Page 73 of The Riley Effect

“Do you mind if I steal a dance?” He asks Indy.

“She is all yours,” she replies with a sultry look in her eyes. “I should probably go find my boyfriend.”

“He’s hammered,” Jalen informs her like we haven’t spent the better part of the night taking shots together.

“He keeps calling it our last night of freedom.”

“That’s true until we’re back here celebrating a couple of National Championships,” He tells her while I reach for his hand.

He acts like it’s so easy. It’s hard to win one, let alone going back-to-back. It’d be pretty amazing to add two more banners to the Riley Center’s rafters.

When the song ends, Jalen collects his roommates. We line up along the bar to take what they are dubbing a “roomie shot.” I make sure to pull Indy along with us because we both spend enough time here to be included.

When we each have a shot in front of us, a slur of words leaves Byron’s mouth–who surprisingly came solo tonight– the only ones I could make out were, win, fucking and pussies.

When all the shot glasses are empty, I take Indy’s hand and pull her toward the stairs that lead to the boy’s bedrooms.

“I’m going to use the bathroom upstairs,” I whisper to Aaron.

I feel my body sag and let out a groan when I realize the boys used their dining room chairs to block the stairs leading to the bathroom that I desperately need. Somehow, two girls drunk on vodka win the game of Tetris against the roadblock.

“Do you want to go hang out in Jalen’s room for a minute?” I ask when we are both done. “I need a minute away from..” Before I can finish my sentence, something falls downstairs, causing the entire house to shake. “…that.”

When we get to Jalen’s room, we both take our shoes off and lay on the bed.

“Can you believe this is it?” Indy asks.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the last of everything. The last hockey formal, our last year of being roommates and the last basketball games we’ll ever play.”

I nod as she rattles off all the difficult parts that come with big life changes, but I don’t dwell on those because what I learned this year is that living in the moment makes for a much more fulfilling life.

“I guess it is sad, but haven’t you been pushing me all year to live in the moment,” I let out a sigh. “This year has been the most fulfilling of my life. Let’s just live in the now and enjoy every second we have left of our senior year.”

Indy pops up from her side of Jalen’s bed, “Alright, that means it’s time for another shot!”

She hops over me, puts her heels on in record time and is halfway out the door before I can even process what happened.

By the time I catch up with Indy, she has her finger in Jalen’s chest, and he looks like a man who has been caught in a position he wishes he was never in.

35

Ivy

“What the fuck are you telling this random chick about my best friend?” Her finger is pointed at the middle of Jalen’s chest, unhappiness is painted on her face.

“It’s not what you think,” That expression makes my heart sink. That’s always what you say when it is just how it looks.

I hurry over to them before they draw more attention to each other and drag them to the mudroom so we can at least have some kind of privacy to figure this thing out.

Indy’s eyes are glued to Jalen. Jalen’s eyes are set on the floor and mine are moving between the two, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.

“Anybody want to tell me what happened back there?” I ask forcefully, trying really hard not to raise my voice.

Indy lets out a huff before she rips into Jalen, “What, Jalen, you have no problem talking about your girlfriend to some random chick but aren’t man enough to talk to her about it now?”

Jalen’s body tenses at her curt words. When he finally decides to look me in the eyes, they aren’t the same ones I saw before I left to go upstairs. The drunken haziness is replaced by sadness.

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