Page 4 of Catch Me

I pause for a beat. “Ok, I dipped out early, sue me.”

He barks a sharp laugh. “Well anyway, I was calling to ask a favour.”

“When are younotcalling to ask a favour?”

He ignores that and continues. “Callie needs a few more clothes whilst we’re here, she’s had a few…accidents.”

I roll my eyes. “You mean she’s bleeding because she literally just gave birth?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s what I meant. Anyway I'm going to swing by at some point during the party and grab them, but could you pack a bag for me? I don’t know what Callie will want.”

I smile to myself. “Yeah, sure.”

“Great, thanks munch, see you later.”

“Don’t call me mu—”

He hangs up before I can tell him to stop calling me munch. The nickname first came into existence when I was a child and for some bizarre reason it’s stuck. I guess I better get my arse in gear even quicker now I have a bag to pack for Callie, and trust me I'm going to pack the shit out of that bag. That woman not only lives with my brother full time, but she’s just brought a mini version of him into this world, she deserves looking after.

“Fuck me.” I sigh, dropping four large shopping bags onto the island in the kitchen. There was a mutual agreement that once Callie had the baby, I would move into her room in the dorm she shares with Molly and Anais. This was mainly so Callie could move in with Sean. The house he shares with Kyle, Nick and Lewis is fucking huge anyway, so there’s plenty of room for Callie. Especially since Sean bagged the biggest bedroom with the best ensuite. Being the captain of the hockey team comes with many benefits, one of them being you get first dibs on shit like bedrooms, even when you’re the last one to move in.

“Oh great, you’re back.” Molly swishes into the kitchen, clicking her fingers at me. “Right, come on let’s get on with prepping all this shit for tonight.”

“Where’s your usual lap dog right now? Or am I his replacement for this evening?”

A hand lands on her hip and she throws me a sassy look. “Kyle is at the rink if that’s who your talking about and fyi,” she leans closer, turning her voice into a whisper even though we’re alone. “He tends to boss me around a lot more than I do him, especially when we’re naked.”

“Ok, ew, thanks for that.” I smack a palm over each ear and shake to rid my head of those vile images. I hear enough of what those two get up to every time Kyle stays overnight. The walls are paper thin here and I happen to share one with Molly Crawford.

The two of us spend the best part of the afternoon getting everything ready, prepping some party food and organising the music. Luckily for us they have a great sound system at Sean’s house, but putting a playlist together definitely isn’t a job for the boys. Once Molly and I are done, we both shower and slip our dresses on. I opt for a black number that lands about mid thigh. It shimmers under the kitchen light as I twist for Molly, the sparkles bouncing off every surface of the room. She whistles at me, sending a flurry of butterflies through my veins. She’s such a girl's girl, always hyping up her friends and making them feel like the sexiest girls in the world. My self confidence is likely to take a nose dive when we actually get to the party and I see Nick with some barbie girl around his waist. But for now, I take one more swig of the nearly empty bottle of sangria that Molly and I have been sharing over the last hour and slip my feet into my heels. I’m only five-foot-two, so I need all the extra height I can get.

By the time the two of us get to the party the house is already pumping, the base of the music sending a ripple through the wooden beams on the ceiling of the old house. The floor shakes under me and I suddenly notice the alcohol that’s slithered into the crevices of my brain. Molly yells something into my ear but Ihave no idea what she says, as she carries a few platters of party food into the kitchen. I sweep my gaze across the huge open plan living room, immediately spotting Anais and feeling my heartbeat soften a little. I swish through the sea of people who sway to the music in the centre of the room. I can barely register who everyone is, half of them probably have no idea what they’re even here supposedly celebrating.

I tap Anais on the shoulder and she spins to face me, her thick auburn hair almost colliding with my face.

“Hey Lo,” she grins, something pink and fizzy in her hand. “Want a drink? This is called a barbie girl or some shit like that,” she giggles, clearly this isn’t her first drink of the night. “It’s fucking delicious, you want one?”

