by Amanda Abram
Jase shook his head and scoffed. “I'd like to see you make me, O'Connor.”
So that's what Zach did. Or, at least, attempted to do. He swung out his fist, but Jase was too quick. He dodged the hit and before Zach knew what was happening, Jase plowed into him, pushing him back onto the bed much like I had only a few minutes earlier, but for a very different reason.
“You guys!” I screeched. “Stop it!” I made an attempt to grab one of them, either one, to pry them apart, but it was useless. I was useless.
“What's going on in here?” a voice demanded from the doorway. I turned to see Eric looking in on the scene in horror. “What the...”
Quickly, he moved in, rushing over to the bed and taking hold of Jase and removing him from Zach. “What the hell is going on?”
Zach rolled off the bed and stood. His hair was all disheveled. It was sexy. “Ask Romeo over there,” he said, pointing at Jase.
Eric turned to his best friend. “Jase?”
Jase, who was breathing heavily and sporting some sexy disheveled hair of his own, glared once more at Zach before saying, “That bastard got Lex drunk and then tried having sex with her. I walked in on them making out on the bed.”
Eric's jaw dropped in shock. He sent a glare Zach's way as well. “What the hell, Zach? That wasn't part of the plan!”
The room fell silent as Jase and I both glanced at Eric in confusion.
“Plan?” Jase said. “What 'plan'?”
Eric's eyes grew wide. His face turned a light shade of pink as his mouth clamped shut. He looked as though maybe he'd said too much.
“You know what?” Zach said, throwing his hands up in the air. “You're right, Eric. This wasn't part of the plan. I didn't sign up for this.” He pointed to his mouth, which was starting to swell where Jase had hit him.
He turned to Jase. “Go ahead and take her home.” And then he turned to me and said, in a softer voice, “Lexi, I'm really sorry about all of this.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze before stepping back, turning around, and leaving the bedroom.
“Eric?” Jase turned his gaze onto his friend. The expression on his face told me he was waiting for some sort of explanation.
He didn't get one.
“I should...go...” Eric mumbled, before slowly backing out of the room.
He bumped into Kylie on his way out.
I had no idea how long she'd been standing there, or whether or not she'd witnessed the fight between her boyfriend and Zach. My guess was that she had been standing there long enough, judging from the frown on her face.
“I'm taking Lex home,” he informed her. “She's drunk and shouldn't be here.”
I expected her to protest, but she didn't. Instead, she simply nodded and stepped aside to let us through.
“I promise I'll come back for you later.”
“Don't bother,” she said. ”I'll just get a ride home with Stacey.”
Even in my drunken state, I couldn't help but think it was kind of weird that she didn't seem upset that her boyfriend was leaving the party with another girl. But maybe it wasn't weird at all. She'd said it herself: Jase didn't want me, so she knew she had nothing to worry about.
“Come on.” Jase took my hand in his. “We're leaving.”
He proceeded to lead me out of the room, out of the house.
The air outside was cold and when the breeze hit my skin, I shivered. It was such a welcome sensation, though, because I'd been feeling so hot inside the house.
And then, I was in a car.
The car was moving.
The radio was playing music, but it was turned way down low.
I was staring out the window and all I could see was darkness.
I looked over at Jase. He was driving. He kept looking over at me and asking questions.
I could only give him mumbled responses that I'm sure made absolutely no sense at all.
We pulled into a driveway.
It wasn't my driveway.
It was his.
A tight feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach. Nausea.
I was going to be sick.
Jase helped me out of the car. He slipped an arm around my back as we began to walk up the driveway. He kept me steady, kept me standing.
“Jase,” I said. I stopped.
He turned to me, concern etched onto his gorgeous face.
“I think I'm going to be sick.”
I pushed him away and headed for the grass. I only made it about three steps before I dropped to my knees, hunched over, and began to hurl.
Instantly, I felt my hair being pulled away from my face and gathered at the back of my neck. I felt a gentle, comforting hand stroking my back as every bit of alcohol I'd had to drink in the last hour or so made its very unpleasant exit onto the ground before me.
“It's okay,” Jase said behind me. His voice was soft and reassuring.
“Jase?”
Trish's voice came from the front door.
“What are you—” She stopped talking when she saw me, and then she rushed out of the house and ran over to us. “Oh my God, Lexi! Are you okay?”
When I didn't respond, she turned to her brother. “Is she okay? What's wrong with her?”
“She's drunk.”
“What?!”
I glanced over at her and gave her a weak smile. “I'm drunk.”
“But...” She shook her head in disbelief. “You've only been gone for, like, ten minutes! How did this happen?”
Ten minutes. That was a bit of an exaggeration. I think.
Jase put his arms around me again and helped me up from the ground. “I'll give you three guesses.”
Trish didn't need that many. “Zach,” she growled.
“Yep.”
“No.” I shook my head back and forth so forcefully it hurt my head. “Don't blame Zach. He didn't even know I was drinking. And I was the one who initiated what was happening in the bedroom, not him. In fact, when you walked in, he was in the process of trying to stop it.”
