Hey guys! Thank you so much for all of the reads. You guys are awesome. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I was out of town and had no access to the internet. Weird, right? So here is the next chapter. This is kind of a transition chapter about Vi. Don’t worry, the next chapter is going to be all about Seth and Low, so stick with me:) Okay, so the song for this chapter is All Night Doctors by Bush. If you listen closely to the lyrics, you will see that it has a lot to do with Vi and Tuckett’s situation. Read, vote, and comment. Enjoy!!! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 23: Tears and Cookie Dough
Low
I’ve been looking around the party for Vi for the last half an hour, but it’s hard to look for your best friend when your boyfriend is trailing his lips up and down your neck. He’s been kissing my neck so much that he hasn’t even had anything to drink yet. No doubt it’s a new record for Seth.
I force myself to focus enough and look around the room once again. I don’t see her, but my eyes land on Tuckett who is sitting in the corner of the room downing a whole bottle of vodka. God, what the hell is wrong with him? I reach for my phone to try and text her, but I can’t find it. Right, it’s in my jacket which is in the closet hallway. I get up to leave, but am quickly pulled back onto Seth’s lap.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he growls playfully. Goosebumps pop up all over the surface on my skin at the sound of his voice.
“I need to get my jacket,” I tell him. He frowns and I quickly kiss his cheek. “I’ll be right back caveman. You can relax.” I quickly hop off his lap and weave my way through the people in the house. I open the closet and grab my jacket. After fishing my phone out of the pocket and turning it on, my heart drops.
I have fifteen missed calls from Vi. Oh God, what if something horrible happened to her. I quickly push her number and pace back and forth, waiting for her to answer. Finally sobs come over one the line. Oh no.
“Vi! VI! Where are you?”
I manage to make out the word bathroom and fly through the house. When I reach the hallway there are a couple of girls waiting outside the bathroom. I cut in front of all of them, earning myself some evil glares. I knock on the door.
“Vi, it’s me. Open up.”
I hear the lock click and quickly go into the room, and what I see breaks my heart.
Vi is sitting on the toilet lid with her knees pulled up to her chest. Her face is buried into her knee caps and her shoulders are shaking from crying. I walk over to my friend and hug her. Her crying starts to slow and she relaxes slightly.
After about five minutes Vi finally looks up at me. Her eyes are puffy and she has mascara running down her cheeks. I grab some toilet paper and hand it to her. She tries to give me a reassuring smile, but it barely makes her lips move upward at all.
“Let’s go.”
I help my friend stand up and wrap my arm around her shoulder. She crosses her arms and curls in on herself. Okay, this is definitely not the loud and obnoxious Vi that I know and love.
We exit the bathroom and several girls are standing there seething.
“What the hell took you so long?”
When I notice the girl is Sasha, i flip her off and start to walk to the kitchen with Vi. Once we step through the doorway her eyes widen and she quickly shakes her head.
“I can’t go in there,” she whispers frantically.
I nod and pull her outside to Seth’s truck.
Vi leans against the car and I call Seth.
“Hey, where’d you go?” he asks over the phone.
“Something’s wrong with Vi. I took her outside. Is there anyway that you could drive us to her house?”
“I’ll be there in thirty seconds.”
I turn to face Vi and give her a tentative smile. God, I have never seen her look so worn. Even after what happened at the last party she wasn’t like this. She was more in shock, this time, she just looks exhausted. I wrap my arms around her and hold her in a hug.
We stop when Seth comes sprinting out of the house. He looks around frantically until he sees us. His eyes widen when he sees Vi. Within a second he pulls his cousin into a hug and starts shooting off demands to know what has happened to her.
“What happened?!” he practically yells.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Vi whispers angrily. She turns around and heads for Seth’s truck. He tries to go after her, but I manage to grab his arm before he reaches the truck.
“Seth,” I say. He turns to look at me. I shake my head. “Not now.” He looks like he wants to argue, but he just nods his head. Seth sits in the driver’s seat with me in the middle and Vi on my other side. The tension between the two cousins is almost suffocating.
After a couple minutes of complete torture, Seth pulls up outside of Vi’s house. Vi mutters a quick thanks before bolting from the car. Seth looks extremely pissed off, but doesn’t make a move to get out of the car.
I turn to my boyfriend, placing one of my bent legs on the seat between us. My hand grabs his and I gently rub small circles with my thumb. Seth turns his attention away from his cousin and onto me.
“Thanks for coming to dinner tonight,” I say. He smiles at me.
“I had a fun,” he says sarcastically and I can’t help but laugh. He grins, but it quickly turns into a frown when he sees Vi pacing outside of her front door, waiting for me.
“Hey,” I grab his chin lightly in between my thumb and finger and turn his attention back on me. “Don’t worry about Vi. I’ll talk to her. She’s not mad at you okay? You didn’t do anything. Everything is going to be okay.”
Seth stares into my eyes and then slightly smiles.
“You are way too smart for me.”
I grin at his words.
“And don’t you forget it.”
I tug his face to mine and press my lips against his. I pull away, but he grunts in disapproval before pulling my mouth back to his. His lips press hard against mine and he makes a small moaning sound, making me giggle in response. He pulls back and places three more short light kisses on my lips.
“Call me tomorrow okay? Arty is letting me work in the morning because we don’t have school, so I have the whole afternoon off.”
I wrap my arms around his neck.
“I like the sound of that.” I whisper, causing him to groan again. I laugh and kiss him once more before whispering bye and getting out of the truck.
Vi is standing on her welcome mat outside of the front door tapping her foot and glaring at me.
“Do you guys know that there is something called to much PDA? If you looked public display of affection up in the dictionary there would be a picture of you and my cousin going at it like horny bunny rabbits.”
