Page 52 of From Now On

“I don’t feel good,” Eve interrupts.

“Drinking my body weight in alcohol always makes me a little queasy too,” Aidan tells her cheerfully.

Eve groans.

She’s drunk.Wastedwould be more accurate. I’m impressed she’s vertical right now.

After Eve stumbled back to our table—minus the guy who’d been drooling all over her for the past hour, thank God—there was a group consensus that it was time to head out.

“Do you want more water—oh, shit.” Harlow hurries after Eve, who’s made an abrupt beeline toward the bushes that line the parking lot.

“I’ll grab her some water.” Rylan heads back inside.

Aidan, Conor, and I stand around awkwardly, listening to Eve’s heaves and the low murmur of Harlow’s voice.

“Really takes you back to freshman year, huh?” Aidan says. “Remember the Beer Olympics?”

“Yeah, because Morgan and I weren’t the ones puking in the yard,” Conor replies.

“Whatever. I participated in twice as many events as you two. Good sportsmanship. Plus, the whole team got trashed. Pretty sure every plant on the property got christened.”

Conor sighs.

I make a face.

We live in that house now.

Thankfully, Aidan ends his trip down memory lane there. “We still on for surfing tomorrow morning?”

He talked me and Conor into a morning surf session while we were watching hockey earlier.

“I’m in,” I say.

I had two beers. Not enough to wake up with a hangover, although it’s late enough I’ll still be tired tomorrow unless I sleep most of the morning.

“Yeah. Me too,” Conor adds.

He’s the only one of us who’s completely sober. Harlow tried to talk him into getting a beer when we arrived, but he refused.

“Great.” Aidan rubs his hands together excitedly. “I was scoping out the boards in the garage earlier and—you need help, Rye?”

Rylan’s back, carefully balancing a plastic cup of water. She glances at Harlow and Eve. “I think we’re good,” she replies before continuing toward them.

Eve’s still bent over, so I can’t see more than her silhouette. This parking lot could use some better lighting. All the streetlights line the opposite edge of the lot, closer to the road.

“How many shots did she have?” Aidan wonders. “Four? Five?”

“A lot,” Conor says. “I knew those surfer guys were bad news.”

I barely avoid nodding along in agreement. Hart’s pissed because they checked Harlow out when she went over to check on Eve.Ihave no good reason to hate the bartender and his buddies.

“Come on, she looked like she was having fun,” Aidan comments. “Eve’s in way better shape than you were after breaking up with Harlow.”

“Yeah, because I was in love with her.”

“Eve dated that asshole for three years. She must have been in love with him.”

My gaze falls to the ground. I scrutinize a crack in the pavement, lifting my hand to rub at the back of my neck.

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