“Leif isn’t watching,” I muffle into his shirtfront, squeezing his fingers tighter than I realize.
Knox presses his lips against the top of my head, and I can’t tell if they simply linger or leave something more lasting. “No, he’s not.”
16
WHO NEEDS INHIBITIONS ANYWAYS?
KNOX
Ishould kiss Staten Renault tonight. Or maybe not, considering our first handsy display landed us in hot water. “Iwantto kiss Staten Renault tonight” is probably a more accurate statement.
I have no idea where Leif fucked off to, but it’s in my favor because the urge to give him a free nose job dwindles with his absence. If he was a good friend, he’d be happy for Staten,notgive her the cold shoulder because she got into a relationship. Also, he can’t be mad at the situation because he never showed any interest in her in the first place. If I was Staten, I’d drop the dead weight and focus on being cherished by the best guy this side of Minnesota has ever seen. (That’s me, if you were wondering.)
I think I’m a little tipsy. I don’t remember drinking that much, but I had to metabolize all these feelings of doubt and insecurity somehow. I’m with the girl of my dreams right now. The whole world knows it. I mean, sure, everything is “fake,” but maybe it doesn’t have to end that way, you know? Maybe, after all our heart-to-hearts and unscripted moments that leaveLeif pottering behind in the dust, Staten will realize that our act wasn’t just some well-rehearsed lie.
In my twenty-one years of life, I’ve only ever treated my body like a temple. A horny, woman-obsessed temple. There was a point during my freshman year where I slept with an entire sorority in the span of one week without any of the sisters knowing that they had a goddamn rat in their midst. And the worst thing? When I got kicked to the curb and ultimately blacklisted, it only allowed me another opportunity to keep up my shitty behavior and look elsewhere. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t worried about them dragging my name through the mud. I didn’t care about anyone, and maybe…maybe that included myself.
But now, on the sad brambles that have grown over my underused heart, the first rosebud of life is blooming in place of a thorn—against all odds. And a part of me doesn’t hate the feeling of being…seen.
With my arm slung around Staten’s shoulders, she hauls me up the stairs with a few grunts, carrying all two-hundred-and-something pounds of me with the patience of a saint.
My vision shivers, yet the heat clinging to my insides is impossible to disperse. Some kind of mix between a warm, fuzzy feeling and a low-grade fever. I really don’t want to spend the night with my head over the toilet, but judging by the ominous gurgling in my stomach, that might be an improbable ask.
“Jesus, you need to lay off the protein shakes,” Staten mutters beneath her breath, hitting her shoulder against the railing as I start to list.
“I’m a growing boy,” I slur, trying to reach my hand over to soothe the reddened spot of impact. Of course, the distribution of weight just unbalances us even more, and I’ll be surprised if we make it to a bedroom without both toppling over.
I’ve passed tipsy. A semi-permanent speech bubble ofellipses hangs over my head, I have the reaction time of a sloth, and I keep smacking my lips to mitigate the terrible aftertaste of one too many tequila shots.
Despite taking the necessary (alcoholic) precautions to court my feisty partner in crime, nerves still wrap around my tongue and choke the words the tiny, sober version of myself want to say.
My head lolls against her neck. “Look at you, taking care—hic—of…you.”
“Me,” Staten replies.
“Yes, you.”
“No, I think you meant to say ‘me.’”
“I love it when you correct me. You should do that more. I honestly just love it when you talk,” I confess despite my better judgment, my heart pistoning all kinds of ooey-gooey admiration into the channels of my bloodstream.
Staten laughs, and I kid you not, it sounds like the most melodious song I’ve ever heard. The trill of mourning doves when the sky is nacreous and the sun has yet to awaken from its slumber; the pitter-patter of a babbling brook somewhere deep in the forest, overlapped by the rustling of lodgepole pines kissed by the north’s incoming wind.
“Mulligan, you’re farther gone than I thought,” she jests, flirtation lapping at her tone.
I love it when she last-names me.
We’re only a few strides away from the first (hopefully unoccupied) room, and she corrects my footing like a parent would a toddler’s.
My articulation may be a bit scrubbed, but my charm isn’t. “Only when it comes to you.”
Staten just shakes her head, shouldering the door open without the courtesy of a knock. To our shared relief, we didn’t just walk in on an MDMA-driven orgy. It’s two hundred squarefeet of pure privacy. The comforter is as clean as it can get in a frat house, and no visible stains is a good start.
She deposits me onto the bed with enough caution to circumvent a field of bear traps, and I unceremoniously face-plant onto the mattress, feeling it sag underneath me. A few moments later, she rolls me onto my back so I don’t asphyxiate.
“How are you feeling?” she asks, concern blizzarding across her face.
The alcohol is beginning to drain the reserves of my sensibility, though it’s not surprising considering I’ve been seeing two of Staten ever since she saved me from the bad decision of another drink.
