I scrunch my nose up. “That’s the point, At. I left all the good ones back…” I pause, thinking. “I don’t actually know where I left them. They’ve been gone for a long time.”
He cuts his eyes to the cooler of waters, then back at me. “Drink some water.”
“Okay, Dad,” I sigh, and tip back the bottle in my hand, swallowing, feeling it burn and go down easily. Kay glances over from a circle of people on a blanket; her expression is unreadable behind her dark lenses, but I’m sure I’m getting a death glare under them.
“You’re just mad because your roommate flirted with me,” I tell him. “And probably would have fucked me if you hadn’t just interrupted.”
“I’m not—” He wipes his mouth like that might erase his pissed-off expression. “I just don’t wanthimon you.”
“Then I’ll find someone else,” I say, and I do just that. I spin away and walk up the beach, off the main strip, toward a line of pastel houses on stilts. Not needing an overprotective friend getting in the way of what I know I need right now.
The house has kids spilling off the porch and a banner half-clinging to the banister. It’s hot inside; blue and pink walls paint the entire inside of the house, and it’s very tacky but very on brand. Drinks sweat on every flat surface. A shot appears in my hand, I knock it back, and my brain goes another notch lower, just the way I like.
Shot Boy finds me in the kitchen. He says nothing important, and it’s exactly the right nothing I need to know he’s down for a good time with no strings. We end up in a bathroom with a door that doesn’t quite close all the way and a tub the color of old teeth. His mouth is on mine, and the chemicals make my endorphins spark to life. His hands are on my waist, mine are on his shoulders. He moves us back, and my back hits the tile. It’s cold and feels good.Yes, yes, yes, my brain says, because yes is easier than begging my brain to be quiet. The coil in my stomach gets tighter, hotter, needing the release. He lifts the oversized shirt over my head and throws it to the ground, kissing my neck as I throw my head back—
The door slams so hard it sounds like it broke. “Get off her!” Atlas barks, chest heaving, shoulder already between us. He shoves the guy back, his forearm now across Shot Boy’s collarbone. “She’s underage.”
“What?!” The guy goes white. “I swear…I didn’t know—”
“Out,” Atlas says in a deadly tone.
Shot Boy bolts, half-tripping over the threshold, and vanishes into the party.
I straighten my bikini top and cross my arms. “I’m not underage,” I bite out. “Why do you keep sabotaging me? Ineededthat.”
Atlas shuts the door more softly; the party is still very alive on the other side of the wall. He looks wrecked and mad and scared, all in that order.
“You could’ve asked me,” he says, breath rough. “If you needed—” He stops, grimaces at himself, and tries again. “Why didn’t you just come to me? I’m here.”
I laugh, and it sounds ugly. “Because you have agirlfriendnow.” The wordgirlfriendtastes like a dare I’m taunting him with. “I wasn’t going to go to you.”
He steps closer like a bad idea you just can’t resist. “That doesn’t matter, not when it comes to you,” he tells me, voice low, and the room tilts a little. From the buzz, maybe. From the mixed-in high. From the intoxicating need I feel radiating off of him for me.
I blink. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he says, eyes heavy on me like he’s trying to get the point across that he wants me right now. “Let me take care of it for you.”
He kisses me roughly, and it feels like a relief lever. I grab at his shirt, and he presses against me, and the noise in my head drops like someone cut a wire. The stupid little moan I make against his mouth tells him how much I actually want this.
He’s here, and I’m here enough, and the need that’s been chewing at me grabs at its chance to be satisfied.
“You okay?” he mutters against my mouth.
“Better than okay,” I breathe.
Please don’t make me talk anymore.
We don’t talk. There’s a sink that he sits me on and a door that keeps trying to open, and a party that keeps banging on the walls. There’s just pressure and need and the kind of forgetting I’ve been hunting down all weekend. It’s clumsy and hungry, and it shouldn’t be happening, but it happens anyway.
He always takes care of me, and I always feel bad after I let him. It’s like another part of my brain takes over that can’t make rational decisions. It’s a part of my brain that’s always desperate for a distraction, never caring what form that comes in, or what damage comes after.
After, there’s the sudden quiet, like the need was satisfied, and now what? Back to reality.
Atlas braces a hand on the counter, head bowed on my shoulder. I stare at the broken tiled floor, wanting to pretend this never happened, like I’m not actually this fucked up.
The door rattles, someone trying to get in. “Hurry up!” they whine on the other side, a girl about to cry-laugh.
“Occupied,” Atlas says, voice hoarse, and then softer to me, “You okay?”
