“Woo!” she exclaimed, slamming her cup down. “Coconut-flavored anything is awful.”
Leslie had handled hers like a pro, not even flinching. Tyler—one of the many football players and already three sheets to the wind—came ambling up to them.
“Are you guys doing shots?” he asked the redhead.
“Yeah, want one?”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, pumping one meaty paw into the air.
“If you start chanting, I won’t pour you one.”
Tyler lowered his arm.
Leslie poured them another round of shots and on the count of three, they all downed the liquid. Jenny was starting to feel a bit fuzzy around the edges and declined the next round, deciding to switch back to mixed drinks. Maybe I can handle the crowd more, she thought, taking the cup Leslie offered her just as she heard Drake’s voice call out, “The band would like to take a short break!”
The living room was as packed as it had been when she left, sweaty bodies everywhere. A few people had set up beer pong on the coffee table by the couch. Jenny watched them, fascinated. She had never really understood the game.
“You wanna play?” a voice asked in her ear, causing her to jump. She spun around, frantic, ready to punch some perv away, when she saw it was just Drake. His long hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat and he was wearing gray skinny jeans with a black tank top. He looked good.
“I don’t know how,” she told him truthfully. It infuriated her how little reaction her body had to him, even after everything they’d been doing lately. She wanted her heart to leap out of her chest and her tongue to twist itself into knots.
“You’re telling me Jenny Wessler doesn’t know how to do something?” Drake shook his head in disbelief.
“Why don’t you show me, then?” she said flirtatiously.
“I would if I had the time. The band is back on in five.”
“You sound good tonight,” she told him. Isn’t that what girlfriends are supposed to say?
“I know,” Drake said. “I’m playing some new stuff that I wrote recently.” He gave her a squeeze.
Drake went back to his band and Jenny went back to watching him. There was something so electric about the way he moved behind a microphone. He was passionate about it.
Over the course of a few songs, she noticed people staring transfixed at Drake. They looked at Drake the same way girls looked at Chance.
More people kept pushing themselves into the room, some dancing and some just standing. Drake had the whole crowd eating out of his hand, and from the glint in his eye, he knew it. Jenny looked down at her long-since-finished drink and decided she needed a new one.
Leslie wasn’t in the kitchen anymore, the booze left unmonitored. A group circled the counter, all taking shots. She weaseled her way in, snagging a glass in the next round. One shot. Two shots. Three shots. They were pouring their fourth when she ducked out.
The room was spinning around her and she imagined the clear liquid sloshing in her the way it did in the bottle she picked up. She shakily poured herself another drink, mixing in some generic soda she found. It tasted awful, but she found it hard to care about that anymore.
She parked herself on the bottom step, sipping her drink and watching the party unfold. People came and went in large groups. A couple made out against the banister beside her, the boy’s hand slowly creeping up under the girl’s skirt. Drunken girls stumbled by like trains, linked by clasped hands as they tried not to lose each other in the crowd. Her drink was nearing empty, and she wondered why she was sitting out.
She stumbled a bit when she stood, her head spinning. Using the wall for support, she propelled herself into the living room. She stood in the arch of the doorway, her eyes scanning for the person she wanted to see. Her head was spinning, and she was sure she felt a hand on her waist. The music was too damn loud; it was driving her crazy. She pushed past people, stumbling. If they would just give me space, she thought. A guy she vaguely recognized from her freshman English class—Jesse? David? Michael?—danced up to her, dry humping the air she was quickly trying to vacate.
The world was tipping up at the sides and her cup wasn’t in her hand anymore and she just wanted everything to stop. The music grew louder and she cursed the band. People danced tighter around her and she felt the bile rising at the back of her throat. She had to get out of there, but how? Chance. I have to find Chance. He was the only person who could help her. She broke through the throng of people around her, frantically searching. I need my best friend.
Chance would stop the spinning and the groping. Chance would hold her close. Chance would take her home.
He was on the couch; a beautiful girl had her mile-long legs draped across his lap, his hand absentmindedly stroking her calves as she spoke. Bingo. Jenny stumbled through the crowd, not sure whether someone she passed grabbed her ass or accidentally brushed against her. Whatever. She stumbled up to Chance, drawing his attention from the girl on his lap.
“You need to come with me now,” she slurred, taking his drink from his hand and taking a sip. She spat it back. “This is the worst thing I’ve had all night.”
He apologetically pushed the girl’s legs off him, standing to put an arm around Jenny’s waist, taking his drink back. “I could’ve warned you.”
She clung to his shirt for support, the room rocking. He looked so ridiculously good standing there in his black T-shirt, blond hair tussled. She wanted to dance, to feel his body pressed against hers—moving along with her. She pulled on the hem of his shirt, trying to drag him toward the grinding teens. She lost her footing, almost falling.
She felt disconnected to her legs, as if her limbs were not her own. Chance’s hands steadied her, but she still felt like she was falling. She kept seeing her vision fall into place again and again—never settling and never stopping.
