by Emily Mayer
"She did?" I smiled, thinking about a young Margot pining away after a teenage Cole, who had to have been a complete heart-throb.
"Yep, she did. Of course, she was also the one who told Cole I had a crush on him, but it worked out in the end so I forgave her."
"Hey! I only told Cole you liked him after I heard him say he wanted to ask you out but didn't think you were interested in him," Katie said defensively.
"Let's just stay focused on why Evie looks like she just found out Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't real." Margot reached over to rub my back soothingly.
I felt like this was turning into a weird interrogation where everyone was playing the good cop and I really didn't know whodunit. I sighed. God, I wished there were s'mores at this bonfire. I mean, what kind of bonfire doesn't have s'mores? Or hotdogs. A hotdog sounded really good.
Seth passed by, dropping a kiss on Katie's head and handing us all refills. I drained the rest of my current drink and set it down on the ground, not thinking about the littering situation—another clear warning sign, discarded like the empty bottle sitting by my chair. I didn't even bother looking at the label before taking a big gulp.
"Um, maybe you should slow down with the drinks,” Margot suggested, sounding a little fuzzy, especially as the ringing in my ears grew louder. I shook my head trying to make the ringing stop, the movement causing the world to tilt briefly before doing a little spin. I blinked hard and listened for the ringing. Nothing. Perfect.
"Don't worry, I'm fine. Everything’s fine,” I assured them.
"Do you want to talk about what’s inspiring this drink-fest?" Katie asked, taking a drink of her own beer. "’Cause I’ll totally drink in support of whatever it is, but it would help me stay motivated if I knew why.”
"There's nothing to talk about." I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. "I'm just a little in love with Jack."
Shit. Shit. Shit. How did those words sneak past my lips? Loose lips sink ships! I rubbed my forehead trying to figure out how to take it back. Apparently I had skipped right past phase one of Drunk Evie and gone straight to phase two, where I suddenly became super chatty. I eyeballed the bottle dangling from my hand. Phase three of Drunk Evie was what Hilari and Anna called the "so you think you can dance" phase. I set the bottle down on the ground. No way was I unleashing my dance moves. No one needed to see phase three.
I looked up to find Katie watching me with wide eyes, her mouth slightly open. I thought I saw her mouth "Wow." Yeah, shocked me too, girlfriend. Margot, however, was practically vibrating in her chair.
"Yes! I knew it!" She clapped her hands together gleefully.
I rolled my eyes at her. "I feel like you shouldn't be so excited about this."
"Are you kidding me? Do you even know how long I’ve been waiting for Jack to fall in love with someone I like?" Margot practically shrieked.
It took my beer-soaked brain a few moments to process her words. Katie looked like she was also trying to play catch-up.
"Hold the phone,” I said, holding up a hand. "What are you saying?"
"You’re super nice, we watch the same trash-TV shows, you would never have to ask if To Kill a Mockingbird is a field manual, you don't mind that my child is trying to steal your man." She ticked off each item on her fingers as she went. "This is perfect!"
"He's not my man! Not even close. Did you not just see Shelly climbing him like a horny, sexy, perfectly-proportioned vine?"
"I don't know what that was about,” Katie said, apparently done absorbing all the new information. "No one likes Shelly. I mean, some people thinking with something other than their brain will sleep with Shelly, but no one actually likes her. I’m not sure that last part was actually helpful but you know what I meant."
"She’s the worst. She's been trying to get Jack since before he even met Leigh. He’s never taken her up on the offer, that I know of. I've heard him say he isn't interested more than once," Margot added.
Katie nodded her head in agreement. "I bet she snuck up on him before he could dodge her. She wound herself around him like a desperate boa and now he can't escape."
Against all the better judgment I possessed, I turned my head back toward the dancing. I was just in time to see Shelly whisper something in Jack's ear before placing a line of kisses down his jaw. I swallowed, the undeniable sting of tears making the scene in front of me blur. Shelly laced her hand in Jack's, pulling him off toward the parked trucks. I might not know much about Montana bonfires, but I knew enough to understand they weren’t going off to discuss whether or not they shared the same taste in movies.
