“It’s easy to say when you have years left to figure it out.” I can smell the liquor coming from him.
“What do you want to do?” I ask him again.
“I don’t have the luxury to just decide to do one thing and have it work out. My parents aren —”
“Really?” I laugh, shaking my head. “My dad likes you morethan he likes us most of the time.”
He smirks, shaking his head, not being able to deny it.
“You know it’s true. I mean, fuck, you practically still live at our house even after they left.”
“I got my own place.” He mumbles out.
I can’t help but laugh now. “Yeah, and even the day you moved out, they told you to come back if you needed to. They have kept your room exactly as you left it.”
He says nothing, only nodding his head.
“You wanna do something, talk to Ash.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t ask them for more when they’ve given me everything already.”
“That’s your prerogative.” Turning away from him, I pause and glance back. “Ya know, if they didn’t want you to succeed, they wouldn’t have put as much effort into it to begin with.”
“Shit,” muttering to myself as I leave the group in the backyard, after I watched Eli drop his keys next to his bike for the third time and then stumble in a failed attempt to pick them back up.
Snatching them off the ground just out of his grip, I look at him and shake my head, kicking a foot over the seat.
“You’re not driving.” He snaps at me, still annoyed about our earlier conversation.
“You’re not either.”
“It’s my fucking bike.”
“And I have the fucking keys.” I mimic him.
“You’ve been drinking.” He deadpans.
“And you’re so fucking drunk you can’t even stand up straight. Hell, I’m not even sure you can stay on the bike.”
He stomps his feet as if he were a toddler for a second, while muttering something like he can stay on the fucking bike, before rolling his eyes and agreeing.
Almost as if it’s some clairvoyant shit, I know the flashing lights are coming around the corner.
“Hurry up, get on!”I shout.
It seems as if seeing the lights sober him up. He reaches into the saddlebag, grabbing a helmet and shoving it in my direction. He kicks over behind me as the bike roars to life.
“Tuck the plate up?”
“Done.”
* * *
The gravel crunches under the tires as we close the distance, swearing to myself as I see the light shining from the garage’s open door, my dad’s silhouette stopping, turning, and looking at us as we approach.
As soon as he realizes I’m driving, I see the look on his face change.
“What’d you do?” he’s shouting before the engine even turns off.
