Only I know better.
“Don’t you ever want a girlfriend?” I ask, too numb to care about what I’m saying, even though I know I’ll be kicking my own teeth out later.
Adam smirks down at me. “Why? Want to be my girlfriend?”
I force a chuckle, pretending to find the idea absurd. Hell, who needs to pretend? It is absurd. “I’m just wondering.”
With a smile, he says, “Do I ever want a girlfriend . . . hm . . .” He fiddles absent-mindedly with a stringy black bracelet on his wrist, thinking. “Girlfriends are a lot of work.”
“So that’s a no?”
He chuckles and scoops my suitcase from the car, carrying it across the parking lot to the door of his apartment building. “It’s an observation.”
I take his cue and let the conversation drop as we walk through a lobby with polished granite floors and a five-story-high ceiling. We take an elevator to the fourth floor and then walk along a narrow hall to Adam’s apartment. 4E.
The door opens into a large living room, and even if I didn’t already know Adam and Shawn live here, I’d know that college-aged bachelors did. Hardwood floors stretch into the space, which features a plush gray couch and two mismatched recliners. They frame a wooden coffee table and face a massive entertainment setup with a large flat-screen TV and big, big speakers. In the corner of the room are more speakers and three guitar stands, two with guitars propped on them. The walls are muted gray and bare, except for a small patch where someone has written, in bright blue marker, DON’T COLOR ON THE WALLS! I recognize the handwriting from Adam’s notebook and smile widely.
After setting my suitcase down, he walks into the kitchen to our left and sets two glasses on the counter. Then he opens a pair of cupboards filled to the brim with liquor bottles, his restless fingers drumming against the wooden doors. I hop onto a bar stool in front of the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the living room and watch him. His back is to me, his black T-shirt hanging loosely over his shoulder blades, when he says, “Alright, I have an idea.” He turns around with a mad-scientist glint his eye. “Let’s make a new drink. We’ll call it a forget that fucker cocktail or something. Just tell me what’s in it.”
I laugh. “Forget that fucker cocktail?”
“Hey, if you can come up with a better name, be my guest.” He smiles warmly at me. “So what’s in it, Peach? You name it, we’ve probably got it. And if not, there’s a liquor store down the street.”
I think about it for a while, staring up at bottles stacked in front of bottles. A full fifth of gin catches my eye, reminding me of the only time I ever saw Brady get truly shit-faced. At a homecoming party my junior year, he drank way too much gin and was still throwing up a day and a half later. He hasn’t touched the stuff since.
“Brady hates gin,” I say, and the corner of Adam’s lip curves up in approval.
“I love gin.” He grabs the bottle from the cupboard and sets it on the counter. “What else?”
“He hates anything grape flavored.” Grape lollipops, grape gum, grape soda—he’ll scrunch up his nose and turn his head away like it’s trying to escape from his neck. It’s actually kind of adorable. But right now? I want to bathe in grape juice, wrap myself in grape-flavored taffy, and shove my grape-clad fist down his lying, cheating throat.
Adam roots through the cabinet, bottles clinking as he slides them around. “Aw, come on, I know we must have—Aha!” He pulls out a half-empty bottle of grape-flavored vodka, smiling triumphantly as the liquid sloshes around. “Anything else?”
I shrug. “I’ve discovered a love of tequila.”
Adam leans in close, resting his elbows on the counter with his chin in his hands. “You have, have you?”
I chuckle and cover his goofy face with my hand. “I have.”
With his black-nailed fingers, he pulls my hand to the side by my pinky so he can grin at me some more. “Good to know.” He stands back up, turning around to root for the tequila. He mixes gratuitous amounts of all three liquors in both of the glasses, and then he slides one over to me.
I pick it up and study it. When I dip my nose over the rim and sniff, the scent is like a pool of acid behind my eyes. “This is going to be nasty,” I cough.
“Good. More reason to make sure you never have to drink it again.”
He has a damn good point. I raise my glass, and he clinks his to it. “On one?” I say.
He nods, and then I count down from three, trying not to think too hard about the last time I counted backward with Adam and all of the toe-curling things that happened afterward. On one, I gulp my drink down, and it blazes a river of fire all the way from my tongue to the pit of my belly. Eyes watering, I look back up to see Adam still holding his full glass, grinning at me.