“That was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen,” Kelly exclaimed as she, Jason, Jasmine, and I sat in the back booth of Daze. After celebrating TJ in the streets with everyone, the four of us were still wide awake and had headed over to the lounge to have drinks.

“I’ve never swooned so hard in my life,” Jason agreed, wrapping his arm around Kelly. “And, Jesus! Elliott, your music. It’s been too long since I’ve heard it.”

“And your voice, Jasmine!” Kelly squealed, sighing in pleasure as she poured more of Jason’s spiked eggnog into four shot glasses.

“Yeah, yeah! That voice,” Jason agreed. He lifted his shot in the air. “To Jasmine and Elliott!” he cheered.

We all lifted our glasses in the air.

Jasmine smiled my way and gently nudged me in the shoulder. “To your music.”

I tilted my head toward her. “To your voice.”

We took the shot down and before we knew it, we were having drink after drink, shot after shot, celebrating Christmas.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d celebrated anything.

Every now and then, Jasmine would check her cell phone. I’d noticed her checking it religiously all evening. Whenever she looked away, a flash of sadness would hit her, but she’d shake it off fast. Only I noticed, really, because I’d been spending the past weeks noticing her all the time.

I wondered what she was searching for on that phone.

Jason and Kelly did most of the talking. I’d never taken the time to really get to know Kelly, but the more I learned, the more I saw how the two were a perfect match. They thought the same way, laughed the same way, and loved each other out loud. They were the definition of a public display of affection, and they displayed it nonstop.

“If you guys were wondering,” Kelly said, pouring herself and Jasmine red wine, taking a break from the eggnog. “Planning a wedding is the most stressful thing in the world.”

“Do you know how many different types of vanilla frosting there are at Cake & Pie Bakery?” Jason asked.

“Oh, oh!” Kelly laughed, tossing her hands up in the air. “You have no clue how many different types of vanilla frosting there are at Cake & Pie Bakery! Should we tell them how many?”

“Let’s tell them how many.”

“Thirty-four different types of vanilla frosting,” they said in unison.

“And we tried every single one,” Jason said.

“Even though we knew we were getting chocolate, but free frosting samples aren’t something anyone should pass up,” Kelly explained.

Jasmine laughed, and I loved the sound. “I’ve always wanted to pretend I was getting married so I could go eat cake.”

“Ohhh, do it! You have not lived until you’ve tried thirty-four different types of vanilla frosting,” Kelly replied. “But you know the worst part about planning a wedding?”

“The seating chart!” they said, again speaking in unison.

“Betty can’t sit next to Nancy because they both dated Eddie, and Eddie can’t be at a table that has seafood. Jackie can’t be near her sister, Sarah, because she got the house after their mom died, even though Sarah took care of the mom. Mark fucking hates Eva, and Eva’s awkwardly in love with Mark. Jane wants nothing to do with Rob because he voted for Trump, and Rob wants nothing to do with Harley because she’s still ‘feeling the Bern’ and has Vermont bumper stickers on her car. Don’t even think about putting the twins at the same table, because they are their own people and don’t want to be paired together for the rest of their lives.” Kelly talked and talked, and it was possible that she spoke even more than Jason did, which was shocking.

“It’s pretty exhausting, and not cheap at all,” Jason said, pulling her closer to him. “Let’s just elope.”

She laughed. “Yeah, my parents would love that. They are already super pumped that I’m marrying a democrat.”

“True, true. Okay, no eloping.”

Kelly pressed her hands to her cheeks and shook her head. “Oh gosh, we’re talking too much about boring basic people stuff. Sorry, you guys.”

Jasmine just giggled, because Jasmine was drunk. It seemed that every time she didn’t see what she was hoping to see on her phone, she’d take another shot.

Blame it on the eggnog.

“Okay, okay, no more wedding talk. Let’s do something fun! Let’s play Never Have I Ever,” Kelly said, clapping her hands together.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Jasmine’s eyes widened. “You’ve never played Never Have I Ever?” she asked, stunned.

“No?”

She smirked and giggled. “Is that a question?” She was a giggly, smiley drunk, and it was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes doe-wide, and she also became extremely touchy-feely.

I wasn’t complaining.

She kept smiling and giggling. “Don’t worry, I’ve never played either.”

