“Mm-hmm,” she replies with an exaggerated side-to-side head movement, her eyebrows raised in a ‘what ever you say’ expression.
“My god, that boy’s hot!” Brie chimes back in. “Seriously, like what’s your deal? I’ve been trying to get his attention for months. The guy will practically sleep with anything that walks except me!”
Case and I look at one another for a beat before bursting out in a fit of laughter. Suddenly Brie’s eyes grow large as Ethan steps beside us, passing me a red solo cup filled with a sickly pink-looking liquid. He notices me examining the contents of the cup.
“Relax, it’s just punch, or at least that’s what TJ said it was. Half the cheer squad is drinking it, so it can’t be that bad.”
“Uh-huh. So, why is it you grabbed yourself a beer?” I tilt my chin motioning to the bottle he’s holding.
“What? I'm not drinking a chick drink,” he says, smiling. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
I’m officially wasted! It’s kind of lame that I'm eighteen years old and have never been drunk, but Em was diagnosed with leukemia when we were fifteen. She started on treatment straight away, so partying and getting trashed were pretty low down on her list of priorities. There was no way in hell I was going to go do that myself when my best friend couldn’t. So yeah, this is my first real party and the first time I've ever drunk enough to feel like everything is going in slow motion, but it’s cool. Everyone is super funny. I like the floaty feeling that seems to have overtaken me.
Kickstart played an hour set out on the patio and I was completely mesmerized. Ethan had told me that they were about to play and asked if I would watch, and given that I haven’t been able to move my gaze from him for more than two minutes all night, it was an easy question to answer.
Jackson is their drummer; Drew plays bass and Ethan the guitar. Both Drew and Ethan sing. To say watching him perform was hot would be a complete understatement. He’s so self-assured it borders on arrogant but completely works in his favor. They played a few original songs but mainly covers. A semi-circle of girls formed, surrounding them as they played Coldplay’s Magic. I couldn’t tear my attention away from him with his eyes shut so tightly singing the lyrics into the mic. I’m pretty sure every female here sighed at how completely beautiful and totally hot it was. As soon as the set was finished Ethan made his way over to me and led me back into the kitchen where some guys were playing drinking games.
Apparently, according to Jackson and Brie, my hand-eye coordination sucks, which is why I’m bad at beer pong, and subsequently why I'm so drunk.
I am leaning against Ethan and he keeps trying to get me to drink more water. I’ve told him that I was happy drinking the punch. He confiscated that and it’s probably good because it feels as though my lips are stuck to my teeth. Suddenly Hey Mickey is blasting from the speakers and Casey claps her hands excitedly.
“I freaking love this song! It was in that film, um…what’s it called? Ugh, you know the one I mean, right? The one with Fat Amy.”
I giggle snort. “Ooooh, the one with the cup song!” I offer and am graced with blank stares from the crowd of people that have gathered around us.
“Oh my god, you must know which one I mean.”
“I do!” Case exclaims. “My little sister has been trying to learn it for the last month.”
I laugh and proceed to tell the group that I, in fact, am awesome at the cup song. Ethan nudges my shoulder and leans down to whisper low enough for only me to hear, “Don’t just bring it, sing it.”
I whirl my head around to look at him; it’s too fast and I almost lose my balance. “You do know it!”
“Sure I do, the main girl was hot,” he says, winking at me. I’ve decided it must be his thing. Winking.
“Come on then, Blair!” Jackson announces. “Show us.”
It’s a challenge and I'm feeling nervous all of a sudden. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. The alcohol must have done something to my sense of fear because I stride over to the kitchen counter and pick up a solo cup. The room falls quiet as someone kills the music. Great.
I take a deep breath and look up to see Ethan’s face smiling at me. It’s all the encouragement I need so I begin performing the song to a room full of drunken gawking teenagers.
BLAIR IS BEYOND wasted; she completely floored everyone with her cup song. The whole place was silent as she weaved some sort of magic spell on us with her raspy voice. It was beautiful. She’s beautiful. She went to get a drink and disappeared for way longer than I was comfortable with. I started looking for her and found her out back doing shots with TJ, Corey, Drew and Liam, another guy from the volleyball team. Dannii and a few of the cheer squad were chanting for her to down them.