Supernova [On Hiatus]

TWENTY

TWENTY

I froze. Why the fuck did I make out with Luke? Mac was right. I was a big, stupid idiot.

Jameson sat up when he saw me standing there. I decided to just ignore him. That was probably the safest plan, right? If I don't talk, I don't tell him what I did. Good, smart. Silence was safe. I was so drunk.

I walked crookedly to my bed and flopped down face first, closing my eyes to adjust to being horizontal. I felt the bed dip as he came to sit on the mattress beside me. Go away until I'm sober enough to handle this.

"You smell like a liquor store," he pointed, giving no indication of what he was feeling. "Did you have fun?"

I just mumbled an affirmative reply into the pillow, hoping he'd get the hint. He didn't because then I felt his fingers in my hair. No, no. Luke's fingers were in there a half hour ago, you don't want to do that.

Jameson sighed. "Sorry, I've been kind of blowing you off," he said. I didn't move, just laid face down, eyes opened into the blackness of my cotton pillowcase. "You shouldn't have gone out alone."

"I wasn't alone," I said, picking my head up. So much for not speaking to him. I gently grabbed his hand out of my hair and dropped it in his lap. "I was with the girls. It was a girls night."

Dear God, stop talking.

He chuckled. "Okay, good," he said. I expected him to go back to the air mattress and leave me be, but instead he started rubbing my back. I avoided his eyes and laid my head back down on the pillow, facing his body. "So I didn't have to worry about any guys hitting on you, right?"

I involuntarily snorted humorlessly. "Not like it matters," left my mouth before I could stop it. Stop. Talking.

His hand on my back stopped rubbing circles. I peeked an eye up at him, finding him looking at me with an unreadable expression. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked. I sat up in bed and looked him in the eye, something I often have trouble with when sober.

Wow, Cade, how brave of you.

"It means," I took a deep breath, and in that moment, I knew I was about to say some shit I should not say, "when you pretend like I don't exist all week, I'll find someone else to do it."

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

Jameson took his hand off of me like it seared his skin and I immediately regretted ever being born. I looked away, unable to look at his puppy dog eyes any longer, the guilt starting to kick in and I was still fucking drunk. He didn't move, though, just stared at me.

"What did you do?"

I shook my head, looking down at my lap. "Nothing, I—" I choked on the words, thick on my tongue. "I didn't do anything."

"What did you do?" he repeated, not as calm the second time around.

Oh, God. How was I supposed to fix this? What do I do? I was panicking in my head and I guess my silence was plenty loud enough for him to click his tongue and stand up. I watched in horror because I thought he was going to leave. I didn't want him to leave.

But he only laid down on the air mattress with his back turned to me.

"Jameson—"

"Go to bed."

"Please—"

"You're drunk and I don't want to talk to you."

I was getting frustrated. And kind of cross eyed. "Just let me explain—"