This whole thing looks like my worst nightmare.
“Drink?” Danielle asks, waving her hand across the cups.
“Water?” She rolls her eyes and laughs loudly, the alcohol making its way through her system quickly. Or maybe she’s been here awhile, because she sways as she walks to the stainless-steel fridge, opening one of the front doors and pulling two bottles of water out. Handing one to me and one to Adam.
She leads us through the crowd and out the back door, the spacious yard before us lined with fairy lights across the top of the gates. It’s quieter out here, with people separated into small groups while they sip their warm beer and talk about whatever it is that people talk about at parties.
She sits down on the grass, crossing her legs underneath her. “Sit by me,” she says, pouting out her bottom lip. I cut my eyes to Adam, and he’s squatting down to sit on the ground as well, leaving enough room between him and Danielle for me.
Brittany and Zoey join us.
Then a few more people.
And now the circle has almost tripled in size, the conversation cutting across the gap in the center. Danielle is laughing loudly beside me at something the person on the other side of her is saying.
“Having fun yet?” Adam asks me, his smile hesitant.
“So much,” I respond sarcastically. My body is tense, and my brain is working through the abundance of stories floating around, trying to focus on all of them at once but still not understanding anything.
“The more you take, the more you leave behind.”
“Footsteps. Seriously, you don’t have any better riddles? I’m pretty sure Angie has already used that one,” he groans, but his smile is bright in the dark night.
“Okay, Mr. Smarty Pants,” he taunts, leaning back on his hands. The loose fabric of his costume shirt falls open more, until I can see the top of his hip bone poking out from under his skin. I want to bite it. To leave the indentation from my teeth behind as a subtle show of him belonging to me.
“Did you know…” I try to think of a fun fact, but my mind is blanking. “It’s illegal to take naked pictures before noon on Sunday in Arizona?”
His laugh bursts out of him, loud enough to halt the conversation of people around us as they stare at him, all with different levels of confusion.
“How do you know that, Collins? Tried to take a good nude?” He waggles his eyebrows, and I shove him sideways. He falls over easily because he’s still laughing way too hard at me.
When his laughter dies down and everyone goes back to their conversations, he heaves a deep breath. “We’ll be in Arizona next month for the ski trip after finals, I’ll be expecting some pictures. After noon, of course.” He winks his darker eye at me and turns his attention back to the grass, picking the blades one by one.
“We should play spin the bottle!” someone shouts, the words slurred, and every other drunk person in the group agrees enthusiastically.
A bottle is produced, and the people across from me and Adam are arguing about who should go first, the person who suggested the game or the person who got the bottle.
“Just kiss each other and move on!” Danielle says, lifting her red solo cup in the air and slightly sloshing some of the liquid onto my lap. I glance down at the wet spot, watching as it seeps through the fabric.
“Great,” I mumble under my breath, rubbing my hand across it quickly to make it not look like I peed my pants.
“Here.” Adam maneuvers out of his shirt carefully, leaving his upper body bare and placing the soft fabric in my lap. We share a smile.
One by one, every person takes turns, spinning the bottle and kissing whoever ends up on the end where the bottle cap was.
Adam’s turn comes, and I watch the bottle spin round and round until it stops on a random girl five people down. She squeals loudly and comes over, smacking a loud kiss on his mouth and crawling back to her seat.
The flare of jealousy in my stomach is unwarranted. She doesn’t know that the love of his life is sitting right beside him, and his girlfriend on the other side. Maybe everyone will be so drunk that come tomorrow, no one will be able to remember the daggers I glared into the girl’s head.
I pull the bottle close to me, the cool glass heavy in my hand, and spin it, watching the bottle point to each person, until it slowly stops.
In front of Adam.
My throat clicks as I swallow, looking nervously around at the group. They’re waiting patiently, probably wondering what the heck my problem is, and why I’m not just leaning over and pressing a kiss to his mouth like everyone else.
My heart pounds in my chest, and my mouth is dry.
“It’s just a kiss, Hunter,” he says gently, leaning toward me. My eyes widen as I watch him gain momentum closer and closer until…
