“So serious and bitter.” My mouth twists in amusement. “It wasn’t so bad.”
She gasps lightly, her mouth a small “O” as she blinks, and again, before she shutters it, there’s more naked emotion in her face than I thought she possessed. She gains control of it quickly, her eyes locked to mine. And then she crawls across the ten feet of space between us, onto my lap, straddling me, her knees at my hips. Kissing me, at first softly and then hard, like punishment, she wraps her arms around my neck, her nails piercing the skin through my t-shirt as her fingers rake across my shoulders and she grinds her pelvis against mine. Despite the alcohol in my blood, my body responds, though perhaps because of the alcohol in my blood, I don’t realize what she’s doing.
Without warning she recoils and slides off my lap, forcing my hands away from where they grip her waist. “It wasn’t so good, either.” Her tone is disinterested and her smile, glacial. She pushes herself upright and walks an erratic path to her bathroom, dismissing me. “You can go now, Reid. I want nothing from you.”
I stand and laugh, watch how her shoulders tighten at the sound. “Right. I forgot for a moment what a cold bitch you are, Brooke. I remember now. Don’t worry, you’re not nearly as difficult to leave as you assume.”
“Fuck you,” she says as I pull the door open. I chuckle as it shuts behind me, seemingly unaffected.
When I get to my room it takes every effort of restraint not to put a hole through the goddamned wall. Brooke was my first, and I was hers. We were young and stupid and for a brief space in time, I thought I loved her. I hadn’t, of course, any more than she loved me. As much as I wish I was unaffected by her, that’s impossible. No reason I can’t conceal it, though.
*** *** ***
Emma
While the room spins, I lie across the bed, calculating how many shots I had tonight. Definitely more than I’ve done before in one sitting. Running in the morning is out of the question; so much for new good habits. I remember to text Emily just before my battery dies, though the message is probably an incomprehensible jumble of letters, since the buttons on my phone keep shuffling.
I wake to a tapping noise and at first I’m convinced it’s coming from inside my head. I crack an eye open. My mouth feels like someone has wallpapered it with felt. Tap-tap-tap. Nope, definitely the door. The clock on the nightstand says it’s not quite ten a.m.
On my toes, I peer out the peephole. I unlock the door, open it a sliver and squint in the bright hallway lighting. “Graham?”
He holds up a lidded cup with a Starbucks label and smiles. “Go brush your teeth and splash some water on your face.”
“Graham, I look, and feel, like shit.”
He slips into my room. “Go on, it’ll help. How do you take your coffee?” He walks to the desk with the coffees, pulling packets of sugar and cream out of his pockets.
I sigh, unable to argue with a head full of cotton. “Gimme the works.” Obediently, I go into the bathroom and close the door behind me. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull my hair into a ponytail, avoiding the mirror as much as possible while doing so, which isn’t too difficult since my eyes refuse to open fully.
When I come out, he hands me the cup.
“How are you up, and feeling this—” I snap my fingers “—this… what’s the word…” I gesture towards him, then rub my eyes and sit on the bed.
“Unhungover?”
“That’s the word.”
“Well, I outweigh you by at least seventy pounds. That’s pretty much the secret.” He moves a pair of shoes from the desk chair to the floor and sits down.
“So you never get hungover?”
“I wouldn’t say that. But I took it easy last night while everyone else got plastered with the help of high school party games.”
“Didn’t have any fun, huh?” I say, taking a sip and closing my eyes.
“Last night was fun in its own way.”
“Meaning?”
He watches me, sipping his coffee and sitting back with one foot resting on top of the opposite knee. “Mmm. I’d like to know what you thought.”
“I’m just glad we didn’t play spin-the-bottle or… well, I’m not a fan of the whole, uh, kissing game concept…”
He sips his coffee, considering. “Yeah, me neither.”
“I thought guys liked those kinds of games.”
His lashes sweep down, hiding his eyes. “I’m not really a games sorta guy.” I think about that while he sips his coffee, and then, in what I’m starting to realize is a typical maneuver for him, he changes the subject completely. “Think you might be up for brunch and some shopping?”
A guy who wants to shop? “You aren’t going to lure me into a sporting goods place or a comic book store, are you?”
“I was thinking bookstore. But if you’re into comics…”
“No, please. Bookstore yes; comics no.” I briefly dated a guy last year who was into comics. He never stopped talking about them, even when I threatened to start talking about Gilmore Girls reruns. I know more about comic books than any girl ever wants to know.
“Finish your coffee, get ready, and I’ll be back in, say, forty-five minutes?” He stands and moves towards the door.
As I shower, I realize that Graham completely sidestepped my question about his comment that last night was “fun in its own way.” I’m definitely not running on all cylinders, as my father would say.