“The bedroom?” Trish squealed. “What happened in the bedroom?”
Jase held up a hand as if to tell her to calm down. “It doesn't matter right now, okay? We need to get her inside. Mom and Dad aren't home yet?”
“No. They called a while ago and said they wouldn't be home until after midnight.”
“Good. Go make some coffee, she's going to need it. And get her a glass of water.”
With a nod, Trish turned and ran back into the house.
I was about to follow her, but before I knew what was happening, I was being lifted off the ground as Jase picked me up into his arms. I didn't even try to fight it. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck, rested my head against his shoulder and closed my eyes.
The next time I opened them, I was being set down onto a bed.
Trish's bed.
“Stay here,” he instructed and then left the room.
Like I was going to go anywhere. I felt as though I were on a merry-go-round. Or the teacups ride.
A minute later he returned, holding onto what looked like a washcloth. Sitting beside me on the bed, he lightly dabbed the cool, wet cloth against my face.
“Feeling any better?”
I shook my head. “I'm dying, aren't I?”
He chuckled softly. “No, you're not dying. You're just going to be wishing that you were.”
He wasn't lying. I already was.
After a few moments, he tossed the towel aside and brushed a strand of my hair away from my face. He studied me for a moment. I couldn't read the expression on his face, but I could at least tell he wasn't happy.
“What you said, about initiating things with Zach...” He glanced down at his lap. “Is that true? I mean, you wanted it to happen?”
“Yes.” I nodded, feeling ashamed.
“Why?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
I thought about it for a moment. There was no way I could tell him the truth. There was no a
mount of alcohol in the world that could get me to admit to him that it was because of him I even agreed to go to the party with Zach in the first place. That it was because of him I decided to get drunk. That it was because of him my heart had been busted into about a million different pieces inside my chest.
I lifted my gaze to meet his, but I said nothing.
He said nothing.
We just stared at one another, enveloped in silence.
“Here,” Trish said, entering the room with a glass of water in her hand. She handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said and took a sip.
“The coffee will be ready in a couple of minutes. Are you okay, Lexi?”
“She's going to be fine,” Jase assured her. “You should go keep an eye on the coffee.”
She nodded and left the room.
“How's your stomach feeling?” he asked.
“Not too bad,” I said. “But my head hurts, and I'm so tired.”
“Here.” He leaned back against the headboard and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me up against him. “You can lean on me.”
I rested my head against his shoulder. While the position wasn't particularly comfortable, the fact it was Jase I was leaning up against was actually making me feel better.
“You need to go back to the party,” I found myself muttering as my eyelids threatened to close on me.
“What?”
“The party. You need to go back and be with your date.”
I felt his arm tighten around me. “I'm not going back.”
“But she's your girlfriend.” My eyelids gave up their struggle and closed all the way.
“Shut up, okay?” he said softly. “I'm staying here with you.”
My lips formed into a smile. He felt so warm against me. So comfortable. So perfect.
“I didn't really mean what I said before, you know,” I mumbled, without even thinking. But the volume of my voice was so low, even I could barely hear it myself. “I don't want you out of my life.”
I felt the rise and fall of his chest as he sighed. “I'm really glad to hear that, Lex.”
I should have left it at that. Had I been sober, I would have.
But I was drunk. And drunk people sometimes make bad choices.
“I only said it because I was jealous,” I continued on like an idiot. “I lied to you the morning after we kissed. It did mean something to me, and that's why I was so upset when I walked in on you and Kylie.”
I could feel Jase stiffen against me and I knew immediately I'd made him uncomfortable. “Lex...” he began, but I wasn't going to let him say anything more.
I couldn't bear to hear his words of rejection, so I saved him the trouble.
“You don't have to say anything. I know you don't feel the same way about me,” I mumbled, my eyes slowly beginning to close, “and that's okay.”
That was the last thing I remembered before drifting off into a drunken, dreamless sleep...safe and secure in his arms.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Somebody was poking me in the forehead with a finger.
“Mmphflurg,” I mumbled, swatting blindly at whoever was rude enough to wake me up.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!”
Ouch. The voice. It was so loud.
I hated Trish. She was doing this on purpose.
“Seriously,” she said, shaking my shoulders, “you need to get up. You can't sleep all day. It's so beautiful outside. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the air is warm—but not too warm—and the humidity level is—”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Trish!” I opened my eyes into a glare, which I immediately directed up at her. “Would you please shut up already? If I wanted a weather report, I'd befriend that balding meteorologist on channel 8.”
Trish scrunched up her nose. “Mark Kimble? But he's wrong, like, most of the time.”
I groaned and pulled the covers up over my head. “Leave me alone, please.”
“Uh, no way.” She yanked the blankets off of me. Actually, she yanked them off the bed entirely. “You are going to get up right now.”
It was then I realized where exactly I was. Sitting up in the bed, I took a look at my surroundings. I was in Trish's bedroom, in Trish's bed. And I wasn't exactly sure how I'd gotten there. The entirety of the night before was mostly a blur, although I could somewhat recall laying on Trish's bed in Jase's arms, but I was pretty sure that had been a dream.
