the hating game ; lrh

twenty-nine

"As friends!" Jaden corrects himself lightning fast. "Just as friends, of course."

"Okay then, yeah," I tell him with a smile. "I'd love that."

"I'll message you," he says, shiny un-veneered teeth grinning back at me. "Get home safe, yeah?"

"Sure."

When Jaden is gone, I turn back to face my brother and Luke, who are somehow still debating who will have the pleasure of escorting me home.

"Look, I owe you for when I took the car," is what Luke is saying when I begin to tune into the conversation, appearing all grim-faced and apologetic as if his intentions weren't to lie to his best friend again.

Calum shakes his head avidly at this, refusing to accept it. "It's whatever, man. You don't owe me," he tells Luke. "Besides, I'd rather not arrive home to find you've killed my sister in her sleep. I'd better take her."

"Cal, I—"

"¿Por que nos las dos, hombres?" I interrupt, tired and, in all honesty, beginning to feel a little unwell. Both boys turn to me, bewildered at my expression. "Let's just all leave together."

Calum and Luke share a shocked yet impressed look, then turn back to me shrugging their shoulders in agreement. "Yeah, okay," Calum yanks Luke's keys from his pocket and swings them around his index finger. "I'll bring the car around."

He bounces off to the front door, not a care in the world, and Luke turns to me with a combined expression of concern and amusement.

"I don't know how," I begin, letting my shaky body lean up against Luke's much more stable one. "But I just got way more drunk than before."

Luke only laughs, wrapping an arm around me. For a moment I am surprised, looking up at him with wide eyes, but he shakes his head. "I'm just helping you to the car, relax," he explains with a cheeky eye roll. "Don't get too excited."

"I'm not," I respond stubbornly, straightening up so that I don't have to lean as much weight on him. "I don't need help."

Luke scoffs, shaking his head, but allows me to walk on my own regardless. "Sure."

For a few seconds I am walking fine on my own, concentrating hard on taking each step carefully. However, just as I begin to think that perhaps this isn't as difficult as I'd found it before, my balance gives and my body sways. I stick my arms out by my side to brace myself as I begin to topple to the floor, but I never hit it. When I look up Luke is holding me, inches away from the floor, his expression flushed with concern.

"'I don't need help' my ass."

—

By the time Calum pulls into our driveway my stomach is churning, ready to release the contents of what it had consumed over the course of the night.

Luke keeps checking in the rear view mirror to see how I am doing, flashes of concern showing before vanishing as Calum continues speaking. When we pull in, however, this all seems to disappear as Luke is the first to my door, helping me out of the car.

"I'm fine," I tell him, though my words are slurring together in a way that he probably doesn't even understand.

"You nearly broke an ankle back at the house," Luke reminds me, his hands hovering nearby even after he steadies me onto the concrete.

"Fake news," I deem with a shrug. Calum giggles from the other side of the car. "I don't feel—"

I don't have the opportunity to finish my sentence before something shifts in my stomach and I feel bile climbing up my throat. I turn instantly to the bushes lining our fence and lean over, allowing all of the alcohol to burn back up my throat and land in a clumpy, gross mess in the garden.