Between the Lines (Between the Lines #1)

CHAPTER 13

REID

Emma and Graham are gone before I can react, thanks to the number of shots I’ve had. With exception of that one look between them, he seemed focused on Brooke all night, so the idea that he’d leap up and take Emma with him at some point was out of nowhere.

Tadd gets to his feet unsteadily after a quick glance between Brooke and me. “Quinton, help me get this baby into her room.” He gestures to Jenna, who’s curled up asleep on the floor. We’ve successfully set a fifteen-year-old on the road to corruption, as others did for each of us. Tadd nudges her semi-awake and he and Quinton each take one of her arms. “Thank God she weighs as much as a postage stamp,” Tadd says, propping her up.

Quinton closes his eyes, steadying himself with one arm around Jenna. “I’m going to hate myself in the morning.”

“I hate you now, man. I still don’t believe you’ve never had lobster.”

They both laugh, weaving towards the door, Jenna barely conscious between them.

“G’night. You two behave,” Tadd leers at Brooke and me, eyebrows raised, as the three of them stumble into the hallway.

The door closes behind them and we sit, staring at each other across the expanse of carpet. Neither of us says anything for a couple of minutes.

Finally, I incline my head towards her bed. “Once, for old times’ sake?”

Incredulous, she blinks, measuring how serious I am. Given that Emma just left the room with Graham, Brooke is drunk and looking hot and doable, and we’re in her room alone, I’m game if she is. For a few seconds—one, two, three—I think she might be. And then she shuts it down. “Not on your life.”

“So serious and bitter.” My mouth twists in amusement. “It wasn’t so bad.”

She gasps lightly, her mouth a small “O” as she blinks, and again, before she shutters it, there’s more naked emotion in her face than I thought she possessed. She gains control of it quickly, her eyes locked to mine. And then she crawls across the ten feet of space between us, onto my lap, straddling me, her knees at my hips. Kissing me, at first softly and then hard, like punishment, she wraps her arms around my neck, her nails piercing the skin through my t-shirt as her fingers rake across my shoulders and she grinds her pelvis against mine. Despite the alcohol in my blood, my body responds, though perhaps because of the alcohol in my blood, I don’t realize what she’s doing.

Without warning she recoils and slides off my lap, forcing my hands away from where they grip her waist. “It wasn’t so good, either.” Her tone is disinterested and her smile, glacial. She pushes herself upright and walks an erratic path to her bathroom, dismissing me. “You can go now, Reid. I want nothing from you.”

I stand and laugh, watch how her shoulders tighten at the sound. “Right. I forgot for a moment what a cold bitch you are, Brooke. I remember now. Don’t worry, you’re not nearly as difficult to leave as you assume.”

“F*ck you,” she says as I pull the door open. I chuckle as it shuts behind me, seemingly unaffected.

When I get to my room it takes every effort of restraint not to put a hole through the goddamned wall. Brooke was my first, and I was hers. We were young and stupid and for a brief space in time, I thought I loved her. I hadn’t, of course, any more than she loved me. As much as I wish I was unaffected by her, that’s impossible. No reason I can’t conceal it, though.

*** *** ***

Emma

While the room spins, I lie across the bed, calculating how many shots I had tonight. Definitely more than I’ve done before in one sitting. Running in the morning is out of the question; so much for new good habits. I remember to text Emily just before my battery dies, though the message is probably an incomprehensible jumble of letters, since the buttons on my phone keep shuffling.

I wake to a tapping noise and at first I’m convinced it’s coming from inside my head. I crack an eye open. My mouth feels like someone has wallpapered it with felt. Tap-tap-tap. Nope, definitely the door. The clock on the nightstand says it’s not quite ten a.m.

On my toes, I peer out the peephole. I unlock the door, open it a sliver and squint in the bright hallway lighting. “Graham?”

He holds up a lidded cup with a Starbucks label and smiles. “Go brush your teeth and splash some water on your face.”

“Graham, I look, and feel, like shit.”