“Whoa,” Chance said into her hair, trying to keep her steady. “Hold on, I got you.” He kept repeating it as he led her through the crowd, like a soothing mantra, again and again. “I got you. I got you. I got you.”
And she knew he always would.
CHAPTER 20
Chance
Drunk Jenny was very kittenlike, Chance decided. She clung to him as he stumbled around in the dark barn, trying to relight all the candles she kept blowing out when his back was turned. The glow-in-the-dark stars that littered the floor were finally dead. The blankets he’d brought when he was sleeping there were still folded up in the trunk where he’d left them.
Jenny trailed after him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face into his back every time he stood still. She had puked outside when they got there but had calmed down since.
Chance never thought of himself as the hold-your-hair-while-you-puke kind of guy, but it was turning out that there was very little Jenny could do to drive him away. He couldn’t leave his best friend to fend for herself. She had never been this drunk before. She needed him.
He pulled her arms from his middle for the fifth time, turning to lead her to the pallet he had made. She stumbled along, still trying to put her arms around him as she walked.
“Shhh,” he said, lowering her to the blankets.
She whined in protest when he let her go, reaching out for him.
“Stay,” she told him.
She looked so beautiful lying there, the flickering lights from the candles making the shadows dance around her. Her arms were still outstretched for him, open. Her eyes were wide and her full lips parted slightly, as if she were about to say something.
Don’t try to romanticize this, Chance told himself. She might be about to puke again.
Chance stretched out beside her. He could feel her warmth along the entire right side of his body. She wrapped herself around him within seconds, her arms around his chest and face buried into the crook of his neck.
“You smell good,” she mumbled into his skin, her breath hot on his neck. “Like sandalwood. I like it. It’s not all chemically like Axe.”
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly, shifting them into a more comfortable position. He put his arm around her, drawing her in closer. His eye flickered up to the ceiling. “Look,” he said, pointing up with his left hand. “You can see a few stars through the holes.”
Out there, in the middle of nowhere, there were way more stars than in the city. Chance even thought he could make out the handle of the Big Dipper … or possibly the Little Dipper. Chance wasn’t big on astronomy.
“Pretty,” Jenny cooed, looking up. “Space is pretty. All those galaxies and nebulas and here we are, just two little specks on a floating rock in the vast fields of space.”
Chance laughed. “Are you sure you’re drunk? Or are we at the pensive philosopher level of hammered now?”
“We’re so little.” She giggled, wide eyes still locked on the stars.
“Speak for yourself.”
She snorted. “Perv. We’re nothing, y’know? We get these simple little lives among bunches of people—”
“Ah yes, there are only bunches of people on Earth.”
“—and they’re all we get but we spend them all making the wrong decisions and then get jobs we hate and then we pay bills and die,” she finished, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And some people’s one life is spent being homeless or abused and it’s not their fault but it’s the only life they get and they can’t ever go back and live another one. They’ll never know what it’s like to have some other kind of life. None of us will.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Chance said. He could feel her heart hammering against his side. He was sure his own was racing, too. He didn’t want to think about this stuff. He never wanted to think about this stuff. The future was off-limits to him. He’d rather van Gogh it and cut off his own ear than think about the future. “We’re done with philosophy hour, Jens.”
“I saw you with those girls,” she said calmly as she snuggled into his side again.
He didn’t know why he felt ashamed—like a kid caught in a lie—but he did. His first instinct was to defend himself, but he bit it back. “I figured.”
She lazily nodded. “Mm-hm. I want you to know it’s okay.”
His breath hitched. “It’s okay?”
“If hooking up with someone makes you happy, then I’m happy, too.”
“I’m not serious with any of them,” he felt compelled to assure her. “We were just hanging out.”
She snorted again. “I know that.”
He took offense. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t get serious with anyone,” she said sleepily, nuzzling into his shirt.
Where did that come from?
“Who told you that?” he asked, still looking at the ceiling.
“You … said…”
“What?” he asked. After a moment of silence, he turned to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing even. She had fallen asleep on him.
Where did she hear that I don’t get serious? he wondered, almost laughing to himself. It was funny, in a not-funny way. He wanted to laugh at the cruelty of the situation. Here he was, looking down at the most serious relationship he’d ever had in his life, and she didn’t believe he was serious about anyone.
A buzzing noise filled the room, making him jump. It rattled against the floorboards, loud and angry. He looked around, trying to find the cause.
We’re going to get murdered, he thought. Jason has come for us.
It wasn’t until the sound died and started up again that he realized it must be Jenny’s phone. Jenny was still out of it, a bit of drool running from the corner of her mouth. The phone kept buzzing again and again.
I can’t answer her phone. For one, it’s in her pants pocket! But … wait … what if it’s her mom? She might be calling to check in.
Chance carefully pulled the phone from her pocket just as it stopped vibrating. It started up again almost immediately. It wasn’t her mother. It was Drake.
Chance stared down at the phone in his hand, Jenny’s contact photo of Drake—taken one day at lunch, him smiling down at her—staring back at him. He wasn’t sure if he should answer it. He wasn’t too keen on speaking to Drake, not after their conversation earlier. He might be worried about her, he considered. He might want to know that she’s safe.
