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“Get out of my face!” Annalisa yells loudly.
Aliyah jumps up and scrambles out of the room, passing Julian on the way out.
“Anna . . .” I start.
“There’s no point. The rumors are already out there. People are going to say whatever they want to say anyway. It’s fine.” She aggressively shoves her rings back onto her fingers, contradicting her last statement.
“Were you just yelling at Aliyah?” Julian asks Annalisa when he reaches her.
“Yeah. Because I’m Wacko Anna White and that’s what I do!” She shoves past him and marches out of the room.
“What . . . ?” Julian looks at the space where his girlfriend has disappeared into the crowd.
Chase stands up. “Honestly, I only understood half of what happened, man. But you should probably go after her. It looked bad.”
Julian moves easily through the crowd of people to find Annalisa, who is definitely more bothered about this than she wants us to know.
“Should we go after her too?” Charlotte asks me.
“No, we don’t want to bombard her. We’ll talk to her after.”
“Does one of you want to tell me what just happened?” Chase asks.
Just then, some guy from school comes up to Charlotte and starts talking to her, making Chase narrow his eyes at him.
“Come on, Chase. Why don’t we go somewhere quieter and I’ll tell you,” I say, attempting to guide him from the room before he makes a drunken scene over nothing. Again.
Charlotte giggles at something the guy says, and Chase’s nostrils flare.
“You were literally just making out with Aliyah three minutes ago. You’re not allowed to be jealous,” I inform him, practically dragging him out of the room.
“Whatever. I’m going to get more beer.” He shrugs me off and walks to the kitchen.
Okay, so I guess he doesn’t want to know what just happened with Annalisa? I’m left standing awkwardly in the hallway for a full three seconds before Mason barrels into me.
“K-bear!” he half slurs. “What’re you doin’ in the middle of the bathroom?”
The surprise at the resurgence of my nickname only lasts a millisecond as I look around at the hallway, which is clearly not the bathroom. Mason stumbles and I steady him and move us over to the side. A part of me is so happy to hear him call me by my nickname again—it’s been a while since I’ve heard it—but the other part of me is concerned he’s got alcohol poisoning.
“How much have you had to drink?” I ask him.
His eyes are unfocused and he looks like he can’t decide to look at me or the second me he’s seeing.
“Yeah, you’re right. It is hot in here.”
He reaches up and pulls off his T-shirt, throwing it on some random guy walking by, who’s also apparently too drunk to notice the new addition hanging over his shoulder.
Okay. That happened.
“Why don’t we go sit down? Get you some water?”
“You’re so smart, k-bear. So, so smart. Way too smart for me,” he rambles and leans against the wall.
Oh no.
“I miss you, k-bear. Why aren’t we friends anymore?” He leans his head against the wall. “Are you mad at me for elbowing you in the face?”
“Mason, of course we’re friends! And I’ve told you a thousand times I’m not mad at you. It wasn’t your fault.”
A couple of kids walk by livestreaming on that stupid app Charlotte’s obsessed with, and I turn my head as they walk by so I’m not in the video. Somehow, even though he thinks we’re in the bathroom, Mason notices.
“You can’t even stand being seen with me! You do hate me!” Mason’s normally happy face completely falls. He leaves, stumbling down the hallway.
“No, Mason!” I run around so that I’m standing in front of him again. “I don’t hate you! I super–pinkie promise!”
I hold up my pinkie finger, waiting for him to take it. He stares at it intently.
“You know if you break this promise I’ll have to break your pinkie. That’s what a pinkie promise means.”
I shake my little finger impatiently. “I know, I know. I promise I don’t hate you.”
He locks his pinkie with mine and holds our hands together.
“K-bear.” He locks eyes with me, his brown eyes studying me intensely as his other hand reaches up and pushes my hair out of my face. “I lov—”
“Ohhhhh-kay.” I cut him off quickly and back away, letting his hands fall to his sides.
He was about to say the L-word, I’m sure of it. He’s never said that to me before and I’m not ready to hear it, not right now. He cannot tell me he loves me, especially not while he’s hammered. We both want things to go back to normal, and that’s not going to happen if Mason goes and says the L-word in an as more than a friend kind of way.
“Why don’t we go see where Aiden is?” I ask, hoping the name of his best friend will remind him who I’m actually in love with.
Mason doesn’t respond. His eyes are closed, and he’s fully slumped against the wall.
Oh my God. Did he just fall asleep standing up?
“Mason?” I get closer to him and poke his shoulder.
The poke is all that is needed to throw him off balance, and almost like in slow motion, his body tilts backward. Scrambling, I race around to catch him before he bashes his head on the floor, and wow, he is heavy. Holding on to him from behind, I lean him against the wall and listen to his breathing.
Yup. He’s sleeping.
Damn it, Mason. Control your drinking.
I can’t just leave him here in the hallway with a bunch of people, and need someone to help me. Maybe I can set him down and find Aiden. No, there are too many people in here; they’re going to step on him. I guess I’m just going to have to drag him upstairs to a bedroom.
“Mason.” I shake him, trying to wake him up.
“Hmmm?” His head lolls to the side.
“We’re going upstairs, can you stay awake for, like, ten more seconds?” I move so that his arm is around me and I’m supporting the vast majority of his weight. He makes some noncommittal sound with his eyes closed. His body weight is crushing.
Okay, great.
Thankfully, the stairs are very close, and I don’t have to go too far carrying him. With some prodding, Mason manages to ease up the stairs with my support. I drag us to the closest door and open it, and it looks like Noah’s room. Perfect. He’ll be Noah’s problem now.
I deposit Mason on the bed and he lands on the end of it, half of his body hanging off the end. He groans and I take a big, well-earned breath of air and try to catch my breath. I honestly broke a sweat; getting him here was not easy.
“Mason?” I ask, and he makes some noncommittal sound. “You’re going to fall off the bed like that.”
He makes no move to fix himself and I sigh. With a knee up on the bed for leverage, I try to maneuver him so he won’t slide off the mattress, and grab his arm to pull, but it’s all useless. He won’t budge. I switch to pushing him up on the bed and finally make small progress. It would be a lot less awkward for me if he was wearing a shirt, not that the view is bad. With one final, big push, I finally get him in the middle of the bed, but I slip and land with a heavy thump on top of him, banging my head on the low headboard in the process.
“Damn.” I rub my head and take a second to get over it.
Having a fully grown teenage girl land on top of him must’ve woken Mason up, because I feel his hands land on my waist.
“Amelia?” he asks groggily.
“Amelia?” comes a second voice from the entrance of the room.
Standing with his hand on the doorknob is Aiden, the prince of perfect timing, taking in the scene in front of him. Me, lying on top of Mason, who’s shirtless and has his hands on my waist, in bed.
“This isn’t what it looks like!” I exclaim, trying to roll off Mason and the bed.
Aiden stands there with his face blank, then cocks his head to the side as if listening to something.
“Stay here,” he says emotionlessly, then backs out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“What?” With zero grace, I flop off of the bed and scramble to my feet, staring at the closed door. A quick glance at Mason shows he’s passed out again.
I start toward the door, but my conscience tugs at me, forcing me to turn around. Cursing under my breath for wasting precious seconds, I cross back over to Mason and roll him into recovery position so that he doesn’t choke if he throws up, which hopefully he won’t. Satisfied Mason’s taken care of, I rush out the door, close it behind me, and run down the stairs to explain myself to Aiden.