He slips into my room. “Go on, it’ll help. How do you take your coffee?” He walks to the desk with the coffees, pulling packets of sugar and cream out of his pockets.

I sigh, unable to argue with a head full of cotton. “Gimme the works.” Obediently, I go into the bathroom and close the door behind me. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull my hair into a ponytail, avoiding the mirror as much as possible while doing so, which isn’t too difficult since my eyes refuse to open fully.

When I come out, he hands me the cup.

“How are you up, and feeling this—” I snap my fingers “—this… what’s the word…” I gesture towards him, then rub my eyes and sit on the bed.

“Unhungover?”

“That’s the word.”

“Well, I outweigh you by at least seventy pounds. That’s pretty much the secret.” He moves a pair of shoes from the desk chair to the floor and sits down.

“So you never get hungover?”

“I wouldn’t say that. But I took it easy last night while everyone else got plastered with the help of high school party games.”

“Didn’t have any fun, huh?” I say, taking a sip and closing my eyes.

“Last night was fun in its own way.”

“Meaning?”

He watches me, sipping his coffee and sitting back with one foot resting on top of the opposite knee. “Mmm. I’d like to know what you thought.”

“I’m just glad we didn’t play spin-the-bottle or… well, I’m not a fan of the whole, uh, kissing game concept…”

He sips his coffee, considering. “Yeah, me neither.”

“I thought guys liked those kinds of games.”

His lashes sweep down, hiding his eyes. “I’m not really a games sorta guy.” I think about that while he sips his coffee, and then, in what I’m starting to realize is a typical maneuver for him, he changes the subject completely. “Think you might be up for brunch and some shopping?”

A guy who wants to shop? “You aren’t going to lure me into a sporting goods place or a comic book store, are you?”

“I was thinking bookstore. But if you’re into comics…”

“No, please. Bookstore yes; comics no.” I briefly dated a guy last year who was into comics. He never stopped talking about them, even when I threatened to start talking about Gilmore Girls reruns. I know more about comic books than any girl ever wants to know.

“Finish your coffee, get ready, and I’ll be back in, say, forty-five minutes?” He stands and moves towards the door.

As I shower, I realize that Graham completely sidestepped my question about his comment that last night was “fun in its own way.” I’m definitely not running on all cylinders, as my father would say.

My phone is recharged and flashing when I get out. There’s a text from Emily answering what I sent her last night:

Me: er oksyrf * becer smf o ;rgy brfpre dpom tnr vorrle

Em: I assume, from your text, that drinking was involved. Hello? Something I can READ???

I text her back and she answers immediately.

Me: Sorry, tequila attack. The keypad kept moving around.

Em: You promised to tell all. Start telling!

Me: What i meant last night was we played i never, and i left before spin the bottle

Em: WHAT??? HOLY SHIT!!! Calling you.

“You guys seriously didn’t play I never and spin-the-bottle did you?”

“Yes and almost.”

“Somehow I’ve always pictured celebrity parties as more… sophisticated?”

I laugh. “Yeah, me too. I left when Quinton suggested spin-the-bottle or seven minutes in heaven.”

“Are you insane? There was a possibility of seven minutes in heaven with Quinton Beauvier, and you left early?”

“Em, you know how I feel about those games…”

“Yeah, I know. I just don’t see why I can’t body-double for you during times like this! It would be a grueling task, but I’d make the sacrifice for you.”

I recognize Graham’s one-knuckle thunk-thunk at the door.

“Um, I’m about to go to brunch, so I’ll call you later?”

“Sure. Don’t worry about me. All by myself in boring Sacramento. Alone. No life.”

“Emily, you know you’re always with me in spirit.”

“Bite me,” she says. “I wanna be with you in person playing spin-the-bottle with Reid and Quinton.”

“Now who’s whining?” I tease.

“Fine. But one of these days, I expect to reap the benefits of having a big star for a best friend.”

“Absolutely. You’ll be first in line.”

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