Float

Original Edition: Chapter Sixteen

Now I was really confused.

"What are you even talking about?" I demanded.

Blake glanced around the living room. Then, suddenly, he stepped forward, grabbed me by the sleeve of my T-shirt, and dragged me over to a mirror mounted on the lavender and white striped wall. I would've scoffed at how tacky the white-framed, vintage-looking mirror was had it not been for the horrifying sight that was facing me.

Hamilton was right.

I looked like I'd walked into a wall, cheek-first.

"Oh my God," I breathed, lifting up my fingers and pressing them softly to the large, purplish spot directly under my eye. It was exactly where I'd been elbowed at Ethan's party.

"What did you do?" Blake questioned. "Is Isabel alright?"

He sounded somewhere between angry and disappointed.

"She's fine," I said, turning around to face Blake again. I hadn't realized he was standing so close behind me, though, so I nearly whacked him in the chest with my hand. "And I didn't do anything. It's not my fault some douchebag has hard elbows."

Blake's eyebrows furrowed.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Some dick elbowed me in the—"

"Who?" Blake snapped, his eyes ablaze.

I shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I didn't see his face."

Blake opened his mouth again, looking ready to argue, but seemed to struggle to get any words out. Finally, he let out a little moan of frustration and snapped his mouth shut. I watched him run his hand through his dark, already-disheveled hair. How had I never noticed how tan his fingers were before? They made my fingers look like tiny white sticks of chalk in comparison. I wondered, vaguely, what our hands would look like intertwined.

"You look like shit."

That certainly was a mood killer.

"Thanks," I snapped, narrowing my eyes at Blake.

"I didn't mean it like—" he began, stopping halfway through his sentence to let out another frustrated grunt. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "How did you even get back here?"

"Jesse drove me."

Blake winced.

"Jesse?" he repeated.

"Yeah."

"Jesse Fletcher?"

"No, Jesse McCartney," I quipped, folding my arms across my chest.

Blake scowled at me.

"Why didn't you come find me?" he demanded. "I would've driven you home. And Isabel. Jesus, you didn't even have a carseat."

"Well you seemed a little busy," I snapped.

He was supposed to have given me a ride back anyway. That had been the plan. But then Blake had to go all mixed-martial-arts on Ethan's ass, and all hell had broken loose. And for what? The two of them were still disputing over Alissa Hastings, who, might I point out, had been too wasted in the backseat of Jesse's car to even be aware of the fight.

"I would've driven you home," Blake repeated, his deep voice a bit softer now.

He sounded sincere.

It was at that moment that I became aware of the fact that we were alone in the house, except for Isabel. But I could just barely make out the thunderous rumble of her snoring, so I knew she wasn't about to come intruding or anything. Which meant that Blake and I were standing there, two feet apart, unaccompanied.