I went to follow along, but before I could I felt a tug on my shirt. I swiftly turned around, facing my best friend. We were blocking the doorway, so people kept having to push past us to get in. We needed to move before someone forced us out of the way.
"Oh my god, what?" I whined, ready to indulge in illegal substances.
Ricky rolled his eyes at my immaturity. He attempted to speak over the music. "Please don't let me find you blacked out in a bush somewhere. Stay near me, Eli."
"Okay," I said dismissively. I was not in a mood for a lecture.
"I'm serious, man. This shit isn't a joke," he said, and I could see the genuine concern in his eyes. Thing was, I couldn't understand why. It was only one time that I was so drunk I couldn't even remember my name. Well—actually, thatmay have happened twice, but that was beside the point. I understood that was not an ideal situation to be in.
I smiled softly, trying to get rid of the unnecessary worry on his face. "I promise I won't overdo it tonight."
"Okay, I'm holding you to that."
“Don’t worry, I really do promise.”
After that, he let me go and we met up with the girls and Justin. The girls had already had two shots while Justin had four. I had to show up Justin, so I went for six off the bat. My tolerance was so high, that it barely did shit to me.
I stayed with the group for a long while, and it was fun. We danced, played drinking games, and goofed off. It was going just how I wanted it to, and I was keeping my promise.
But eventually, a drunken me wandered off from my friends. When that happened, drinks started appearing in my hands and going down my throat. Before I knew it, the world was lagging.
I was drunk, but I wasn'ttoodrunk. I was the ‘can barely form coherent sentences’ type of drunk, but at least it was not the ‘puking and blacking out’ kind of drunk. The latter meant that I would be sporting a nasty hangover the next day, so I was glad I was not that far gone.
Looking in the distance I saw Bella flirting with some guy, Kailey trying to dance with Ricky, and I didn't give a shit what Justin was doing. I was now striking up fun and incoherent conversations with people whom I had never spoken to before. Most of the people I was talking to didn't even like me, but I didn't care.
I was talking to a girl whose name I couldn't remember when my brother suddenly appeared behind her. His jaw was clenched, he was pissed. That was surprising because I assumed he would be cross faded right about now. He didn’t seem sober, but he was not completely out of it like I thought he would be.
"Run along, girl," Easton gritted through his teeth. She rolled her eyes before quickly finding somewhere else to be. Easton then turned, his focus solely on me. "Are you so fucking stupid that you can't understand basic English anymore?"
"Huh?" I asked, mostly because I hadn’t fully made out what he had just said.
"Why are you here?" he shouted over the music. I could still barely hear him.
I thought long and hard about his question. I put my hand to my chin and furrowed my eyebrows in an attempt to make the answer to his question appear in my head faster. I guess that action annoyed Easton, because he groaned.
He forcefully put his hands on my shoulders. "You already know that you are not welcome here."
I giggled. "Yeah...sorry."
"Elias, I swear I'm gonna—"
"Calm down," Benji said calmly, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Lay off the guy, he's only trying to have fun, just like you are."
Ahh, it's Benji!
"Hi, Benji," I said with a toothy smile.
"Hi, Eli." Benji returned the smile.
"He shouldn't be here," Easton said.
"You need to calm down. Go live your life, Easton. Your brother's fine," Benji said gently before he winked at me.
Did Benji just wink at me? Holy shit, he wants me. No doubt about it. He wants me and I am seriously starving.
Easton looked between the both of us, dumbfounded. He took a deep breath and eventually left, but not before sending another mean glare my way.
Benji wrapped an arm around my shoulder. He leaned down and whispered in my ear so that I could hear over all the noise. "Your brother needs to loosen up, right?"
