"Thank you, Rach!" She hugged me and rushed back downstairs. Before she reached the bottom of the steps, she stopped to tell me something else. "Don't tell Jacob or Randy."
For a second after she disappeared, I didn't want to go back upstairs. What was my expression going to be when I faced Jacob again? I wasn't planning on telling either of them, but I wasn't the most subtle person in the world. And on top of that, I still had all these feelings. What I wanted at this moment was to sit back on that loveseat with that gorgeous guy, tell him everything while he held me in his arms until the night was over. But that wasn't feasible, and anyway, it was super cheesy. I rubbed my hands over my face in an attempt to get myself to snap out of it and spun around. The one girl in the room was standing in front of Jacob and taking his attention away from my confused expression. For a moment, I considered sitting back down, but I felt awkward about interrupting. Instead, I spun on my heel and headed down the stairs.
"Rachel," called a man's voice. My name had never sounded as sweet coming from another person's mouth. I peeked around the wall. The girl wore an annoyed pout on her face like I had interrupted something. It was Jacob. "Where are you going?"
"Just…downstairs. I'll be back." I wasn't sure if that was true.
"Good. It was nice talking to you." I melted into a puddle that oozed down the staircase.
I didn't know how long I had been upstairs, but the party downstairs had begun to thin out. My old couch position was vacant, and I dodged some remaining partygoers to reclaim it. To kill some time, I pulled my almost dead phone out of my purse and texted Haley, Kim, and Shelly to update them on the situation. Although I figured they'd all be asleep by then, Kim texted me back.
Me: At a party with Towners. Talked to Jacob for awhile. Now Alex is somewhere with Gabe.
Kim: Alex and Gabe???
Me: Yes. Oddly.
Kim: How do you feel about that?
Me: Fine, I guess. I'll get over it. Not like he was mine.
Kim: I always thought he was.
Kim: Where's Randy?
Me: Last time I saw him, in a bean bag chair.
Kim: That's random.
Me: No kidding. What are you doing up anyway?
Kim: Writing a paper. Rather be partying with Towners. I'd do Randy right on that bean bag.
Me: Haha. My phone is gonna die. Gotta go.
Kim: K. Give me more details when you get back.
Me: Will do.
I sank deeper into the couch with springs that no longer seemed springy at all and sulked. This was not how I planned for this night to end up. The clock on the DVD player indicated that Alex had been in the bedroom with Gabe for over a half hour. How could I have let her do that? She'd been a Gabe fan for about two seconds. At first, I didn't care since Jacob and I had such a great connection, but now Jacob was otherwise occupied. A guy I recognized from the crew walked by.
"Hey, do you know if Gabe's still in there?" I pointed my thumb at the wall behind me.
"Yeah, I just came from there. That chick's totally giving him a BJ right now."
"You were in there, too?" I thought I had said this too quietly to be heard. I didn't necessarily want to pry, but I didn't think Alex was the threesome type either.
"For a sec. Had to grab something." He held up a box of cigarettes that looked like they had been sat on. He was about to continue on but must've thought he was being rude. "You uh, want one?"
I almost accepted, but there would be no point if he was just going to walk away, so I passed. Could I be any lamer? I was sitting alone on a couch while people partied in the rest of the house. My phone was dead, so I couldn't amuse myself that way. The TV was playing the music to fuel the party, so I couldn't watch that. There were no reading materials in sight, and that would make me look even lamer anyway. If that were possible. I ran my fingers over the nubby fabric on the arm of the couch. I wanted to disappear or teleport myself back to school. Homework almost seemed more appealing at that point.
A couple whores—they didn't look like fans to me—stumbled in, cackled while pawing at each other, and stumbled right back out. I couldn't take it any longer. I knew Alex would be pissed, but I didn't care. As I rapped on the bedroom door, I racked my brain on how to approach this. Did I want to sound annoyed or polite when I made my request? I shot for a combination of both. "Hey, sorry, but can you guys wrap it up? We really need to get going." It was mostly true. Had I been having any fun, I would've been more than willing to pull an all-nighter and stumble into class the next day half awake. But considering I couldn't drink much since I was the DD and I wasn't getting any action, I did need to get going. Like, now. The fact that one of my best friends was giving head to the imaginary former love of my life no longer was a factor.