I nod. “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

With a peck on my cheek Nay floats across the makeshift dance floor and disappears into a crowd that’s gathered around the kitchen island. I plonk my ass down on a random barstool in the corner of the room, waiting for her to return with my liquid gold. I can’t fucking wait to get so drunk I have no idea what I'm doing.

Chapter 3

Nick

Jesus Christ, what was I thinking?

I guess I wasn’t really. All my mind could focus on all day was getting shit faced and hopefully forgetting about my dad for a few hours, before I have to face the music tomorrow. The man still manages to rile me up, even from behind bars.

But for right now I lean back on the armchair in my living room, tipping the rim of my ice cold beer bottle to my lips and gulping hard. The house is full of people and I meanfull. There’s barely any room to move and that’s why I’ve deployed my usual tactic at parties like this, chose a spot to people watch and stay there until the crowd start to disperse. Which should be soon, considering the fact it’s almost midnight and I know a lot of these so called ‘athletes’ have early practice tomorrow morning. Half of themare only at Redwood because they got an easy ride here, a full scholarship or student loan from the bank of Mum and Dad. I’d love to say I had the same privilege, but my life is lightyears away from a lot of these silver spoon kids. My mum was alone for most of my childhood. After Dad was convicted of grievous bodily harm for the second time when I was 13, she pretty much just resigned herself to being a single parent. Having six of us made being a single mum even trickier and meant some of the fatherhood responsibility automatically fell onto my shoulders as the oldest. I love my siblings, I really do but I can’t say living the way we did didn’t fuck me up slightly. Knowing your dad is a criminal from a young age leaves scars in your mind. It made me kind of cold and untrusting I guess, which I'm not proud of. I’m ready to forget all of that shit though, for tonight at least. So when the party finally starts to die down and people start trickling out of the house, I get up from my armchair. My arse is almost numb from barely moving the whole night. I like people watching, and by people I mean half naked women swishing their hips in my living room and making fuck me eyes at me. I should have fucked one of them come to think of it. Maybe Kylie or whatever the fuck her name was would have been up for a quick fuck upstairs before she left. But it’s too late for that now, she’s gone and I'm a bit pissed off that I'm not more drunk. The room is only slightly swaying which was not the goal of tonight, I wanted the room to be flipping upside down and taking me with it. I follow Ky up the stairs as the last couple of people leave through the front door, letting it fall closed behind them.

“Hey!” I yell after Ky as him and Molly stumble down the hall to his bedroom. “Can you two keep the moaning down to a minimum tonight please? Some of us have to get up early.”

Kyle scoffs and Molly flicks me the bird. “You don’t have to be up early, it’s Sunday.”

“I didn’t say that I was ‘some of us’ did I?” I smirk and Molly cackles, dragging Kyle into his bedroom and closing the door with a click.

That feisty blonde certainly keeps Kyle on his toes, but she’s good for him. I'd never say it out loud, but I love to see my friends happy, even if I do rip the piss out of them for it. As soon as my shirt is peeled off and thrown in a heap on the ground I consider just dropping down onto my bed and letting sleep drown me. But I know there’s a kitchen that resembles world war three downstairs and it needs sorting out before Sean comes home tomorrow. He runs a tight ship around here since Callie moved in, giving us all a clip around the ear when we don’t keep things tidy enough. After about five minutes of contemplation — or more like procrastination — I heave my tired body back down the stairs, running a hand over my bare, inked stomach and tensing the muscles there. I don’t have much bare skin left between all of the tattoos, but the urge to get more images and words scrawled onto my body never wavers. I swear I'm addicted to getting drawn on with a needle at this point. The pain kind of soothes me in a messed up way, I guess it helps me to feel in control. That’s what tattoos have always been about for me, they were first just a way to rebel against my mum, to show her I could do whatever the hell I wanted and that I was a real man. I wasn’t of course. I got my first tattoo the day I turned eighteen and the second the needle hit my skin I was an addict, needing to get more and more of my skin covered in different shades of ink over the next seven years.

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