“TO THE NEW YEAR AND new adventures!” Xavier shouts to the crowd. He’s standing on a log near the bonfire, his blue plastic cup raised to the starry sky. Everyone cheers to his toast.
We have thirty minutes until midnight, but my sweet friend is already thoroughly drunk and isn’t waiting for time to catch up with him.
He’s surround by people and I can’t help watching him with a grin. A drunk Xavier is my favorite Xavier.
Bash hands me a beer before wrapping his arms around my waist from behind. As he presses a kiss to my neck, Dez coughs. I send him a glare and Bash digs his fingers into my skin.
Our friends have been watching us since I got here, making sure we don’t duck out too soon. It might have something to do with me jumping on Bash and planting a kiss on him, that caused catcalls and cheers, as soon as I got close to him. Brit and Xavier pulled us apart after that.
Friends over fucking and all that, Brit had said earlier.
I just really missed him, and instead of letting that attachment scare me, I’m embracing it.
Nori is standing awkwardly next to us, one arm wrapped around her stomach, holding her opposite elbow.
“You okay?” She’s been quiet all night, looking as far out of her skin as a person can be.
She startles before looking over. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I squint at her, trying to see inside her mind. She’s not fine, but Nori won’t talk about things she doesn’t want to, even if I try to coax them out of her.
“Do you want a drink?”
“I have that.” She points to her feet where an unopened water bottle chills in the sand.
I sigh. It’s New Year’s Eve and my cousin can’t even spoil herself with a soda.
Brit is on the other side of the fire, flirting with some guy that came with one of the dudes we went to high school with, his name I’ve long forgotten. But what isn’t forgotten is how Dez is glaring at them from Bash’s side.
His eyes have been glued on them since the forgotten one came and introduced himself to Brit, coaxing her over to join their little group for a while.
She walked away with a smile on her face while Dez’s face collapsed into a surly expression that not even a happy drunk buzz has been able to shake.
I fight the urge to smack him on the head, refraining from telling him he shouldn’t have been such a fuckboy.
Tonight I’m exuding self-control. With the banes of my existence, with me groping my boyfriend.
Movement in the corner of my eye has me turning my head to see Xavier stumbling over with glassy eyes and flushed cheeks. His grin has me laughing. Nori frowns. She’s been watching him with concern for a good part of the night.
“Shotgun!” Xavier shouts, earning a few stares from the people around us.
“What?” Dez tears his eyes away from Brit and her flirting to give Zay a look. “No one is driving anywhere, dude.”
“Shotgun,” he repeats, ignoring what Dez says. “Let’s shotgun beers.”
Before any of us can answer, Xavier is walking to one of the coolers and collecting the goods.
I scrunch my face, mumbling to Bash, “I can’t shotgun beer.”
“Scared you’ll come in last?” he teases and I pull away from him. I’m about to tell him where he can shove that sentence when Xavier shoves a can in my face. I jerk back, taking it from him as he finishes passing out the chilled cans to our group.
I groan at my own can. Xavier fucking grabbed the tallboys. I’m going to die.
Dez pulls out a pocketknife, puncturing a hole in his can before handing it off to me. I make another face, taking it between the tips of my pinched fingers.
“I don’t have any diseases. Jesus, Emery.” He shakes his head.
“When was the last time you got tested?” I ask him, eyeing the knife.
Bash chokes on a laugh.
Dez flips me off and I grin before noticing my cousin is beer-less.
“You don’t want one, Nori?” I ask her, even though she’s already shot me down. She looks sad and uncomfortable as her eyes are trained on her toes, her big one drawing in the sand.
Xavier is already in motion, handing her a can when she shakes her head, saying, “I’ll time ya.”
“You don’t want to do it?” Zay asks, not accepting her answer.
“I can’t stomach beer,” Nori says, not mentioning that she’s not a drinker. Very rarely will she drink. If ever. The last time was probably at a family wedding two years ago when they served champagne for the toasts. I always offer, though. “Can’t stomach the hops, it makes me sick in the morning.”