"One sec," came Alex's muffled voice from the other side of the door.
"I'll wait outside." I grabbed my purse, which was still sitting where I left it on the coffee table although I had been too tired to remember to take it with me, and headed for the door.
"You're going already?"
I froze. The voice was Randy's, and he still intimidated the crap out of me, especially in my sober state. By now, I could talk to both Gabe and Jacob, and I think I would still be able to even after the events of the night. But Randy, he would always be this godlike creature with the sweet voice who I could never relate to, nor was I sure I even wanted to. His hair was disheveled, as usual, and his wrinkled white shirt was unbuttoned down to his stomach. If that weren't enough to throw me off guard, his fly was undone as well. "Um, yeah, it's 3 in the morning. I have class at 11, and it takes 5 hours to get back."
He nodded like he understood everything about college life.
"I'll see you guys later, though." I gave him a jerky, robotic wave and ducked out the door.
The cool air felt refreshing after being in the stuffy, smoke-filled house. I sat on the bottom porch step and leaned my head against the railing, yanking blades of grass out as I waited. Although I didn't have a clock, it seemed like another ten minutes before my friend appeared.
"Sorry, Randy stopped me and was babbling on about something. It was too loud to hear him."
I didn't respond until I walked the two blocks to the car and started driving. Seeing that my friend wasn't mad at me for interrupting her romp, it was hard for me to be mad back at her. I sighed. "You have to at least give me details."
Her face lit up in spite of the situation. "It was good."
"It had to be with Gabe, huh?" My tone was more defeated than accusatory. It wasn't her fault Gabe chose her, and I knew that.
"Hey, I did ask you if you'd be OK with it. I wouldn't have done it if you said no...probably."
I had to chuckle a little. I don't know what I would've done in her situation either. Heaven forbid Randy would've come onto me, and I would have to decide whether or not to break two of my friends' hearts. More than anything else, I was jealous of the situation rather than who it was with. "I'm over him. Seriously. I'm a Jacob fan now anyway except he's not a manwhore like Gabe, which is kind of too bad."
"You want Jacob's cock?" she teased.
I laughed. At least the conversation was keeping me awake if nothing else. "I'd take it!" Maybe in the morning, I'd realize that I was actually mad.
Chapter 7: Orlando
The morning came sooner that I would've liked, and I awoke with a fatigue-and-lack-of-water-induced raging headache. I could not stop dwelling on the night before. What made Alex so much more appealing than me? Maybe it wasn't anything specific; maybe she's just Gabe's type. I didn't think Gabe knew how obsessed I was with him before, so things shouldn't be awkward next time I see them. It would just be nice to see him again—all three of them.
I plugged in my still dead cell phone to update my friends on the rest of the night.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
I read one of my five missed text messages. "where r u? presenting today."
It was from one of my groupmates in my eleven o
'clock class that I skipped in favor of more sleep. However, I didn't remember that we were supposed to give a presentation that day. "Shit!"
My sweaty hands trembled as I booted up my computer once again. This was strike three for me with this group. I was too honest to come up with an excuse. I'd just have to accept my fate and take the stupid class over next semester. But first, I have to try to figure out what to say to my group. I cursed the band as I tapped the keyboard, trying to come up with a valid apology.
While I typed, I noticed an email pop up from one of my groupmates. My heart pounded as I clicked on it.
We talked to the professor and explained that you have not been pulling any of your weight. Although you did write a big part of the last paper, we will not be putting your name on it. She thought this was acceptable since you did not attend any except one of the meetings, and you skipped the presentation. You will not be working with us for the rest of the semester since we no longer trust you to contribute at all. The professor mentioned something about a project for you to complete on your own, but you have to get the details from her. Good luck with that.
