I'm a little unsteady ( Evansson )

2am

CHAPTER ONE

The buzzing noise from his phone's vibrations on his night table woke him up. A soft grunt left his lips as he tilted his head to one side of his bed. The alarm clock marked 2:31am. He wasn't going to answer. Whatever it was it could wait until the morning.

Chris tried to convince himself of that, but there was no way of stopping a man's curiosity. And besides, he started wondering if it could be an emergency or something really important. For the person's sake in the other end of the phone, he hoped it was.

"Can you come and pick me up? I have a few drinks on me and I don't want to call a cab." When he read those words in a form of a text message, the blue-eyed male allowed a deep sigh to escape his lips as he stood up from his bed, without thinking twice.

There was only one woman on earth – perhaps the universe that could actually make him get out of bed and leave his house at 2:30 in the morning. That woman had short blonde hair, perfectly full lips, turquoise green eyes, fair skin, a smile that could leave someone breathless, and an attitude and determination that would make her conquer the world someday.

He was still in sweat pants and a hoodie when he got to his vehicle, but before proceeding to start the engine and drive off he responded to her text. "Where are you? Send me your location."

Chris was about to drive away from his garage when another text stopped him. "I don't know? Some bar... Oh yeah, I'll send you my location." He couldn't help to roll his eyes when he read those words, mainly because he could actually hear the smart ass tone in her voice in the first 5 words.

He finally found her at Elevate Lounge on Wilshire Blvd, sitting on a barstool while circling the edge of her martini glass with her index finger. He was surely underdressed but it's not like he actually cared about that, all he wanted was to make sure she was safe.

"Scarlett, what's going on?" Chris inquired when he approached her.

"Hey, Chrissy. Uh, not much? What's going on with you?" The blonde gave him a smile and for a moment she made him forget the reason why he was there. That seemed to happen too often for his liking, she had always had that effect on him.

"I'll tell you about it in the car, c'mon." He placed a hand around her tiny waist so he could help her get down from the stool. She was several inches shorter than he was, and he couldn't help to feel protective of her when he had her around.

"Hey, you're okay. Where do you want me to take you?" Chris had one hand on the wheel but his eyes kept drifting to the woman in the passenger seat, who was looking out the window. She didn't seem okay, and he was starting to get worried.

"Scarlett."

"I'm sorry – what's that?" The blonde turned around to face him this time.

"That's it." Chris made an abrupt turn and he parked the vehicle just when they got to Calabasas. "I want you to tell me why you were drinking alone. Why you called me to come and get you at 2 in the morning. Because I know you, and I know this isn't you."

"Does it ever happen to you that you try your hardest – at something, anything because you really don't want to make the same mistakes you made in the past? You want to do everything differently. And you swore you were doing things different. In a better way, because you were actually trying and not giving up. But it turns out that no matter how hard you tried – it was for nothing, because your hardest just wasn't good enough." Scarlett began to speak so fast that Chris had a hard time understanding every word that had come out of her mouth.