The phone went blank before starting up again. It was clear that Drake was going to keep calling until he got an answer. Chance detangled himself completely from Jenny, moving to stand by the ladder to the loft. He thought about stepping outside, but he didn’t want a wild raccoon or something to sneak past him and make a nest in Jenny’s hair, or worse.
“Hello?” he answered.
Drake was silent, most likely stunned to hear a guy answer the phone.
“This is Chance,” Chance clarified.
“Yeah, I can tell” was Drake’s reply. His voice was quiet—angry. “I was worried about Jenny, but obviously I shouldn’t be; she went home with you.” He spit the last word like it was something foul he couldn’t bear to have touching his tongue.
“She was drunk,” Chance tried to explain, looking over at Jenny curled asleep on the floor. “She needed to get out of there. You were busy—”
“And you couldn’t help but graciously swoop in and take our little lush home,” Drake filled in bitterly. “You couldn’t wait to play the damn hero.”
“You were busy,” Chance repeated. Hearing Drake call Jenny a lush got his blood boiling. “I tried to signal you, but you were too busy looking at that blue-haired girl with the low-cut top.”
“I was doing my job, Masters. You just wanted to take advantage of my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend happens to be my best friend,” Chance pointed out. “She needed me and I was there. You weren’t. End of story, Sellers.”
“Look, I’m happy she’s safe,” Drake said, his tone softening a tiny bit. There were sounds of whooping in the background. “The band got done and I couldn’t find her and Leslie said she was too drunk to function, so I got worried. I just fucking hate that you were the one to take care of her.”
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. You should at least know that much.” Chance deflated, too, his anger leaving him. God, he was so tired.
“I can’t do this right now.” Drake hung up.
Chance looked down at Jenny. She looked so young curled up in the blankets, her hair fanned out behind her. The lights were dying slowly, wax dripping down the sides of the candles as they threatened to burn out.
He picked up the one nearest him, looking at the way the flame was reflected in the melted wax. He wondered if he was going to be one of those people Jenny had talked about—one of the ones who wasted their wholes lives and could never get out or restart. Was he going to be like his parents? His brother? He looked down at Jenny again, her chest slowly rising and falling.
Chance blew out the candle.
* * *
THE SUNLIGHT SPILLED in through the cracks in the ceiling and right into Chance’s eyes. He rolled over, throwing his arm over his face. His back hurt—hell, his everything hurt. He didn’t want to get up yet.
Something moved beside him. The warmth that had been at his side disappeared, replaced with bitter cold. He wanted to reach out for it, to grab the body the warmth belonged to and drag her back beside him.
“Chance,” a voice called as hands shook him. “Chance, get up. I know you’re awake.”
“Am not,” he mumbled, throwing his other arm over his face as well.
“Stop being a baby and get up,” Jenny ordered, but her voice sounded weak. “How did we get here?”
Chance finally dropped his arms and opened his eyes. Jenny sat above him, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. Her hair was a mess, bits of straw poking out everywhere.
“Hungover?” he asked her.
She slowly raised her head, glaring at him with bleary eyes. “How’d you guess?”
“’Cause you look like shit.” He sat up, reaching out to place a hand on
her back. “Your first hangover. We should take a picture to commemorate the moment.”
“Eat me,” she said bitterly. “I feel like my head is going to split open and then throw up.”
“That’s a beautiful image.”
“Everything is shaky and weird. It’s like I’m here but I’m not really here and how did we even get here in the first place?” She halfheartedly gestured to their surroundings.
Chance dropped his hand. “You were really blitzed. You had to get out of there and I didn’t know where else to take you.”
“Last I remember I was sitting on Leslie’s stairs,” she told him. “I was waiting for Drake to get through playing—” She broke off with a gasp. “Drake! Where is he? Does he know where I am?” She winced at the loudness of her own voice. She looked a washed-out mess, her complexion all pale and shallow. “Where’s my phone?”
He pointed to the table.
Jenny gripped his shoulder, trying to rise on unsteady legs. She bumbled to her feet, standing for a full five seconds before slapping her hand over her mouth and tottering backward.
Chance recognized the signs: Jenny was going to hurl.
He sprang to his feet, wrapping a steadying arm around her waist to hold her upright.
“Can you make it outside?”
She nodded again.
Chance led her outside, taking it one slow step at a time. He wanted to toss her over his shoulders and run her out, but he doubted that’d be good for her stomach. She ran behind the barn door as soon as they stepped through it, already dry heaving. Chance held her hair as she retched. He had to look away as much as possible.
He led her back inside when she was done, sitting her down carefully on the floor. Her hair was plastered to her forehead now, sweating regardless of the cold. “I’m so sorry,” she croaked, her voice hoarse. She clutched at her stomach, doubling over. “If I move, everything gets weird—”
“You might still be drunk,” he told her, reaching out to push her hair from her face. She felt clammy to the touch. “How much did you even have?”
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