“Call in sick. I won’t tell the boss.”
Before Amanda could respond, Julian wandered in from the living room, phone in hand, his long hair tucked girlishly behind his ears.
“What’s up?” he said, with just a hint of a slur. “You guys talkin’ about me again?”
“I should drive you home,” Amanda told him. “You’re way too drunk to ride a skateboard.”
“What?” Julian looked offended. “You’re drunker’n I am.”
“Not even close, dude.”
“Really?” He squinted at her. “You’re not drunk?”
“Maybe a little,” Amanda conceded. “I would say I’m mildly inebriated.”
Julian smirked. “Tell that to the breathalyzer.”
“I live like five minutes away. I’m not gonna get pulled over.”
Skateboards. Breathalyzers.
“Why don’t you just sleep here?” Eve said. “There’s three bedrooms upstairs. I have spare toothbrushes if you need them. My dentist gives them out free with every checkup.”
“Mine too!” Julian was excited by the coincidence. “You go to Dr. Halawi?”
*
The bed in the guest room was perfectly comfortable. There were more than enough blankets, the windows weren’t drafty, and the shades blocked out the moonlight much more effectively than the flimsy curtains in Amanda’s own bedroom. The pajamas Eve had loaned her were soft and fit reasonably well, despite the difference in their body types. There really was no good reason why she couldn’t fall asleep, especially after all the tequila she’d drunk.
It was just nerves, the by-product of a long and sometimes stressful night—the lecture, the party, new people, more dancing than she’d done in a long time. She was all wound up, her senses on high alert. It didn’t help that she was also super-horny, a condition that afflicted her whenever she slept in a strange place—a hotel, her grandmother’s house, a friend’s apartment in the city, a bare-bones Airbnb, a tent in the woods, even a sleeper car on a train, which was something she’d experienced exactly once in her life. Being in a bed that wasn’t her own instantly flooded her brain with thoughts of sex.
Or, in this case, the absence of sex.
She’d really believed that something was going to happen with Eve. They’d been flirting all night, lots of meaningful glances and not-quite-accidental contact on the dance floor. And then Eve had convinced her to sleep over, encouraging her to get even more drunk than she already was, and to go ahead and play hooky from work in the morning. It had felt like a pretty straightforward seduction, one person pressing, the other resisting, then wobbling, then giving in.
And then . . . Nothing.
Why’d you make me stay if you weren’t going to do anything?
They’d had their opportunity. Right after Amanda had brushed her teeth, Eve had knocked on the guest room door and presented her with a little bedtime care package—a bath towel, a pair of clean pajamas, a bottle of Tylenol. Eve had already changed into her sleeping clothes, sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt that said, Haddington Youth Lacrosse. It felt so intimate seeing her boss in that context, her face tired and sweet, softer without makeup. I thought you might need a few things. Julian was in the bathroom—they could hear the water running—so it would have been easy for Eve to slip into the room and stay for as long as she wanted. But for some reason, she lingered shyly in the doorway.
Sleep tight, Eve told her. I’ll see you in the morning.
Right now, though, the morning felt like an eternity away, and Amanda was dreading the thought of it. It would be so awkward, waking up hungover in Eve’s house, heading downstairs with bad breath and a splitting headache, dressed in yesterday’s clothes. A walk of shame, but without any shameful fun to make it worth the embarrassment. And then what were they gonna do? Eat breakfast together?
I can’t, she thought. I just can’t.
Better to just slip out now, leave a note on the kitchen table so Eve wouldn’t worry. She wondered if she should knock on Julian’s door on the way out, see if he was awake and wanted a ride home as well.
He was a sweet kid. He’d really opened up to her on the way back from the liquor store, telling her about his clinical depression, his hatred of high school, his fears of going away to college, the difficulty he had talking to girls his own age.
She knew exactly what was weighing him down: that helpless feeling that you were wasting your precious youth and it was your own damn fault. It was something you never quite recovered from, and it usually led to some stupid mistakes down the road, many of which were worse than a few regrettable tattoos. She wished she could climb into a time machine and make herself twenty again, just so she could be his girlfriend for a while, let him know how great he was, build up his confidence for the future. It sounded like a good idea for a TV show, a modern-day feminist superhero:
Amanda Olney, Agent of Sexual Justice.
*
Brendan’s room was a jock shrine. Trophies from a lifetime of athletic excellence—Little League baseball (All-Star!), Pop Warner football (County Champs!), middle school swimming (2nd Place, Backstroke!), Haddington Youth Lacrosse (Most Valuable Player!)—were crowded on top of the dresser, right below a framed photo collage that must have been assembled by Brendan’s ridiculously hot cheerleader girlfriend, Becca DiIulio, since it included two different images of Becca looking fine in a bikini (one orange, one pink), the latter of which was actually autographed in silver marker, as if she were a fucking movie star: Luv ya, Becca xxxooo! There were three pics of Brendan with sunglasses and no shirt. He was the kind of dick who made muscleman poses for the camera and wasn’t being ironic about it. Just to rub it in, he had a roll of LifeStyles condoms stashed in his sock drawer—Julian couldn’t help taking a peek—eighteen in all, because you never knew when the whole cheerleading squad might show up and beg to be fucked, one right after the other.
Eighteen condoms. A little whimper of defeat leaked from Julian’s throat. He hadn’t bought eighteen condoms in his entire life. For a minute, he thought about searching for a sharp object—a safety pin or some nail scissors—and poking a few strategic holes in Brendan’s lifestyle, but he quickly detected the flaw in this plan: all it would do was populate the world with more little Brendans, which would not be doing the world a favor.