“Whoa, who died and named you bitch?” I ask and raise my hands up in surrender. Unlike my normal best friend, she doesn’t laugh. Vi unlocks the door and walks into her house.
Vi stalks by her parents that are watching a movie on the couch and goes up the stairs to her room. Scott doesn’t move his head an inch from the screen, but Kay stares after her daughter before looking at me with a worried look on her face.
“What happened?” She asks.
“I have no idea. One minute she is crying and then the next minute she is biting my head off.” I walk over to their freezer and pull out the large carton of cookie dough ice cream, along with two spoons.
When I walk back into the living room, Kay takes in the carton that I have in my arms.
“It’s that bad?” she asks.
“I have no idea, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Goodnight.”
“Night,” Kay says. I hear Scott murmur something that sounds like a goodnight, but I think that he is to absorbed with his show right now to have any form of conversation with anyone.
I jog up the stairs and go into Vi’s room. She is pacing back and forth again. Not wanting to interrupt her, I slip past her and sit criss-crossed on her bed. She is muttering something unintelligible, the final stage before she starts spilling and ranting about whatever happened.
I quickly slip out my phone and send a text to my dad.
Hey, I’m staying at Vi’s house tonight. Don’t wait up.
I take a spoon full of ice cream as I wait for my dad’s reply. When the screen lights up and I check the message, I almost choke on my spoon.
Sure you are. Make sure that the boy toy of yours remembers to use condoms.
I stab my spoon into the carton and move my fingers furiously over the letters to send a text back.
Dad! STOP!!! I’m seriously staying at Vi’s!
I quickly snap a picture of me in Vi’s room and send it. I’m sure my face is bright red now from the combination of anger and embarrassment. My phone dings and I look down at the screen.
Whoops. Sorry. Forget I said anything. Love you. Goodnight.
I roll my eyes. Yeah, I wish that I could forget that conversation. It’s scarred by brain for life. I toss my phone onto the bed and start shoving ice cream into my mouth as I wait for Vi to talk. After about five minutes, she finally stops pacing and collapses next to me on the bed. I hand her a spoon and set the carton down in between us.
“Thanks.” She takes a couple bites and then sighs. “Sorry I went into the ultimate bitch mode.”
“It’s okay. It happens to all of us every once in a while.” She leans her head over on my shoulder and sighs.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Mmmhmm.”
“How did you feel after Seth kissed you for the first time. And please god no intimate details about the actual kiss, that’s my cousin and that type of information might make me hurl.”
I chuckle and think back to the night in the garage.
“Well, the kiss was amazing,” I say, causing Vi to groan in disgust. I laugh at my best friend’s anguish. “Afterwords I was freaked out. I mean I just made out with my enemy. I ran out of the garage as fast as I could and drove way above the speed limit all the way home. When I got to my room I locked the door and was practically hyperventilating. After an hour, I calmed down and I realized that I like Seth. Like, really liked him. I don’t know. Something about the kiss changed both of us I think. The next day Seth came to my house and asked me for a date.”
Vi doesn’t say a word for several minutes and then whispers something.
“What?”
“Tuckett kissed me,” she whispers so quietly that I barely heard. My jaw drops open and Vi buries her head in her hands. Then . . . I scream.
“Oh my god! The man whore kissed you!” Vi slaps her hand over my mouth and glares at me.
“God, could you be any louder?!” she pulls her hand away and collapses onto her back.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, but did you seriously kiss Tuckett? It that why you are asking my about my kiss with Seth?”
“Ugh, Yes!”
“Okay, you need to tell me everything that happened. Right now.”
For the next ten minutes, Vi goes into detail about the kiss that she and Tuckett shared. Hm, I’ve never thought about making out in a laundry room. Maybe I should ask Seth about that. She talk about how she freaked out when Micah and Mariah walked in on them. I know that both of my friends wouldn’t say anything, but Vi was freaking out that she was caught by anyone.
“I had my legs wrapped around him,” she squealed, completely horrified. “I am such a slut. God. I’m no better than all the other whores he sleeps with!”
She takes a large scoop of ice cream and shoves it in her mouth.
“Vi, can I say something?” She waves her spoon for me to continue. “Yes Tuckett is a man whore. He has slept with more girls than I’m sure he can count, but he’s also extremely loyal to the people he cares about, especially Seth. He would never do anything to ruin Seth’s trust. I can guarantee that he would not kiss you out of nowhere. It could put a strain on their friendship.”
“So, what are you saying?” she asks.
“Maybe Tuckett actually has feelings for you.”
Vi snorts and gets off the bed.
“What?! It might be possible. Why else would he be willing to risk pissing off Seth?”
Vi just ignores me and changes into her pajamas. She tosses a large t-shirt and pink pajama shorts at me before sitting back down on the bed and eating more ice cream. I change and sit beside her.
“You know when I was looking for you, I saw Tuckett.” Vi freezes. “He was drinking himself silly. Usually when he’s at parties, he is the main attraction. Tonight looked angry.”
“He was probably just pissed that he wouldn’t get any from me,” Vi growls out.
“Vi, I really don’t think-”
“Low can we please not talk about this anymore. I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Vi turns on her side, facing the wall and is quiet. I quickly change into my pajamas. I slide into the bed and grab my phone. I turn it on and notice that I have a text from Seth.
Hey babe. Just wanted to say goodnight. Can’t wait for tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to have you all to myself.
God, I can’t wait for tomorrow either. We haven’t spent any time alone in over a week.
Can’t wait either. I’ll see you tomorrow. Night.
I place my phone on Vi’s bedside table and curl up on my side. A smile flitters across my face as I drift off to sleep. I have the whole afternoon with Seth tomorrow.