Page 23 of Broken Hearts
“Last night to get stupid,” Adam says when we’re all finally ready to go. “Tomorrow it’s time to go to work.”
“Hell yeah,” we agree.
We get to the basketball house, known on campus as The White House, and within the hour, I’m already too drunk to walk a straight line. Last night to get stupid? Challenge accepted. I have finally reached the point of not caring about the disaster that is my dating life.
Here’s a free party tip for you. If you want to have a good time at a party (or anywhere, really), stick with Maverick. He knows everyone, drinks like a damn fish, and nothing gets in his way of having fun.
We’ve been teammates for two years now, but we’ve only hung out just the two of us a few times and never like this where I’m ready to match him drink for drink. The longer we hang, and the drunker I get, the more I think how ridiculous I’ve been stressing over everything. Mav is single, and he’s always happy. I don’t know why I let my breakup drama get in the way of having fun for so long. But no more.
We’re talking to a group of girls who immediately ghost us when some frat dudes arrive with a cooler of Jell-O shots. Mav doesn’t seem fazed in the least.
“Who needs girls?!” I shout and raise my drink.
“Easy there, let’s not talk crazy.” Mav pushes my hand down.
“I’m jealous, man,” I tell him. “Nothing gets to you. You’re always the life of the party. I don’t know how to do it,” I admit. “I was a couple for so long. Now everything out of my mouth is a disaster. I fell asleep during a blow job.”
He laughs and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “Yeah, also add that to the vault. Take another drink and forget it happened.”
“She didn’t want to go out with me because she thinks I’m a player.” I laugh, a little slurred. “It’s kind of funny, really.”
“Who didn’t want to go out with you?”
“Sienna. I asked her out.” I managed to keep that to myself all day, but the liquor has loosened my lips.
“Well, what’d you say? What’dshesay?”
“I asked her to hang out tonight, and she told me I wasn’t her type.”
“Ouch.” He unscrews the cap on the Mad Dog 20/20 and hands it over.
“Yep.” I tip back the bottle. I care a lot less than I did two hours ago. The truth is, maybe she isn’t my type. Or maybe I don’t have a type. She seems different than Carrie, and that’s all I have to go by.
“Sienna’s rad. I could see you two together but stop overthinking it. If it happens, it happens. If not.” He shrugs.
“That’s the most Maverick thing you’ve ever said.” I mock his shrug, exaggerating it in my drunken state. “Whatever happens. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be. If not, I’ll just bless the women of Valley with my six-pack and beer drinking skills.”
He grins. His shirt is still on, but the night is young. “Now you’ve got it. Come on, let’s get you on the dance floor.”
I start to protest. I don’t dance, but fuck it. Tonight I do. Not well, but whatever. Maverick moves straight to the middle, where a group of girls shakes their asses in rhythm to the music. They swallow him up, and… yep, there goes his shirt.
I hang back, but soon I’m pulled closer and sandwiched between two very enthusiastic chicks.
“I don’t dance,” I say.
One of the girls leans forward, and I think she asks me to repeat what I said, but I can’t hear anything over the music.
Huh. The one place I can’t put my foot in my mouth. Yeah, I can get down with this.
8
Sienna
My stomach is in knots as we push through the party with drinks in our hands. Josie walks in front of me, holding my hand and pulling me along behind her. My roommate is a lot more social than I am. It isn’t that I never go out, but most weekends, I prefer hanging with Josie or Olivia or, yes, watching true crime documentaries. I find it reassuring that terrible things happen to even really good people. Make out of that what you will.
My gaze darts around, looking for Rhett as we weave across the backyard of the basketball house. A huge pool takes up a large portion of it. People stand in groups in and around it. On one side of the yard, a DJ booth is set up, and there’s a mass of bodies moving to the music. The other side of the yard has the keg, according to Josie, and that’s the direction we head.
“Are you supposed to be meeting him somewhere?” she asks when we finally reach the line at the keg.