The anger was apparent, and I felt horrible. Writing the paper had been my last ditch effort to make amends after missing a couple meetings, which I thought they overreacted about, but neglecting to show up to do my part of the presentation? I got myself in some deep shit with that move. All I could do was write a short, simple apology email to the team. As for speaking with my professor? I planned to worry about that a different day.
Instead, I changed back into my pajamas, grabbed a package of Oreos, and spent the rest of the day moping in front of the TV. Even though I was in a lot of trouble with my classmates and professor, I welcomed the normalcy and tedium of college life for a change. Tour felt like a distant memory. I reached for another Oreo and realized I had demolished what remained of the entire package. I had two choices—move onto something salty like chips to balance out all the sugar or get up and do something productive. My stomach grumbled in protest of option 1, but I didn't have the heart to start on homework yet. My bedroom could sure benefit from a good cleaning, though.
I went with that option and chucked the empty Oreos package in the garbage on the way to my bedroom. The first thing I saw upon entering my room was the concert clothes from the last week strewn across the floor. As I picked up each piece to stuff into my nearly full laundry bag, I thought back to a memory that each item represented for me. On top was the shirt I wore last night—the pink peasant top that made me remember sitting on the loveseat upstairs in that house as I developed some sort of a friendship with Jacob. Next was the skimpy tank top I borrowed from Alex that earned the attention of Gabe in Chicago and awarded me a guitar pick at the end of the show. I tossed that one in a separate pile to wash first so that I could return it to Alex right away. The next item I retrieved from the floor was the black halter top that had aided in successfully getting us an invite to Milo's Pub after the Milwaukee show, where I got to cozy up next to Gabe while taking my first tequila shot. I couldn't find the red halter top I had worn to Detroit, but I didn't need a reminder of that horrible night. Good riddance. As I pushed aside work clothes and hoodies that I wore to class, I found my newest purchase from Walmart. The top that started it all, the little pink silky camisole. I would always be nostalgic when I looked at it and recalled my meet-n-greet, as anticlimactic as it was. Picking up the rest of the clothes, I hoofed down two flights of stairs to the laundry room to get my first load started while I continued cleaning. I was almost finished picking up my room when Kim and Haley came home from class and joined me in my bedroom to get the scoop about the night before.
Haley's eyes popped open wide. "Wow! You're cleaning!"
"Yup, I was running out of food, and I didn't want to do homework, so this was my last option. How was class?"
"Fine. Yours?"
"Um, I overslept." I moved around some stuff on my desk to avoid eye contact.
"Rach," said Haley.
"Have you ever been to that class?" asked Kim.
"This one, yes. I go pretty much all the time. It's the group meetings I usually miss...and the presentation I apparently had today."
Kim's lip curled. "Rach, you're gonna fail."
"I know, I know. Luckily, tour's over, so I can focus on fixing the school thing now."
"Speaking of, how was last night?" Haley plopped herself down on my bed I had just made up.
I sat down in my office chair and pulled my knees up to my chest as Kim situated herself next to Haley on my bed. Where to start? "Well, first of all, Alex will probably be asking you guys if you want to go to Florida with her. I know she was going to ask Shelly."
"What? Why is Alex going to Florida?" asked Kim.
"The new opening band invited us. It was Bjorn's last show, and this band called Face Rake also played."
Haley made a face. "Face Rake?"
"Yeah, weird name, but they seem like really great guys. Anyway, they said they'd get us into the Florida show if we were able to come. I obviously can't go, but Alex said she wanted to do a Disney trip anyway. I think she's pretty set on it, especially after what happened later in the night."
Haley bounced a little on my bed. "Yes, get to that part!"
"OK, so when we were talking to Face Rake, the tour manager was over there, too, and he asked if we wanted to check out this party at his cousin's house after the show. When we first got to the party, it was really awkward. Then, Jacob saw us and invited us upstairs, which is where the other guys were, too."