My shoulders slumped in defeat. A watery sigh escaped. I could barely force myself to make eye contact with Katie and Margot. What could be better than some humiliating rejection shared with new friends?
Katie popped up from her chair, wearing a smile in place of what I had thought would be pity mixed with sympathy.
"You know what? Fuck it. How ya feeling, mama? I’m feeling a dance sesh coming on."
Margot stood up from her chair and turned to face the boys. "Cole, watch our chairs!"
Cole's gaze bounced between all three of us, his expression morphing from concern to curiosity. "Do I need to warn you two to behave?"
Katie placed a hand on her chest and gave him a shocked expression. "Moi? Never."
I heard Seth mumble something that sounded like "Oh shit" before he shouted, "Make good decisions!"
Katie reached her hand toward mine, a mischievous smile tugging one side of her mouth up. "Don't worry, this is definitely a good decision. Ladies, let's go find something to loosen us up."
30.
"This doesn't seem like a good decision,” I said, looking down at the shot of tequila in my hand.
"Whaaat? It seems like the best decision." Katie poured a little more tequila into her own glass.
Margot raised her shot glass of water. "Yep, this is the best possible decision."
I rolled my eyes at Margot, unable to keep from smiling. "You have water in that glass." I raised my shot glass to meet hers anyway.
"I’m greenlighting this decision, and I’m a parent so I'm super reliable with decisions." Margot motioned for Katie to raise her glass. "Okay, ladies, to great friends and great decisions."
We clinked our glasses together, letting out a collective “Cheers!”
I brought the glass to my lips and took a fortifying breath before tossing it back. The smooth liquid burned a hot path through my middle, and I gagged, then sputtered.
"Oh my God, I haven't done a shot in forever." I coughed again. "I think I need a chaser or something."
I looked around for a water or soda or something to stop the burning. Katie took the empty glass out of my hand and replaced it with a new one filled with more tequila.
"I got you covered,” she said, nodding her head seriously, like she was actually being helpful.
"Um, not what I had in mind." The words were coming out sloppy.
My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. I followed Katie's lead and drank my shot with a quick tilt of my head anyway. The second shot went down much smoother than the first. This time I welcomed the fire that spread through me, and let it numb all the sadness still threatening to ruin my night. I looked over and saw Katie cringing, empty shot glass dangling from her fingers. Margot was laughing beside us, nursing her shot of water.
"Man up, lady." I motioned for Margot to finish her shot and ended up hitting myself in the mouth.
Katie and I started laughing like hyenas. She swiped at her eyes. "Okay, now we're ready."
Once again, Katie's hand found its way into mine, then she was dragging me behind her. My feet kept popping up in random places, making me stumble along the way. I laughed, tumbling into Katie's shoulder.
"You okay back there?" she asked, her words a little slurred. I nodded my head, a large, crooked smile spreading across my face.
She mumbled something I couldn't quite make out and pulled me to a stop at a truck near the dancing
. Reaching inside the open driver's side door, she picked up a phone. Her fingers flew across the screen. Her face lit up when she found what she was looking for. "Here we go!"
Flinging the phone back onto the seat, she grabbed my hand and then reached for Margot's. A force of nature, she pulled us both to the dance floor just as the first notes of Demi Lovato's "Sorry Not Sorry" started playing from the speakers.
"Oh!" I clapped my hands together, jumping up and down. "I loooove this song!"
"Can't have this, can't have this!" Margot sang, already moving to the music.
Katie and I joined her at the chorus, "Baby I'm sorry, I'm not sorry!"
We sang loudly, our words sounding slurred as they mingled with Margot's steady voice. The music mixed with the tequila flowing through me, making my eyes close and my hips move. Some switch flipped inside my head, turning off all the noise—even ignoring the evidence that Phase Three Evie had just been unleashed.
“Starboy” blared through the speakers, and I grabbed Katie's shoulders.
