a roll of her eyes and another groan, she unlocked the door and swung it open. “Noah? What the hell are you doing here?”
    Barely holding his six-foot-four frame up, Noah Perugino—her fiancé’s best friend—squinted down at her from the hallway of her building, the glare of the scattered lights no doubt burning his eyes. “Need...need to talk to you.”
    The smell of whiskey reached out and wrapped itself around her olfactory glands. With a grimace, she backed away. “You’re drunk.”
    One side of his mouth curled and he spread his arms out wide. “I’m not drunk.” He stumbled then chuckled a bit. “I’m just a little…” Pause. “ Fuzzy around the edges.”
    Billy rubbed her temples. “Noah, why are you here? You’re supposed to be doing that bullshit last-night-as-a-single-man thing with Kasey.” Otherwise known as the man she was set to marry in just a week; a man she had more and more doubts about each day. Not to mention she was partially in love with the blasted-off-his-ass fool standing in front of her, but that was really neither here nor there. She couldn’t have Noah.
    It was something she’d accepted from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him four years prior—courtesy of Kasey. She and Kasey had only been dating a month, but things had been going well enough. The pair had met at a late night sports bar, only introducing themselves after getting into a rather entertaining argument about that year’s Super Bowl.
    Kasey had asked her out, and at the time Billy found him too cute to pass up. That changed in no time. Kasey was still cute. And apparently too cute to ever have any time for her anymore. Three years later, and every day she wondered what would’ve happened if it had been Noah that she’d met first—Noah, who ironically was supposed to be with Kasey that night at the bar.
    The day she’d met Noah was the day her life changed. One look at him and she was lost.
    You can’t have him. It was a thought she had often. Despite Kasey’s constant absence as of late, she was going to marry him, she was going to love him, and she was going to be happy.
    Liar.
    Noah’s ice-blue eyes narrowed on her before he glanced up at the ceiling and then quickly down at the floor. “We did dooooooooo that.” He bit his bottom lip. “But I …left because...because...”
    Billy started away from the door. “I’m calling you another cab.”
    Noah reached out and gently gripped her forearm before he pouted, the hard angles of his face suddenly turning boyish as he shook his head slowly. “Noooo...I came all the way here just to talk to you.” He pressed his index finger to her nose. “I always thought this was cute.”
    Okay... Billy sighed. “Noah, you need to go home.”
    He frowned as he ran a hand through the short-cropped black curls on his head. “No! I want to talk to you!” Noah shouted.
    Billy heard Mrs. Heche’s door open from across the hall; her neighbor was otherwise known as the “Hallway Nazi from yore.” Nosey old sow was standing in her doorway, glaring like an old-school principal.
    She looked back to her uninvited guest. “Jesus. Keep your voice down.”
    Noah leaned down until they were nose to nose. “Either you