Xavier doesn’t look ready to accept her answer, staring at her, as his mind searches for the right words to persuade her.
He doesn’t register the finality of her tone. She’s not doing it. A part of me wonders if she only came here tonight for me and a stab of guilt settles in my stomach.
Nori looks at me, wanting me to throw her a life raft or something to save her from the attention. So I do what I must.
I jab the knife into the can, some beer spilling onto my hand. They all look at me and I see Nori relax, slightly.
I try to give the knife to Bash, but he already used his car keys and is ready to go.
“Dude, you’re about to lose,” Bash tells Xavier, who hasn’t even prepped his tallboy.
Nori gets her phone out, readying the timer, as we wait for Xavier to get on it. When the four of us are all ready, standing shoulder to shoulder in a line, Nori yells, “Drink!” and taps a button on the screen.
A crescendo of cans opening fill the air around us as I tilt my head back, chugging the beer. The liquid flows into my mouth, going down so fast I don’t even taste it. For the first two seconds it’s going smoothly, until my throat closes and I can’t breathe.
Without even downing half the can, I throw it on the ground, and crouch over with my elbows digging into my thighs and hands holding back my hair as I cough at the sand.
The three dudes all finish around the same time. Blink and you might have missed the winner, but Bash crushes his can first, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I glare at all of them.
Nori calls time.
Four seconds flat for Bash.
I lost and that’s what pisses me off more.
Not because I convinced myself I was choking.
He whoops and moves to hug me when I step away. He grins. “Don’t be such a sore loser, babe.”
“Don’t be such an obnoxious winner, babe.” I cross my arms over my chest, mumbling, “I told you I didn’t want to play.”
“What was that?” Bash turns his ear toward me. “That sounds like a sore loser complaint.”
I take a step toward him, hands balled in fists, when Nori says, “She doesn’t do well with swallowing.”
The glare is wiped away as my mouth drops open. Equal parts anger and shock show on my face at my cousin’s words. I mean, what the hell?
Xavier dissolves into laughter and has to bend over as he clutches his stomach. Dez laughs, more composed than Xavier, but laughing nonetheless as he clasps Bash on the shoulder. “Bro.”
His words shake with humor.
Bash’s mouth mimics mine, hanging open at Nori’s words. Okay, so maybe my anger at him has receded slightly.
He recovers more quickly than I do and says, “She didn’t have a problem the other night.”
His words are thick with meaning and he looks away from Nori to find me smiling smugly at him. He gives me one back. A secret memory that runs through both our heads.
Nori finally understands the impact of her words. Her face rapidly turns red, as she sputters to recover. “That’s not what I meant! I just mean she can’t swallow pills or chug water because she has herself convinced she will choke.”
Oh, great. Since the hospital, pills are just something I can’t do. Thank you so much for that, Nori. That sobers up all the men.
“Dude,” Dez says.
Xavier is staring at my stomach.
Bash has gone white.
Idiots. All of them. I roll my eyes. “I get the birth control shot, okay guys?” My hand runs down the light sweater I’m wearing. “No little surfers are currently growing inside of me.”
As one, all three sigh. I roll my eyes. As a unit, the three of them are ridiculous. I’m about to tell them that when a scream, distinctly sounding like my best friend, directs our attention to the other side of the fire.
The guy she went over to talk to has her thrown over his shoulder and she’s laughing hard. One of his hands is resting on her butt. I relax when I see she’s having fun, but next to me Dez shouts, “HEY!”
Everyone near us turns to look over, but Dez has on his tunnel vision goggles. And they are focused on the scene before him.
Brit picks up her head to stare at Dez as he stalks toward them. She’s shaking her head, silently begging him not to come over, not to ruin her night. Her voiceless pleas go ignored.
I shuffle to Bash’s side, slipping my arm around his waist. “Should we stop him?”
“Nah,” He constricts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. “They need this.”
“Brit doesn’t need Dez disrupting her happiness.”
“No, but she needs to yell at him. She needs to let her hurt out. Making him jealous isn’t going to get her anywhere.”
Hmph.
“I’m still mad at you.”