“Never Have I Ever is a drinking game where someone says, ‘Never have I ever’ then they say a simple statement. Anyone who has done that thing at some point in their life takes a drink. Then we go around and around in a circle until we pass out from drinking,” Kelly explained. “You go first, Jas.”

Jason nodded. “Okay. Never have I ever skipped school.”

We all drank.

“Never have I ever cried during a Disney movie,” Jasmine said.

She, Kelly, and I drank.

Jason cocked an eyebrow toward me. “Dude.”

“Have you never seen Brother Bear?” I choked out.

“Oh, shit. Yeah.” Jason took a drink. “You’re right.”

“These questions are too boring. Let’s get real. Never have I ever had a threesome,” Kelly said, raising the bar.

When I turned to Jasmine, her eyes were on me, and when I didn’t drink, her lips curved up.

Jason jumped in. “My turn—never have I ever lost my virginity on a dude ranch in the back of a shed that had five purple umbrellas hanging from the ceiling.”

“That’s awkwardly de-de-” I paused and shut my eyes. Descriptive—say it. Say the word. “De-de—” My blood pressure built, embarrassment from feeling like a damn fool for being a grown man and still being unable to say such words. It felt as if everyone’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to push out the syllables, waiting for me to figure out what I was trying to say. Right as I was about to have a breakdown, I felt a hand find my thigh under the table. I looked up to see Jasmine giving me a gentle smile, and I took a breath. “That’s awkwardly descriptive,” I pushed out.

I placed my hand on top of Jasmine’s and lightly squeezed. Thank you.

She smiled as if she’d heard me, and replied, You’re welcome.

Kelly cleared her throat and nonchalantly took a sip of her drink. “It was during Bible camp, and it wasn’t a shed, it was a stable, and there were two horses watching the whole time, thank you very much.”

Everyone started laughing, and then the game went on. I noticed Jasmine’s hand still resting against my thigh. Her fingers kept kneading my muscles, moving closer and closer to my inner thigh, and my breaths grew deeper.

“I have one,” she said, holding her glass up with her free hand. “Never have I ever fallen in love while covered in horse shit.”

I laughed out loud.

Actually laughed out loud.

Jason’s and Kelly’s eyebrows were cocked high and their stares were bewildered, but I ignored them as I lifted my glass, clinked it with Jasmine’s, and we both took a sip.

“Um…what the actual heck?” Kelly asked incredulously.

“You two had a really fucked-up friendship, didn’t you?” Jason remarked.

The night went on with more shots of tequila and more laughter. Jasmine became more and more touchy-feely, and even though I knew I wanted her, I was also fully aware of how intoxicated she had gotten.

“I think it’s time to call it a night.” I smiled at my friends.

Jason agreed. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll get us an Uber,” he told Kelly, who was giggling with Jasmine over something only they understood.

When Jason and Kelly headed out, Jasmine turned to me, tripping over her feet a bit, and smiled. I caught her before she tumbled. She blushed and pressed her hands against my chest. “Can I stay the night?”

“Of course, if you’d like. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Orrr,” she sang, tracing her finger along my chest. “You can sleep with me.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes, but rumor has it that I’m much more flexible when I’m drunk.”

Oh, God.

She was beyond drunk.

“If you heard what you just said and were sober, you’d probably be ten shades of red. C-come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Her eyes were heavy, and she pulled on my shirt. “No, let’s do it here,” she begged, pleading for me to take her right then and there. Her hands wandered down to my crotch, and I eased them back up higher.

“Jasmine.” I grimaced. “You’re drunk.”

“Please, Eli. Please…I want you,” she whispered, slowly starting to unbutton my shirt. “Don’t you want to feel me, taste me, have me?”

God, yes.

My body reacted to every touch she gave me, craving her in every imaginable way. There were so many nights I’d imagined what it would be like to be on top of her, beneath her, behind her, inside… Jasmine was everything I’d ever dreamed of, physically, mentally, and emotionally. She was the one I wanted at the beginning of each day and at the end of each night, but she wasn’t ready.

“Come on, Elliott,” she said softly against my ear. “Please?”

I took a breath.

No.

She wasn’t in her right frame of mind. She couldn’t truthfully express what she needed. She was only there offering me the physical when I needed the total package. I needed Jasmine—mind, body, and spirit.

