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The girl looked up, rings of mascara under her eyes. Taylor Morrissey, varsity cheerleader. She swiped at her mouth with the end of her sleeve.
“Becca Chandler?” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Becca tucked her hair behind her ear, very aware of the weight of Hunter’s presence at her side. “You want me to get you a towel—or a washcloth—”
“Why are you here? Did someone pay you to strip on tables or something?”
One of the guys on the stoop snorted with laughter, blowing smoke through his nose.
Becca jerked back. Despite hearing comments like that on a daily basis, it was still a surprise.
“Drunk bitch,” muttered Quinn.
Then Taylor was laughing, almost hysterically, until she fell on her side in the grass. She narrowly missed rolling in her own vomit. “Or—wait—you just do it for free, right?”
“Ignore her,” said Hunter, his voice low and close to her ear. “She’s hammered.”
But Taylor’s words had punched her in the gut, and now Becca couldn’t get enough air. She shook off Quinn’s arm and spun for the sidewalk.
Two of Drew’s soccer team buddies were coming up the walk. One had a case of beer under his arm. She couldn’t remember his name, but his eyes didn’t get as far as her face—he was staring at her chest. “Hey, baby, where you going?”
The smoke, the laughter, the sheer number of people surrounding her—it was all suffocating. She needed to get away. Quinn had her keys, so she bolted through the open door, into the foyer.
Music slapped her in the face, something with a loud, driving beat pounding from the bass speakers in the living room. Some guy she didn’t recognize had shot glasses lined up on the hall table, and he held one out to her.
“A drink for every lady,” he said with a wink.
Liquid courage. Just what she needed. She took the glass from his fingers.
It was like swallowing fire.
It felt fantastic.
He whistled and held out another. “Let me see you do that again.”
Her limbs felt hot and heavy already, as if the alcohol were traveling through her veins to her fingertips. She reached out and took the second glass.
This burn was twice as nice.
Some people from the living room were whistling now. She shut her eyes and felt her body waver, as if a wind had whipped through the hallway.
When she opened them, he’d come around the table and was holding another shot in front of her. She could smell him now, liquor and smoke and male sweat. His voice turned low and taunting. “Let’s see you get that down your throat.”
A hand reached out and took it before she could. “Let’s not.”
Hunter.
She meant to turn, to confront him. Her legs had a different idea. She stumbled and the room tilted sideways. She knew she was falling, but her brain couldn’t get it together to do anything about it. She probably should have eaten dinner.
Hunter caught her. She heard the shot glass rattle on the hardwood of the foyer.
Her veins were still burning. Her knees wouldn’t lock to hold her upright.
Hunter glared over her shoulder. “What is that, tequila?”
“Dude, it’s not like I held her down—”
“Stop it,” she said, not wanting to hear any more talk of being held down. She tried to shrug out of Hunter’s hands. The music was still slamming into her body with every beat. “Lemme go. I just want—I need my keys—”
