Roll the Dice

seven. i'll know

I withdrew my hand from underneath his ass that I felt the strain in my arm muscles and rolled over away from him, landing right on my stomach.

Sand tasted pretty horrible, I realized as I licked my lips.

Did I swallow any sand?

Carter grabbed my wrist, which I tried to yank away from him futilely, and pulled me up with a mighty pull that made it feel like he'd dislocated my shoulder. I let out a very loud groan of protest, resorting, instead, to weakly kicking his foot even though I could barely feel my own legs.

"You're such a pathetic drunk," he said, slinging his arm over my shoulders with a disgruntled wince.

"Why're you doing that?" I muttered, trying my best to shrug his arm off. It was just so heavy. Plus, he was resting his hand on my upper arm, making it super impossible for me to do anything about the situation.

My brother rolled his eyes at me, taking a sip from the cup in his other hand. "You're gonna fall right over if I let go of you. Do you seriously think that I even usually want to touch you? And besides, usually you're the responsible one."

I grinned cheekily. "Are you even drunk yet?" I tried once more to pry his hand off my upper arm, but my fingers were all weird and grubby and big. Instead, I just pinched his thumb. "Wussy."

Carter tightened his grip on my arm. That totally wasn't supposed to happen, which was super annoying. "Someone has to drive home tonight, you know. Anyway, you're catching a ride with someone, right?" He glanced over his shoulder. "God, I do not want to be the one driving my drunk sister home after her high school party."

"Wussy," I repeated, practically cackling now. "Wussy."

Why did that word sound so funny?

My brother groaned so loudly that it hurt my ears. He was such a meanie. "Well," he muttered to his lap, "it looks like I'll be driving you home tonight."

"Ooh." I sat up a little more, jostling his arm over my shoulder. "How's Dacey getting home? And Cara too. She thinks that your car is, like, a great place to, like, think about the darkness of life." I broke off, staring up at the stars again. "Stars are pretty."

Carter's face was red in the flickering light of the fire of the otherwise pitch dark night when I turned my head to look at him. All around us on the beach, people were chattering and drinking and generally having a rowdy fest influenced by hormones and the nasty stuff in their cups, probably. Maybe it was just the weird lighting that made Carter's face look like that.

"There are designated sober drivers," he said. "I hope they pick up after this place." He wrinkled his nose. "Lottie, your breath smells horrible. You know you're a lightweight."

I giggled guiltily. "I had, like, three cups."

Or maybe four. Or two. Or one. I didn't quite count. Besides, wasn't the sober version of me horrible at math anyway? Or something like that. I wasn't sure, which even further annoyed me. I really had no idea why I had so much trouble remembering everything tonight.

Carter rolled his eyes once again and stood up, withdrawing his arm from over my shoulders. He pulled my legs up and gingerly wrapped my arms around my knees. "Just sit here and don't move until I get back, 'kay?" He left behind a cloud of sand as he tromped over the beach away from me.

Oh my. He really was a pretty good support for me, but again, my knees weren't too bad of a substitute.

I stared into the crack between my legs even though I didn't see anything but fire and dancing orange. My head was really beginning to hurt now. What was taking Carter so long? What was he doing anyway?