I needed her to be fully aware of what she was doing.

Otherwise, the sex would be just like all the other men she’d been with in the past—hollow.

“We can’t,” I told her as her lips grazed my neck. My eyes rolled to the back of my head, and my skin crawled as she touched me. “Jazz, don’t.”

“Just…please, Eli…”

“No.” I finally forced myself away from her. I shot myself across the room and shook off the effects of the drug she’d forced into my being. “We can’t.”

“Why?” she asked, clearly embarrassed, though she tried to hide it with a fake confidence. “I know you want me.”

“I do.”

“Then why won’t you sleep with me?” she questioned. “Why won’t you fuck me?”

“Because I care about you.”

Her eyes glassed over and she shook her head. She then said the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever heard in my life. “People don’t care about me, Elliott. People just take pieces of me and then throw the rest away.”

In that moment, I witnessed the storm behind her eyes.

How long had it been there?

How long had it been building in her heart?

She lied about being happy because it was easier than acknowledging how sad she’d become. Some days it was better to lie than to face the darkest truths.

Her heart was broken, and I hated that I hadn’t noticed until she was drunkenly stumbling around in front of me.

She pressed her body against mine and begged me to touch her, to love her, to pretend I didn’t see the storm dancing behind that chocolate gaze, but I saw it. I saw her, and it broke my fucking heart.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

“No.”

“Fuck me,” she begged.

“I can’t.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she started pounding her hands against my chest. “I hate you!” she shouted. She hit me harder and harder. I held my hands up and let her hit me, because I knew it wasn’t me she was shouting at. It wasn’t me she was hitting; it was the demons she pretended weren’t even there. Alcohol had a way of doing that—pulling out the parts of you that you didn’t want to see.

After a few more seconds of pounding, her anger shifted to pain. She started crying softly at first, and then she slipped into heavy sobs. Her hits slowed down, and she fell against my chest. She started pulling on my shirt, and my hands were still in the air. As she cried, I wanted nothing more than to be her comfort. I wanted nothing more than to wrap up all her hurts and put them into my own soul.

“Tell me what you want, Jasmine. I’m here. Tell me what you need me to do.”

“Hold me?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Love me,” she begged.

Always.

My arms quickly dropped around her frame, and I pulled her darkness against me. I held on to her for what felt like forever, and still, it wasn’t long enough.

I carried her up to my bedroom, laid her in bed, and tucked her in. She wiped at her eyes, which looked like raccoon eyes with her smeared makeup. “Are you sure no sleepover?” she murmured, making me smirk.

“Maybe tomorrow.”

She turned in the bed and hugged a pillow as I went to turn off the light. “She didn’t call me, or email.”

I leaned against the door and raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Mama,” she whispered, her sobbing coming back. “It’s Christmas, and she didn’t write me. She never writes me back. I’ve written her every day since I came here, and she never writes back.”

“She’s a fool,” I told her.

She laughed, hugging the pillow tighter. “You didn’t write back either.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“It’s okay, Elliott Adams. I don’t get why Mama won’t write me, because I’ve always tried to make her happy, but I get why you didn’t write back. It was because I’m the reason Katie died.”

My chest tightened and ached. “What did you just say?”

“They bullied you because of me.” She yawned. “If I weren’t alive, none of that would’ve happened. Maybe Mama was right—maybe she should’ve never had me. Then everyone would be okay.”

Before I could reply, she was out cold, lightly snoring.

Why would she think that? Why would she think Katie’s death was on her?

My heart broke for Jasmine. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through, dealing with her mother’s scorn, having a mother who wished her own daughter dead.

My mother would have given her own life to have her daughter back.

Over the past six years, I’d been dealing with my own storms, never once thinking of the pain anyone else around me was going through.

Jasmine was broken, too, just like me.

Only normally she hid it behind her smiles. Now she’d shown me her darkness.

She was sleeping, but I didn’t leave right away.

I smiled her way and tried to be the bravest man I could be. I told her none of this was her fault. I told her she was the definition of love. I begged her not to blame herself for something the devil had laid on her doorstep.

Then, I fell asleep right outside the bedroom door, because I selfishly didn’t want to be alone.