“I’m not that drunk,” she responds, her voice insistent and pleading. I stop, holding her face in my hands and pulling away from her. She looks at me, her eyes wounded and worried. “Do you not…you don’t want to?”
“No,” I answer. “God, no, Teeny. I really,reallywant to.”
“Okay then…” I stay quiet, watching her grow nervous and worried. She gnaws on her lower lip. “Is it because…I’m not—because I don’t know what I’m doing? Like, I don’t have experience?—”
“Baby, no. No, that’s not it at all,” I tell her, urging her to believe me. “I just don’t…I don’t want your first—our first time to be with a party going on outside.” Her eyes mist, visible even in the dim light coming from the small lamp sitting at my bedside. “I want it to be special. I want us to be able to take our time.” I sit up and kiss her, soothing away any doubts she may think I might have. Because I don’t have a single one. Not even a hint of one telling me that it wouldn’t mean as much as I think it would.
She finally nods and smiles. “Okay.” The haziness in her eyes returns, and she clamps a hand over her head.
“Are you okay?” I ask, bracing my hands on her shoulders for support.
She nods. “I think I might be more drunk than I thought. I should probably lay down.” I place a small kiss on her cheek, and she shies away. “Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?” She shakes her head, shifting to climb off me, but I stop her. “No, Teeny. What’s wrong?”
“I feel like I made a total fool of myself.”
“No,” I argue, squeezing her palm. “No, Teeny. Don’t say that.”
She buries her face into her hands. “I’m just embarrassed.”
“Teeny, listen.” I force her eyes on me. “I love that this is what you want because I want it just as badly, if not more. But I want things to be perfect. For you. And this isn’t what I imagined to be perfect.”
A small smile peeks through the sadness in her eyes. “What did you imagine?”
“Well, for starters, something quieter.”
She laughs, running her hands over my bare stomach. “That would be nice.”
“And when there aren’t like fifty people in my backyard. Including your brother.”
“Yeah,” she whispers through a huffed laugh. I kiss her, this time in a way that’s more consoling than anything else, and she kisses me back, the insecurities that caused her to pull away now gone. She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her forehead into the crook of my shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
She nods. “I think I should sleep some of this alcohol off before I get home.”
“Take a nap here,” I suggest. “Josh can take you home in a few hours once you’re feeling better.” I turn over my comforter and let her crawl inside.
She nuzzles her face against my pillow, and before I’ve even covered her up, she’s sighing into the soft fabric. I turn to put my shirt back on, and lay next to her, using the comforter to create a barrier between us as I watch her fall fast asleep.
Whether she believes it or not, the plans I have for her aren’t something hurried with the thought that someone outside might walk in on us. It isn’t on a night when we’re both muddled with alcohol, her more than me, and the memory of what happens between us will grow fuzzy. I want to remember every detail.
* * *
The post-party high came and went. The guys on the team did a pretty good job cleaning up the mess left behind, and Teeny went home with the help of Josh discreetly guiding her to her room without getting caught in her drunken state. And with the traces of the party long gone and the conscious awareness to the end of the weekend, I have nothing to look forward to except to be with Teeny for the rest of the day.
So that’s what I have planned. After a quick call to Teeny and finding out that her hangover is just as bad as I thought it would be, I arrive at her doorstep prepared.
“Hi.” A laugh bubbles inside of me as Teeny answers the door. She has her hair thrown up in a messy bun, and she’s wearing my hoodie and bare legs. A haggard look of fatigue mixed with disgust crosses her face as she turns around and lets me in.
“Ughhh,” she moans into a cushion as she slumps into her sofa.
Teeny’s mom waltzes in, looking over Teeny with concern. “Maybe it was that Subway sandwich you had for lunch yesterday.”
“Mh-hmm,” Teeny mumbles into the fabric.
Teeny’s mom turns to me. “She’s been feeling awful all morning. Probably just a little bout of food poisoning.”