“What happened last night?” I asked her, even though I knew at least part of the answer. Based on the fact I'd woken up feeling like a train had run me over, set me on fire, driven spikes through my head and then injected me with the Ebola virus, it was safe to assume I had gotten wasted at the party.
I most likely did not want to hear what the other part of her answer was going to be.
Trish crossed her arms over her chest and then sat down on the bed. “From what Jase told me, you got drunk at the party, threw yourself at Zach, and then threw up all over our driveway.”
“Oh God.” Memories instantly began flooding back and I wanted to throw up all over again.
“My parents,” I gasped. “I didn't go home last night, they must be worried sick!”
“I took care of it. I called your mom and pretended to be you. I told her the party was lame and that I decided to stay over at my beautiful best friend Trish's house for the night instead.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “And she bought it?”
“It wasn't exactly a lie, because you did sleep over. And you and I sound enough alike that, yeah, she bought it. So needless to say, you owe me big time.”
Being in Trish's debt was never a good thing, but it was hardly my top concern at the moment.
Wait. Had she said I'd thrown myself at Zach?
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. My head was pounding. And the sunlight pouring through Trish's window was burning my eyeballs.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you're about to wig out,” Trish said, standing back up. “But I refuse to let that happen. You want to wig out, do that when you get home later. Right now, you're going to get up, you're going to take a shower, you're going to get dressed in something other than what you were wearing last night, and then you are going to march on downstairs and you are going to eat something for breakfast.”
My stomach turned at the mention of breakfast. “But—”
“This is non-negotiable!” she said, hands on hips. “I am putting my foot down! You did something very stupid last night, so I refuse to baby you back to health. You do something idiotic, you deal with the consequences yourself.”
I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stared at her. She sounded and looked angry. All because I got drunk at a party? I opened my mouth to speak, to defend myself, but she just kept right on going.
“Just what did you think you were doing? Getting drunk? Seducing Zach? What possessed you to be so stupid?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Those Jell-O shots tricked me. They didn't even taste like alcohol. And I only seduced Zach after I was wasted. Obviously, I wouldn't have done it had I been sober.”
“I'm not so sure about that!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Ever since Jeffrey dumped you, you've changed. It's been a very slow progression, mind you, but it's been a change nevertheless. And I don't like it.”
I jumped up from the bed and mimicked her hands-on-hip pose. “If I've changed at all these past few weeks, it's because of you, Trish. Who was the one, after Jeffrey dumped me, who told me to start dressing sexier? To start wearing makeup? To cut and highlight my hair?”
“Those were cosmetic changes,” she said dismissively. “Which, with the exception of your hair, you gave up on after only a couple of days anyway. I'm talking about your change in attitude.”
“Honestly, Trish, I have no idea what you are talking about. My attitude is the same today as it's been for pretty much my entire life. Now, I don't expect you to 'baby me back to health', but coul
d you please refrain from lecturing me right now? I don't think my head can take it.”
To my surprise, her expression softened. “Sure, fine. But don't think I'm just going to forget about this. Don't think you're going to get away without experiencing one of my tortuous lectures on the subject.”
“Don't worry, I'm looking forward to it.” I made my way toward the door and stopped just before I left the room. I turned to ask her if Jase was around, but I didn't have to. She read my mind.
“No, Jase isn't home right now.”
With a sigh of relief, I nodded. Jase was just about the last person I wanted to see; I had a hunch he wasn't my biggest fan at the moment. Plus, I had this nagging feeling I may have said something to him I shouldn't have.
As I made my way to the bathroom, bits and pieces of the night before began to pop into my head:
Jell-O shots.
Dancing with a girl whose name I couldn't recall at the moment.
Kissing Zach.
Jase punching Zach.
I could see it all, although most of it was hazy and made no sense.
After my shower, I begged Trish to just take me home. There was no way I was going to be able to eat any breakfast without it coming right back up, and I just wanted to crawl into my own bed and hide under the covers for the rest of the weekend.
She reluctantly complied and in less than an hour, in my own bed and under the covers was exactly where I was.
That is, until the doorbell rang about around noontime.
“Lexi!” my mother yelled up to me. “You have a visitor!”
My heart instantly began to pound in my chest. I had a feeling it wasn't Trish. If it had been, my mom would have either just said it was her, or she would have simply sent her up to my room. No, it had to be someone else. I could almost guarantee it wasn't Jase, so then who? I rushed out of my room and headed for the top of the stairs. From there, I caught a glimpse of who was at the door.
Zach.
I wasn't sure how I felt about him paying me a visit, but my curiosity was piqued as I made my way down the stairs.
“Hey, Zach,” I greeted him with the slightest bit of hesitation. “What's up?”
“Hey.” He shot a wary glance over at my mother, who was still lurking around us. He held up a piece of clothing in his hand. “Um, I'm returning your jacket. You left it at the party last night. I thought you might like it back.”
