Gabriela left silently, but not without sending an awful wink our way.
“Ignore her.”
“She’s great,” I said gently. “You should have taken her to the party last night. She’s a junior, right? She seems like she would have fun.”
“Then I’d have to watch her the entire night and that wouldn’t be fun.” He leaned his weight onto one arm. “Actually, it would have been me watching herandyou the entire night which would have been even less fun.”
Well now I felt bad for ruining his night. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine, I just…” he trailed off. Javi let out a huff which caused a piece of his hair to fly up. “Why do you do that?”
I raised a brow. “Do what?”
"Do you ever think that you go a little overboard?"
My immediate reaction was to shake my head. Deny, deny, deny. I knew I could be excessive every now and again, but I didn't mean to be. It was unintentional, so bringing it up made me feel small, ashamed. Fuck that feeling.
"I don't want to overstep boundaries or anything but—”
"Then don't,” I said firmly.
Javier blinked dumbfoundedly at my sudden sternness. Then, he shifted his weight and relaxed his body. His eyes fell to my hands before he took both of them and put them in his. One hand in each. I let him hold them, but my hands were ready to retract at any moment.
"It's a little alarming, Eli," Javier said cautiously. "I’ve noticed for a while now—a lot of people have. I just want to make sure you’re good, y’know?"
"So I've drank a little too much at a few parties, big fucking deal," I said dismissively.
"It's not a few parties, it's every party I have seen you at," he stressed. "Please trust me when I say I'm not the only one who has noticed. We’re all young and want to have fun, I get that, but the way you drink is concerning."
When he was met with my blank stare and silence, he continued. "Listen, I obviously don't know what I don't know. We don’t know each other all that well, so maybe it really isn't that big of a deal. But what I do know is that somebody having to drag your ass back barely conscious at the end of the night is an issue."
He was squeezing my hands at this point. "Not only is it not fun for the person having to take care of you, but it isn't good for you. It isn't healthy and it isn't safe. I’m telling you this because it seems like no one else has the courage to."
Fed up with the back and forth of the conversation I wanted a straight-forward answer. "What are you implying?"
His lips parted, confused. "I'm not implying anything."
I pulled my hands from his and crossed my arms to my chest. "Really? If you have something to say, then spit it out.”
“Don’t get mad at me, I’m just trying to help.”
I averted my gaze and turned my body away from him. Now was not the time to have this conversation. In the steadiest voice possible, I asked, “Can you drop it?”
I could see a half-frown on his face out of the corner of my eye. “I guess.”
Javier was the first person to truly say something about the alcohol. Well—my siblings had times before as well, but they only did so to insult me. I never believed a word that came outof their mouths because every word that they said was spoken to make me feel lesser. I didn’t feel as though I was doing anything wrong because if the twins thought it was wrong, then it had to be okay. It had to be fine because those two never knew what they were talking about.
But hearing someone else tell me that it was a problem gave me an icky feeling. Javi and I weren’t even friends, yet he felt comfortable enough to give his two cents on the matter. None of my friends had ever done that. They gave me odd looks from time to time, but they had never flat out said anything. Or maybe they tried to and I just hadn’t noticed. Either way, I never had any reason to honestly think about whether I was behaving in a harmful way or not. That was until now.
But it wasn’t enough to make me want to share all of my issues with my rival. All I wanted was to lay in the cloud-bed again and sleep until the hangover went away. Knowing that was not an option, I was going to suggest that we make a move before his mom or Alan made their way up here to get on Javi for not going to pick up the donuts. Suddenly, a memory from the night before popped into my brain.
A wave of worry washed over me. “Javi, can you drive me to Ricky’s house? Please?”
“Now?”
I nodded hastily. “I remember a bit of last night and I’m ninety percent sure he’s pissed at me. Like, actually pissed, not jokingly like he usually is.”
His hand landed gently on my shoulder. “It’s alright, I don’t think he’s as angry as you think he is.”
