Page 94

I chuckled and she smiled.

She went back to petting the cat and I went to return the book to the shelf. I was slipping it into its slot when the door to the library slid open and Jesse poked his head in.

“There you are. Where’s Larissa?” he whispered.

“She’s playing with the cat.”

He looked over my shoulder to make sure she was far enough away to be out of earshot and came back to me. “We gotta take Mike home.”

I drew my brows down. “What? Why?”

“He’s fucking wasted,” he said, lowering his voice. “He was doing shots.”

“Shots?”

“Man, you missed a wild thirty minutes. Right after you left, he started arguing with some guy over protein powder. He was getting all loud. Then he did two shots of Jäger back-to-back, dropped and did a bunch of push-ups, got up, beat his chest like an ape, and went over to the bushes by the gazebo. Becca and I followed him—”

He stopped.

“He pissed himself,” he said so low I almost didn’t hear him.

I stared. “He what?”

“All down the front of his pants,” he whispered. “And then he jumped in the pool so nobody would notice. We had to pull him out. He’s soaking wet, his phone’s cracked—”

“What the hell…?”

“I don’t even know.” He was shaking his head. “It was like prom all over again. He’s fucking lost it.”

I dragged a hand down my mouth. “He started back on his Prozac. It can make you drunker. And Larissa said they didn’t eat anything. Maybe he just didn’t realize how it would hit him?”

Jesse nodded like he wanted that to be the excuse. We all wanted that to be it.

“He’s a hot mess,” he said. “I put him in the truck to drive him home, but Larissa took his keys.”

“She’s not going in that truck with him,” I said. It wasn’t even a discussion. If Mike was that erratic, I wasn’t letting her anywhere near him.

“No, I agree,” he said. “You take her home. Becca and I got Mike.”

I nodded. “Okay, give me a second.” I closed the door.

I stood there for a moment, trying to tamp down my feelings. Maybe it was the empty stomach exacerbating Mike’s behavior. Or maybe it was the three cocktails and two shots.

What the hell was he thinking? He was supposed to get Larissa home. What was the plan there? And he was gonna drop his pants and pee in the bushes? In the damn yard in front of everyone? Were we six?

What if we hadn’t been here? What if Larissa had to deal with this shit by herself?

Maybe he wouldn’t have gotten like this if it were just the two of them. Surely he wouldn’t put her in this situation if nobody else was around. He would have practiced more restraint or been more conservative with the drinks or had more self-control if a handful of other designated drivers weren’t here to fish him out of the pool and get her home safely.

I had to believe that was true. Because dwelling on what I actually thought would have happened was too upsetting.

I made my way back to the far corner of the library to tell Larissa. I tried to deliver this news as casually as I could.

“Hey,” I said, coming around the sofa. “Jesse’s taking Mike home early. He had a little too much to drink. I need the keys to the truck.”

She blinked up at me. “What happened?”

“Nothing, it’s not a big deal. I just think the empty stomach didn’t mix well with the liquor.”