“Aw, you’re the best, babe.” I stood on my tiptoes to give him a peck, but was left kissing air. By the time I returned to flat feet he held another beer and was talking with his new groupies. So much for that.
I scanned the crowd for Sadie, who’d been MIA since she’d dragged me into the bathroom. Maybe she and Matt had finally hooked up. I could only hope. There was more sexual tension between them than two rabbits in heat.
I discovered Vicky with her tongue down Evan’s throat. Who knew she’d find his bottle-shattering trick appealing?
Across the room Josh was surrounded by several girls as he told one of his baseball stories. All their overly mascaraed eyes hung on his every gesture and expression. Gag me.
I walked past them to the kitchen only to find Tanya sitting on Zach’s lap. He glanced up at me, but Tanya grabbed his face and turned his attention back to her. She said something, but no matter how hard I tried to make it out, I couldn’t hear over the guys cheering Joe on to “Chug! Chug! Chug!”
Tanya’s eyes were narrowed and dark with intensity. Not the look of a girl who was at a party having a good time. Oh no, this was the look of a girl who was not happy. At all.
With a flick of her hand, she sent her red curls bouncing over her shoulder. A defiant move. The universal girl move that means “I’m annoyed.”
“You know you’re beautiful.” Zach’s words were loud and clear.
And she was beautiful. Porcelain skin with the right amount of freckles to keep her from just being cute, green eyes that I would kill for, and soft red hair that you would never be able to reproduce from a bottle.
So why did hearing him say it bother me so much?
Before they saw me lingering in the doorway, I pushed through the crowd to my bedroom. I had made sure to shut my door before the party started but now it was slightly ajar.
A low moan echoed into the hallway, and I prayed it was one of the floorboards beneath me creaking under my weight.
I pushed my door opened and flipped on the switch.
“Oh, come on guys! On
“Sorry, Liz,” Scott said as he passed me on his way out, as if it was just another day and I hadn’t just found him getting ready to do things on my bed that
“Yeah, sorry, Liz,” Ruthie said, smiling too enthusiastically for the situation. Scott had a perfectly good vehicle outside. Why’d they have to wind up on my bed? I made a mental note to strip my sheets when the party was over.
Scratch that. I didn’t want to forget. I closed the door, locked myself in and crumpled my sheets into a ball. Thank God Mom gave me new ones for Christmas or I’d be spending my night in the laundry room.
Once I was a hundred percent positive my bed was body-fluid free, I tossed my other sheets in the hamper, squirted some anti-bacterial gel in my hand and went back to the party.
The scent of Sadie’s lavender air freshener was no longer present, replaced by the smell of pot. How the smoke detector wasn’t going off was beyond me. It went off when I boiled water.
A blonde in the corner was surrounded by a group of guys as she attempted to take a sip from the beer bottle resting between her boobs. Now that was a talent she could put on her resume.
The beer can tower in the corner had grown to a height even the tallest guys couldn’t reach. A guy with my dish towel hanging from the back of his shirt like a cape stood on a chair and added another can to the top.
“Babe,” Joe said as soon as I stepped around a couple grinding on the makeshift dance floor.
“Hey, you,” I said, taking in his bloodshot eyes.
He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my chest obviously mistaking me for a pillow. “I love you,” he said.
“Love you too.”
“No, I really love you.” His hand slid up my arm, grazed the outside of my boob and stopped on the back of my head.
“And I love you too.” Did he want me to grab the microphone and sing it for everyone to hear?
His breath reeked of cheap beer, so I tried to keep my nose pointed towards his neck where I could faintly smell his cologne.
“Why don’t we go to your room?” He slowly backed me against the wall.
“Not tonight.” There was no way I would cash in my v-card with a party raging outside my door. I wanted it to be just a little more romantic than that.
“Come on, babe.” He trailed sloppy, drunken kisses up my neck. But after the wine bottle fiasco, hearing Zach tell Tanya she was beautiful, and basically walking in on Scott and Ruthie getting it on in my bed, my patience was shot. A drunken boyfriend was the last thing I felt like dealing with.
“Joe, not tonight baby. Come on, get off me. Let’s play a round of beer pong.” It was time for me to rejoin the party and have a few drinks. I pushed his lips away from my neck.
“We can play after. Come on. We’ll be fast.” Sure, because I always imagined my first time as a wham bam thank you ma’am.
“Joe. No!” My resistance prompted him to wrap his arms around me tighter, as if he thought I was playing hard to get.
I took my arms out from under him and pressed my hands to his shoulders.
“Don’t you love me?” he asked, his bloodshot eyes trying to focus on mine.
“Yes! Now get off of me. Come on.” I put a little more pressure on his shoulders and when he tried to move closer I snapped. “Joe, I said NO!” As the words escaped my mouth, I shoved Joe and went to walk away but he grabbed my arm and spun me towards him. I smacked against his chest, momentarily knocking the wind out of myself. I hadn’t meant to yell or attract any attention to us, but I clearly had.
Heads rotated in our direction. I gave a simple smile to assure everyone we were fine and it was just a stupid lover’s quarrel. But there was one person I couldn’t fool with my fake smile.
Zach stepped through the crowd. “Joe, man, why don’t you leave her alone.”
“Zach, I got this,” I said, urging him away with my eyes. The last thing I needed was my ex defending me from my current boyfriend.
“Dude, she’s my fucking girlfriend.” Joe pushed off the wall and stared at Zach. He swayed to the left, then to the right before leaning his shoulder against the wall. I wanted to curl into a ball and hide.
“Yeah, and you should treat her with a little respect,” Zach said. “Give her the space she asked for.” The veins in his neck were becoming visible as he spoke.
Joe pushed himself off the wall, trying to stand tall. “Why? So you can get in her pants? We all know you didn’t succeed last time.”
Before Joe’s words could fully register, Zach’s fist flew past me and made contact with Joe’s face.
Joe stumbled backwards, smacked into the wall and slid down it into a crumpled ball on the floor. Blood spewed from his nose.
“Oh my God! Joe!” I screamed and dropped to my knees beside him before turning back to Zach. “Why would you do that?” My eyes burned with anger as he stared back at me.
He flung his hands out in front of him. “Did you not hear him?!”
“He’s drunk!” Joe would never intentionally hurt me or force me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with. He wasn’t in his right frame of mind right now. Besides, I could handle myself. It wasn’t the first time that Joe’s drinking had caused him to come on to me strongly. And I was always able to get him under control without decking him.
“I don’t care if he’s drunk, stoned, or stupid, he had no right to—”
“Get out!” I pointed towards the door.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Get out.” Before I could reiterate, Josh broke through the crowd. Thank God. He would get Zach out of here. There was one thing Josh did not tolerate, and that was violence.
He leaned over, said something in Zach’s ear and gave him a friendly pat on the back. What the hell? Zach nodded and as he walked through the crowd, it parted as if he were Moses at the Red Sea. Tanya followed him out.