"I am totally in love with you."
Katie tipped her head back and let out another laugh, catching my arm in hers and spinning me around as my own laugh spilled out. It could have been all the alcohol, or the music, or the two women dancing along with me like we were the only people there, but something had silenced the little voice that played constantly on a loop in my head saying ‘can't, don't, not for you.’ I smiled to myself, letting the silence and the music flow through me as my body matched the rhythm coming from the speakers.
With our arms stretched toward the sky, heads back, we danced until I forgot that my heart was a little bit broken. When I saw Jack and Shelly reappear, I only briefly registered the flicker of hurt that flared in my chest as I watched Shelly storm off, because for the first time in a really long time, I felt completely weightless.
31.
Bottles of water in hand, we made our way back toward our seats.
"Seriously, she has the absolute worst ideas. Her freshman year, she was going to get her boyfriend's name tattooed on her back,” Margot said, eyes wide in horror.
"A tramp stamp, with your boyfriend's name?" I asked, one eyebrow raised.
"It was going to be super tasteful!" Katie yelled, throwing her hands up. Her whole body moved forward with her arms.
Margot and I burst out laughing, reaching out to try and steady her. My eyes landed on the additions to the group we’d left to guard our spots. One in particular caused my smile to falter just a little. Jack's eyes landed on mine. Those eyes swept over my face and I looked away, focusing on Katie's defense of her tramp-stamp idea instead. I was not about to let him ruin the rest of my night. And in fairness to him, it wasn’t like he was purposely ripping my heart out and stomping on it. It was negligent heart-stomping at most.
Seth and Cole turned at the sound of our laughter. Seth shook his head when he saw Katie leaning on Margot. He walked over and took his wife off of Margot's hands. Pulling her into his side, he smiled down at her. She looked up, returning his smile with a drunken one of her own.
"Hi I love you,” she said, her words bleeding together.
"Yeah? Enough to get my name tattooed on your back?' he said, raising his eyebrows in a challenge. Katie tipped her head back on a laugh. "You smell like tequila. Please tell me you weren’t doing shots?"
Katie vigorously shook her head ‘no’ just as a hiccup escaped my lips. I shrugged my shoulders as everyone in the little group chuckled.
"I’m extra glad you're pregnant right now." Cole placed his arm around Margot and gave her belly a little rub.
Everyone lapsed back into conversation, and my eyes bounced everywhere, trying not to land on Jack's face. His voice drifted all around me, though. I could make it out, low and rumbly and distinct from the others. The conversations drifted from a cow vaccination schedule to a football game, both topics I was equally clueless about.
"So I hear you're from Chicago?"
I turned toward the voice and immediately scrambled, trying to remember if we had been introduced earlier. I squinted my eyes, trying to make any connection at all happen. My brain felt like the little worm floating in a tequila bottle. I smiled, nodding my head and going for the ‘act natural and not drunk’ routine.
"Yep. I work for Ben Danver."
"Pretty big change, Chicago to Pine Hollow. How are you liking Montana?" nameless man asked.
I turned toward him, giving him my full attention. He was cute. Shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes in a face that looked open and inviting. He had the kind of muscles that didn't come from a gym, the kind I was recognizing as a product of ranch life.
"It's definitely a big change, but I like it. A lot more than I thought I would,” I replied honestly.
"Oh yeah? You're not begging Ben to let you fly back to civilization yet?" His tone sounded suspicious, and a little laugh burst out of me.
"No—I mean, I miss coffee shops being everywhere, but it's not awful here." I mentally high-fived myself for sounding way more sober than I felt.
He whistled loudly, causing a few heads to turn in our direction and heat to rush to my face.
"Wow, ‘it's not awful.’ That's some high praise right there." He rubbed a hand over his mouth like he was trying to wipe the smile off his face. "Is it the fact that there are more cows than people?"
"No but that's not exactly in the pro column." I leaned toward him like I was about to let him in on a secret. "It's the lack of pizza."
