“YOU’RE MAD AT ME.” Elle poked my cheek, leaning heavily into my arms as I held her upright. She was a wobbling, giddy mess of spilled emotions tonight and it surprised me. In theory, I had known that she was drunk, but the reality had left me speechless. DK’s text hadn’t been very specific, just that he needed my help, and that the “girls” were drunk. I’d known who he meant. The four of us—DK, Jemma, Elle, and I—were pretty much a unit.
To my surprise, I had realized that I must have never seen Elle drunk before, only tipsy. There was a pretty solid distinction between the two that I hadn’t recognized until this very moment. Tipsy Elle was cute, she was full of laughter and happiness and exciting ideas. She loved everyone and everything.
Drunk Elle was a little bit insecure, a shit ton of questions, and fucking super-glued to my body. I was hyper-aware of the feel of her every curve.
I guess I hadn’t answered her—I hadn’t known it was a question—because she asked, “Are you mad at me, Gavin?” And she tried to poke my cheek again but she hit my eyeball instead.
“Fuck, Elle!” I recoiled, squinting, nearly tripping as our balance was thrown from my reaction. And she was not even trying to carry her own fucking weight. I blinked, hard, and shook my head at her before she could go at me again. “No, baby.” But, yeah, I kind of was. It was strange.
I sighed and walked her up the gravel of my driveway, praying that Violet was out so that she did not bear witness to this drunken mess. Elle would probably be embarrassed in the morning.
I leaned her up against the wall near the front door and fumbled with the house key for a moment before fitting it securely in the lock. Elle slung her arms around my neck without prompting and together we wobbled our way through the front door.
“I’m sorry!” She didn’t buy my lie, even though she clearly couldn’t even see straight. “Don’t be mad at me. I was just trying to have fun.” By some miracle I understood her even though every single one of her words slurred together into one giant sound.
“Shhh,” I patted her shoulder consolingly. “Relax, baby.”
She wrapped herself around me. First her arms and then, after a little hop, her legs too, completely intertwining herself so that I had no choice but to lift her or fall over.
I grunted, adjusting. It was a good thing that she was so tiny because I was not exactly a wall of muscle, and by all rights we should have landed right on the damn floor.
Elle buried her face against my neck, and I tried not to swallow hard as I started towards my bedroom. Of course Clay and Violet were home, and up, the both of them sitting in the living room watching something on the television when I passed through.
Clay only lifted an eyebrow when he spotted us, and then shifted his eyes back to the screen. That was the best thing about living with someone like Clayton Usher—he knew how to mind his own fucking business. No such luck with Violet O’Rien, though. Her jaw dropped as she stared openly at us.
“You dumped Tyler already?” She sounded as bitchy as the question suggested she was.
I rolled my eyes and ignored her. Elle didn’t.
She perked up, her head tipping back to look at Violet. “I wish! Gavin looooves Tyler more than my candy.”
I tried to unhear it—I really did—but it was too fucking late. Her declaration was laced with a world of jealousy that I couldn’t pretend not to notice.
“Ah, shit,” I sighed, walking faster, so that Elle and Vi wouldn’t be encouraged to continue their pointless conversation. I fumbled with the doorknob and then slammed the door behind me once I made it to my room.
“Cracker jacks,” Elle said, as if she were correcting me. Like that was a suitable substitute for the word that I’d used. “Tonight was fun until you showed up!” She announced as I dropped her onto my bed. She pulled up onto her knees and peered at me. “You’re grumpy.”
I shrugged. There was no denying it, apparently it was written all over my face. “You made me leave Tyler and Reagan alone with some guy in a karaoke bar,” I explained, as if having a reasonable conversation with a drunk person was even possible.
“Did not!” Elle challenged, her bottom lip poking out as she said it. “Hey! You bailed on me!” This seemed to be the topic of another conversation, judging by the way that she said it. Like she had just remembered that it happened, and not in counter to what I had just blamed her for.
I turned my back to her and went to my dresser, fishing through until I found the t-shirt and shorts that I was looking for. “Here.” I tossed the clothes in her direction.
“You shoulda taken me home.” She declared when I turned around to look at her. “If you were gonna be so mad.” She kicked off her heels—honestly it was a miracle that she hadn’t broken any bones walking around in those shoes, the girl was not exactly the graceful sort—and then grabbed at the hem of her dress.
And I think maybe my fucking brain shut down, because it processed too slowly for me to stop her from yanking her dress off right in front of me.
And there are some things that you just cannot un-fucking-see. Elle in absolutely nothing but a lacy black bra and panties, perched on her knees on my bed? Yeah, that’s one of them.
Fucking shit on a stick. I was going to hell.
My eyes were going to fall right out of my mother-fucking face and dissolve in the damn carpet. My brain was going to melt, I felt pretty sure that was on the verge of happening, and then it would dribble out of my empty eye sockets.
Jesus Christ.
She struggled into the t-shirt and then toppled right off the bed as she tried to get into the shorts. It took me that long just to get myself in check.
I cleared my throat and let her pick her own self up off of the floor and shimmy into the shorts. “I said I wasn’t mad.” I was surprised that my voice managed to come out even. Absolutely nothing felt even.
“Well, you’re a liar,” Elle grumbled, and when I looked at her again she was pushing her raven hair back out of her face.
