Shut Up And Kiss Me (gxg)

38. F*ck Fireworks

     EXCEPT SOMEONE COMPLETELY unexpected tapped on my shoulder.

      I was outside now. In the backyard, a few seniors giggled and attempted to light fireworks. Sparks sizzled in the air, and I backed away. This was probably a fireman's nightmare.

     "Talia,"  someone slurred. I turned, and there stood Brady Williams, all six feet and six inches of him—which I knew because Aaron had mentioned it once or twice or ten times. "What's up?"

      "Just looking for someone," I said vaguely.

      "I heard you broke up with Aaron."

      Brady had to be drunk. His brown skin was slick with sweat, and his curly hair was shiny in the light of the sparks behind us. He was wearing a letterman jacket with his last name on the pocket: WILLIAMS. 

       "Yeah," I said, trying to sidestep him.

       "Why'd you do that?"

       "Break up with him?"

       "Yeah," Brady said, latching onto my shoulder. It wasn't friendly, but it wasn't forceful either. I just slipped away from him and reached for the screen door.

       "It didn't work out. Things happen. I . . . I don't think I loved him the way I was supposed to."

       Why was I confessing this to Brady Williams? Maybe because he was drunk, because he wouldn't remember.

       But if I expected Brady to understand, I was wrong. His jaw only tightened. "You're stupid."

      "What?"

      "You were stupid for that. To break up with him. He's the greatest fucking guy I know. You—" He leaned in closer to me, and his breath reeked of expensive bourbon. "You are so fucking stupid."

       I opened my mouth to protest, but from inside the house, I heard a voice ring out. 

      Monroe.

      She opened the screen door and stepped outside. In the cold night air, I was freezing—but in her leather jacket, she looked calm. Collected. Completely unbothered.

      "What," she said, "did you just call her?"

      Brady laughed, and laughed, and laughed. He really was drunk, I knew. "She's a fucking idiot! She let him go! She—she—if that was my boyfriend, I'd never—never—"

      Monroe punched him.

      Whatever he had been feeling, the delirium or the laughter or the tears—it vanished in a heartbeat. Raw anger flooded his face, as he touched his fingers to his jaw.

     "That was for calling her stupid."

      "You hit me," he said, almost in wonder.

      It didn't look like it had even hurt him. Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

      I trusted Monroe to handle Aaron. To handle four or five men at a time.

      Except . . . this was Aaron's star player. The quarterback of the football team. And he was massive. 

      But he was also drunk.

      Monroe punched him again. "That was for calling her stupid the second time," she added.

      "A girl just hit me," Brady said in amazement. For a moment, I hoped maybe he wouldn't fight her back. That maybe he'd been taught to just ignore a lady.