Page 75 of Here In Your Arms

Charli holds up her water, and I grab mine, holding it up as well. “To mental illness. May it always fuck off.”

Laughing, I touch my glass to hers, and we take a drink. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

“Did you just cheers with WATER?” Charli and I look over to see Courtney’s face twisted in mock horror.

“Oh fuck off, rules don’t count unless Graham and Thomas are here!”

We fall into an easy pattern of laughter and stories amidst a few drinks. Charli and Courtney have known each other for years because Courtney is her brother’s best friend. Olivia has been Charli’s friend since they were kids, and Morgan got pulled in under semi-unfortunate circumstances.

“Wait, wait, wait, you dated Charli’s boyfriend, and somehow you guys ended up friends? How the fuck does that happen?” Apparently, alcohol has loosened my tongue.

“Oh my god it was SO bad.” Charli laughs.

Morgan buries her hands in her face, but she’s also laughing. The girls wait for her to look up and realize she’s the one who will be explaining this. She glares at them.

“You’re all assholes,” she says without any heat.

“You love us!” Olivia sing-songs back.

Morgan goes on to explain how when she met Charli, she tried to bring her down from an anxiety attack and ended up making everything worse. Charli deals with a lot of fat-phobic people and she thought Morgan was one of them. They got things sorted out and everything clicked after that. Morgan and Charli’s boyfriend, Jax, never wanted to get back together, so it was comfortable to keep Morgan around.

“God, do you remember Roman’s face when Jax heard her?” Olivia asks.

“I don’t think I’ve seen him go that white before!” Charli laughs.

“Who’s Roman?” I ask.

“My other boyfriend,” Charli says, not skipping a beat.

“You too?” I ask in excitement.

“Wait, are you dating two guys?”

“Yes! We made it official recently, so now I get to call them boyfriend. Except they didn’t give me a note asking me to check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to their request.”

“It’s like they don’t even care about you!”

“Right? You get me.”

“Let’s ditch the boys and we can ride off into the sunset. Mine will understand, it’s been a year, they’ve gotten the best of me,” Charli jokes.

We devolve into laughter, but I feel someone stepping up behind me. The mood of the table sobers, and I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Please be Wes or Kyle. Please be Wes or Kyle.

I know it’s not though, and I square my shoulders in preparation to try to deal with this. My thumb automatically inputs the code to my phone, and I hand it under the table to Morgan. She nods and I see her scrolling through the contacts.

“Didn’t take you for a dyke, E.”

Fuck.

“Didn’t take you for someone who doesn’t understand basic English, asshole,” I retort.

Unwilling to do this without seeing him, I adjust in my chair just enough to see Nathan standing a step or two away from me and Charli. His eyes are roaming the table, which has gone deathly silent. The girls all watching him with narrowed eyes.

“I understand just fine, E. I choose to ignore stupid ideas.”

“Leave me alone, Nathan. I’m tired of telling you that.”

---