She was the kind of beautiful that broke my heart, with giant green eyes and soft, tan skin. Her full lips were curved into a pout that wasn’t helping me get my thoughts back in order.
“If you throw up on me tonight I’m never bailing you out when you’re drunk again,” I told her, even though we both knew that I didn’t mean it. Well, mostly. I did hate throw-up, and messes in general, and drunk girls who couldn’t keep their shit together. But this was Elle, not just some random chick.
“Maybe I’ll sleep on the couch,” she countered, petulant and still pouting. And I knew that I should definitely fucking let her do just that. The thought of her lying next to me at the moment felt like a lit match meeting with a can of gasoline. But I also knew that I just couldn’t.
“I need to make sure you don’t choke and die in your sleep,” I countered, and yeah, I sounded grumpy as hell. She was right. But it had a lot more to do with her nearly naked on my bed, and a lot less to do with interrupting a double date I hadn’t wanted to be on in the first place. I was man enough to admit that—at least to myself.
She snatched her dress off the bed and threw it at my face. Which surprised me, mostly because Elle and I never fought. Never, ever.
Fighting wasn’t exactly my thing. I’d had a girl dump me once because she’d been screaming and crying in my face, and I’d asked her if we could just “agree to disagree.” She’d called me an asshole and said we were done. I’d shrugged it off.
Not because I actually am an asshole… At least, I don’t think I am. But because I just couldn’t understand what the fuck fighting even accomplished. People yelled, everyone walked away angry. And for what? We’d worked it out, actually, me and that girl. And had gone strong for a couple of months after that before agreeing to part ways, which just proved to me that I was right about the fighting thing.
But—stupidly—I kind of wanted to throw this dress right back at Elvis Hirsche in the moment. And that was just fucking strange.
“You’re being a jerk, Gavin!” She really screamed it, no indoor voice, no whisper-yell. I glanced at the door, wondering what Clay and Violet thought about this new development in my dynamic with Elle.
They had adjusted pretty okay to the idea that Elle and I were such good friends, with no designs to ever hook up. Most people didn’t really believe us, but what the fuck ever. I didn’t care what people thought. Guys and girls could be friends without having sex, it was possible, there were no rules that stated otherwise. Just shit people made up.
Clay and Violet barely ever even said anything anymore about Elle coming over for movie nights and then sleeping over after. They didn’t tease us, or question whether something had happened. They didn’t raise their eyebrows when they saw me put my arm around her on the couch, or pull her into a hug, or if they saw her coaxing me to dance with her. That was just how we were, and it barely bothered the people that knew us well.
Because Elle tried to coax anyone to dance, and I called everyone with boobs “baby.”
But I didn’t yell, and neither did she, and we definitely didn’t yell at each other.
“I don’t like you hanging out with Jemma if this is what the two of you get up to,” I countered, because I didn’t have anything else to say. I guess I kind of was being a jerk, but it felt justified. And anyway, she was the one who’d said she wished I’d dumped my fucking girlfriend.
“I don’t like you hanging out with Tyler when you’re supposed to be with me. So tough!”
Well, shit. That sounded coherent as hell. No slurring drunk girl talk to get that out.
“Can you pass the fuck out already?” I waved at my bed in invitation.
“Maybe YOU should sleep on the couch!” She countered, throwing a glare my way.
“It’s my fucking bed!” Holy shit. Was I actually yelling back at this girl? This made no fucking sense to me. I pressed my lips together and took a step back, trying to clear the fog in my head, trying to regulate my breathing so that I could think.
Elle’s face fell, her pretty eyes widening in shock, and I instantly felt like shit.
“You said you weren’t mad,” she whispered it, hanging her head down in disappointment.
And I felt like the worst fucking person in the world. The lowest of the low. I don’t think I had ever yelled at anyone in my entire fucking life, and Elle knew that too. Why would I choose this moment and this girl to be the first? I could probably stand anybody’s sadness but hers.
I crossed the room to her and pulled her into my arms. This much, at least, was as natural as breathing. “I’m sorry, baby.” I held her to me. “Listen, you’re important to me, Elle.” Because I recognized what this was really about. And it wasn’t about going out drinking or missing dinner with Elle’s parents or whatever the fuck. It was about us. “You’re the most important to me, okay? And I’m sorry about tonight. I didn’t think you’d mind. You should have said.”
I really had thought it was okay with her. We always had dinner with her family—her parents were these ridiculous hippies and a never ending source of amusement for me. In the most awesome of ways, obviously. Because my own parents were extremely traditional and extremely boring in comparison. I loved Elle’s family dynamic almost as much as I loved our friendship. I even loved hanging out with her three brothers, and all of them (well, except Eli) had threatened to kick my ass on a near constant basis since I’d known them. They were super-protective of Elvis, and I definitely couldn’t say that I blamed them.
Elle shrugged against my embrace. “You were being a good boyfriend.” She turned her head and spoke into my shirt. “I’m sorry, too.”
But even though it seemed like we were making up, there was still this tightness in my chest that I couldn’t seem to shake. I swallowed and kissed the top of her head, trying to breathe around this unfamiliar feeling. Trying to understand it.
Things were changing; I had never been very good with change.