Backseat Serenade

004 bad luck to talk on these rides

BLAIRE

🫀

LAST NIGHT.

2AM. In the twilight zone of the living room, lying on the floor with my friends around me, Addy's head on my shoulder, the slow, ambient Frank Ocean song leaking through the speakers a kind of spiritual nirvana, I feel myself unwind. I lift my hands over my face, my skin tinged a deep blue from the purling LED lights, the shadows cast by the folds in the fabric of Alex's hoodie, which he'd lent me earlier when I got cold, rendering a ripple effect over my arms. Against my ear, Addy's heartbeat thrums to the song.

"Oh, I just got it," I pipe up, flicking my gaze up to meet Addy's, her lashes fluttering as she opens her eyes, slow and cat-like, appraising me with a probing warmth.

"What?"

"I see both sides like Chanel," I whisper-sing, slightly ashamed of my inability to carry a tune but too tipsy to care, "He sees both sides. See. Like C." I curl my thumbs and index fingers on both hands, forming letter Cs, crossing them like the Chanel logo. "See?"

Grinning, Addy snorts, lifting her hands to mimic me. "I see."

I let out a giggle, and Addy joins me, and soon we're spilling into each other, drunk on years of the thing that keeps us bound, the warmth of knowing where home lies, manic laughter seizing our bodies like a possession. I'm gasping hard, and Addy's clutching me close, and no one else in the world would get it.

"Boys, we've officially lost Thing 1 and Thing 2," Gideon drawls, sarcasm dripping from his tone. He's lounging on the beanbag next to us, sipping cautiously on a suspicious concoction of what I'd identified as tequila, Baileys, a dash of lime juice, and five other types of alcohol that would put anyone in a coma if I took a single sip. None of us remembered who'd mixed that drink, nor which one of us had dodged the bullet it'd been intended for, and it'd been abandoned on the coffee table for a while until Gideon decided to take a gamble on his life. His eyes are clouded over, but his words aren't slurred. "How do mental hospitals work—do they take walk-ins? Is it, like, a dog pound situation where we can just drop them off at the doorstep in a box or something?"

Addy and I only laugh harder, and the noises coming out of my wheezing mouth might straight up be inhuman.

"I think the best course of action would be to take them out Of Mice and Men style," Hale—sprawled out on the couch with his arm thrown over his face—says, his voice muffled under his arm. "Y'know, take them out back when the sun's setting, and just..." He mimes holding a gun, and pulling the trigger.

"Plausible," Alex muses, nodding in contemplation. He'd stopped drinking before the rest of us, making the smarter decision of taking swigs of water from his metal water bottle instead to sober up before inevitably calling it a night. "Cost-effective, fun, nice sunset view. No more annoying comments from Addy—and I finally get to be Mum's favourite child. I like it."

"Hey!" Addy exclaims at the same time I grab a fistful of tortilla chips and toss it in Alex's direction.

Adrian cuts me a glower. "I literally just vacuumed this afternoon. You're cleaning this shit up tomorrow, hangover or not."

I tap two fingers against my temple. "Yes, captain."

"As if she isn't a captain herself," Gideon snickers.

Stone-faced and without warning, Adrian leans forward and plucks the cup out of Gideon's hands. Gideon starts to protest, but is cut off quickly by Adrian's icy glower, his mouth clicking shut as the retort on his tongue dies instantly.