“We really need to work on your losing face.”
“It’s not that I lost.” Even though it is. But there’s a bigger part to it. “It’s because I lost to a bunch of guys. I feel like I let my gender down.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “You didn’t let down your gender. I’ve been beat by a bunch of girls at drinking games. You just need to find the one you dominate at.”
“It’s quarters.” I did learn some things at college. “And I don’t think shotgunning a beer is a drinking game.”
Bash shrugs as we hear Brit scream, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She’s in Dez’s face now and the guy from earlier is standing off to the side. He watches her verbally spar with someone else and doesn’t even look all that interested or concerned. Asshole.
Dez, on the other hand, looks like he’s ready to explode. “What the fuck is your problem? You want my attention, come to me, not some fucking preppy douche!”
I take in the other guy’s attire and can confirm he is dressed in a preppy way. White button down, pink shorts stopping above the knee, and boat shoes.
On the beach. He’s wearing boat shoes on the beach.
Bash is barefoot. The proper foot attire for the beach.
“Maybe I like him. Did you think of that, Dez?” Brit stands on her toes, she is also barefoot, and is now eye level to Dez’s nose. “Not everything is about you.”
“It is when it concerns you.”
“You’re not my keeper! You shouldn’t care what I do.”
“Yeah, well I fucking do!” he screams, his voice cracking at the end. Silence follows. Brit blinks and Dez takes a deep breath. “I know you don’t want me to, but I fucking do. I care, Brittany. I care so fucking much.”
Brit blinks a few times and my heart catches at her full name.
She shakes her head at him, mouthing something I don’t catch before she’s sprinting down the beach. Dez goes after her, closing the distance between them. I pull away from Bash, ready to chase after her, after Dez, but Bash stops me. “They need to do this, Em,” he reminds me and I nod, allowing him to pull me back into his embrace. He pulls me in front of him, locking both arms around my neck, his stance wide.
Nori is shaking her head at Xavier, who is sitting on the ground against her legs. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.” She rocks on her feet, knocking her knees into his back. He mumbles something incoherent.
“You’re not taking him home,” I tell her. I sound like a parent and I hate it. But it’s Nori. Nori, who’s like my little sister and who I have to protect from the world. My precious baby.
“Yes, I am,” Nori says. “No one else is good enough to drive and he can’t stay on the beach all night.”
Her words make sense, so much sense I find myself nodding in agreement, not even attempting to persuade her to go in a different direction. I don’t have the want to try otherwise. My time is limited and I have to make the most of it. Feeling iffy about Nori and Xavier’s friendship is not how I want to spend my freedom.
I roll my head onto Bash’s chest, looking up at him. “I think I’m drunk.”
His chuckling chest vibrates my body.
“Not too drunk,” his voice is in my ear. As soft as silk and as deep as the ocean. I shiver against him when he continues. “I have plans for us.”
“Want to get started on those plans now?” It’s like fifteen minutes until midnight.
He grabs ahold of my hips, holding them still as he rolls his against me and I get a good sense of how ready he is. My mouth goes dry as a tightness settles between my legs.
“Are you good if we take off?” I ask my cousin, my gaze jumping from her to Xavier.
She waves me away, rolling her eyes. “This was my idea, remember? Now go.”
Bash is leading me away from them and down the beach before Nori can finish speaking.
Bash presses me against the side of his truck when we get to his house, kissing me with lips that taste like beer and gelatin shots. I’m getting drunk on his touch as his hands grip my thighs and my legs wrap around his waist.
He’s kissing me like it’s the last time. He always kisses me like it’s our last time. I don’t want to think about why, I just return with the same vigor. Enjoying the taste of freedom for the night as my boyfriend works his hands under my shirt and creeps the fabric farther up my body until he pulls away and my shirt flies off.
My lacey black bralette follows and I’m left wearing nothing from the waist up as Bash presses me against the side of his truck.
My pulse races as I feel the cool air caress my skin. My face heats with excitement. Wherever Bash is taking this, I’m following. No matter the adventure, I think I’ll always follow him.