"And Randy was on the bean bag chair," interrupted Kim, recalling my text from early that morning.
"Yes, Randy was on the bean bag chair. He remembered us, but he didn't really pay much attention to us after that. He was mostly smoking and working on some new music or something. Gabe was mostly focused on his guitar, too. Jacob was the only one who really interacted with us. He's my new favorite. He was just so sweet and personable and everything." I wanted to keep talking about Jacob's greatness, but I knew they were anxious for me to get to the juicy part.
"Gabe and Alex went downstairs to get drink refills, and then she came back up and asked my permission to go into a bedroom with Gabe. Then she gave him a BJ, and we left." I rushed the end of the story.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Kim. "How did they get from upstairs ignoring each other to suddenly Alex giving Gabe a BJ?"
I raised my shoulders. "I don't know exactly."
Kim pulled her phone out and dialed. "I'm going to put Alex on speaker phone to get her side of the story. Hey Alex, Rach was just telling us about last night, but we can't figure out how one minute you were upstairs minding your own business, and the next minute you were in some strange bedroom going down on a Towner." She pushed the speaker phone button so that we could all hear the other end of the conversation.
"Oh man, I don't even remember."
"Come on!" we all begged.
"OK, so we went downstairs to get drinks, and Gabe suggested doing shots instead. I don't even know what was in the shot, but it was pretty gross. He told me how pretty I looked and how much he liked my boobs. I should've been really offended, but it was actually kind of sweet and flattering in a weird way. Then he was like, 'I really want you to come in the bedroom with me right now.' And I was like, 'And do what?' Totally trying to stall because I had no idea how far I was going to let this go at that point. He was just like, 'We'll see what happens.' That's when I excused myself and ran back upstairs to talk to Rach."
"And then?"
"Then we went into the bedroom of the guy who owned the house or whatever. The bed was a mess, and I was pretty sure someone had already been in there before us, but I wasn't going to be picky. We started making out a little—he was doing this sweet peck-like kisses on my lips and cheeks and forehead—and then I took off his pants, and he took off my shirt. Then, I pulled his boxers down and just started going at it."
"So he's a boxers man, huh?" asked Kim.
&n
bsp; "Yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that," I said. "So I have to know, how big is it?" If I wasn't going to have him, which still crushed me inside, at least I could have a mental image.
"Well, you've seen his bulge. It was a pretty good size. Above average, I would say."
"Is that all that happened?" asked Haley.
"That's all we had time for. He wanted to return the favor, but that was when Rach knocked on the door and said we needed to leave."
I bit my lip. "Sorry about that."
"Don't worry about it. I couldn't have anyway, so at least we avoided that conversation."
"Are you really going to Florida?" asked Haley.
"Yeah, I convinced Shelly to come with me, too. You guys wanna go?"
We all turned her down.
"Give us all the details when you get back, though," said Kim.
"You know I will. Talk to you later."
"So that's that," I said after Kim hung up the phone.
Kim pushed herself up off my bed. "Wow, I wonder what's going to happen in Florida."
The girls left my room, and I wondered myself what was going to happen when Gabe and Alex were reunited in Florida. Would there be fireworks? Would there be sex? I mean, probably. That was the next step. I tried not to think about it. In an effort to put it out of my mind for the time behind, I reached in my backpack, pulled out my business law book, and did the readings I had put off for a week. It was my last ditch effort to try to get my life back to normal for a while. At least until Friday when I would be waiting with baited breath all day to hear about the Florida trip.
***
The next day before business law, I decided to stop by my communications professor's office to see if there was anything I could do to make up for my missed presentation. Through the narrow window that stretched from the tile floor to the drop ceiling, I could see my bespectacled professor sitting at her desk with her back to me. I knocked on her door, and she gestured for me to enter. Her office was little bigger than a closet, and it was filled with paper in piles on her desk and thumb-tacked to the walls. To my surprise, her expression was more concerned than anything else.
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