"Hey, now! We have a pizza place," he said, defending Pine Hollow's honor.
"One whole place?" The inflection in my voice gave away how unimpressive his argument was.
I felt heat cover my back like a blanket. Before I could turn my head to discover the heat source, a hand settled on the back of my neck, making me freeze. Goosebumps spread across my shoulders and down my arms, my body understanding before my brain.
"Jason, how’s Fleet working out for you?"
Jack was standing so close that I felt the breath of his words rush past my ear. Every muscle in my body tensed.
"He's great, man. Fitting right in. He's turning out to be one of our best workers."
Jason's eyes moved to Jack's hand resting on my neck.
Jack's thumb began to trace a path up and down the side of my neck. I completely lost the ability to follow the conversation. All my concentration was focused on the movement of his thumb. Up, down. Up, down. A shiver traveled through me. Jack's thumb stopped. He leaned his head down, his mouth almost kissing my ear.
"Are you cold?" His hands moved to my shoulder to turn me toward him.
"Yes. No. I don't know." I cringed.
Jack smiled, totally unfazed by my incoherent answer. Locking his eyes on my face, he tugged one arm out of his jacket and then the other. My heartrate accelerated to a level that had to be incompatible with life. Slowly, slowly, slowly he laid the jacket over my shoulders. On autopilot, I slipped my arms into the spaces his had just been. He grabbed the sides of the jacket and used them to pull me closer to him. In an effort to keep my heart from tearing out of my body, I focused my gaze on our feet. Somewhere near me, Jason made an excuse to leave and Jack answered for us both.
I held my breath as his hands tugged the jacket together, fastening the zipper, and then began tugging it up. I was literally being encased in his warmth. I fought the urge to inhale deeply, to breathe in that smell that was all uniquely him. His hands came to rest just under my collarbone, still clasping the zipper in his hands.
"Better?" His voice was so quiet that it came out as almost a whisper.
I almost told him that it was not better, that he had almost killed me. Instead, my hands moved of their own volition to cover his. I searched his face, looking for clues. I had no idea what was happening, why it felt like more than offering a friend your jacket. But I couldn't forget that these were the same hands Shelly had claimed earlier, and that this was the same man who had followed her to who-knew-where to do who
-knew-what.
I sighed, pushing his hands away just enough to reach the zipper. I began dragging it back down reluctantly.
"I don't think I should be wearing this." My eyes had moved from his face to the path being traveled by the zipper.
His hands stopped my progress. "Why not?"
I summoned whatever was left of the tequila-fueled courage I’d had earlier. Dragging my eyes back to his, I tugged my lip between my teeth, trying to form an answer that didn't make me sound petty or jealous.
"I saw you with Shelly. I saw you leave with her. I don't think she would be happy you gave me your jacket." I tried to keep my voice void of emotion, as if I were simply stating a fact.
Jack's brows furrowed, the corners of his mouth tugging into a frown. He studied my face for what felt like forever, and then his frown transformed into a wide smile. The arrogant ass actually smiled, a bright flash of light against the dark.
"I don't really care what Shelly thinks."
I recoiled at his words, physically trying to distance myself from him. Anger quickly replaced the confusion and jealousy.
"Well, you should! And I do. You just… just went off with her alone to… and I don't want to be the kind of person who is okay with hurting someone's feelings even if I don't really like the person."
Every word that spilled from my mouth seemed to make his smile grow. He stepped into my space after a pause, making sure I was done with my lecture first.
"Nothing happened with Shelly."
His hands moved toward my hair, tucking the wayward strands behind my ears. He gathered up the unruly mass of waves tucked into his jacket and slipped them over the collar, sending them spilling past my shoulders.
Focus, Evie, I mentally chastised myself.
"I saw you with her." A little part of me begged me to shut up and stop fighting this. Okay, a big part of me. The biggest part of me.
"You saw me walk away with her, because it was too loud by the fire to talk. I needed her to hear me. We talked and she left. That's all." Sincerity radiated from him, and relief rushed through me.