Every time I told Taylor to call me when he was leaving a bar or a party, I thought he'd forget by the time he was trashed and ready to go home. And every time, I was wrong. I didn't party as much as he did in high school, I only went out and drank every couple of weeks where he'd go out after any big win and get wasted, that was the majority of the reason he ended up playing DIII instead of DI. I was always worried about him when he went out and I couldn't because of homework or my own game, worried he'd get in the car and run into a tree and kill himself or kill someone else because he could barely drive when he was sober, let alone when he was drunk. Sure thing, he called me up at three thirty that morning, drunk as a sailor.
"I'll be there in five," I sighed answering his question as soon as I answered the phone, only to hang up the phone right afterward. I grabbed my keys and threw on the first sweatshirt I could find and went out to my car.
I really hated Caf, I actually only enjoyed being there when I was drunk and had no standards. The place constantly smelled like liquor, you couldn't walk in there for a split second without coming out smelling like booze. The bathrooms were a whole 'nother story. They'd "renovated' the place in the last year so the bathrooms weren't old and moldy, they were just always messed up. At least one of the two sinks was typically filled with damp paper towels or cheap plastic cups from the bar and at least one toilet was either overflowing or had vomit on it and you were lucky if you found the stall with toilet paper. Despite all of these nasty things about it, it was to go to place on Thursday nights for anyone at Aladine College, especially after club hockey games when most of the players would find their way over there after the games.
"Where the hell are you dumbass?" I grumbled as I waited outside the door. After another fifteen minutes, I decided to go in there to find him.
The lone bouncer at the door was long gone, probably at the bar, so I walked right in. The security in this place was never great anyway, the bouncer seldom checked ID's like he was supposed to and would let anyone in who slipped him a twenty.
"Taylor! I've been waiting for twenty minutes!" I exclaimed when I found him back in the corner, slamming the rest of a drink with a bunch of his teammates.
"Shit, sorry Tess," he said, "I didn't realize-"
"Cut the crap, let's go I have to get back to bed," I sighed as I dragged him out of the building and out to the car by the collar of his flannel shirt.
"Thanks for picking me up," he said as we pulled up to his dorm hall.
"Anytime," I sighed.
"See you tomorrow," he said, getting out of the car and walking up to the door, only to fumble around in his pocket and with the handle. I didn't know how the man-child could function sober half of the time, let alone drunk.
"What's wrong?" I asked as he came back to the car.
"I forgot my school ID in my room," he said, "I can't get back in."
"You're going to be the death of me," I sighed, "Get back in the car."
###
If I had a dime for every time I'd saved Taylor McCarthy's ass, I'd have at least one new stick. The man, or should I say man child, had a knack for getting himself into trouble and I had a habit for feeling bad for his sorry self every single time he called me with a sob story or drunk as a sailor. But Taylor McCarthy also had a habit of making me feel better when I felt like shit. When my first boyfriend broke up with me, he was the one who dragged me out of the house at one in the morning and we walked down to the river and drank a twenty-four pack of beer while throwing rocks at the trees on the other side of the river.
"You can stay here, but you need to be quiet, Whitney's sleeping," I said quietly as I unlocked my dorm room door, "But if you puke in my bed, I'll kick your ass, again."
Back in my sophomore year, we'd gone out after their league championship victory and he'd forgotten how to function like a normal human being and walk without my assistance again so I dragged him up to my room and let him stay with me yet again. I was up for a rude awakening at about seven in the morning when he threw up all over the foot of my bed and my comforter. I had never sworn so much in a matter of ten minutes before in my life as I did at him that morning as I cleaned up his puke from my comforter. My dad had thankfully already left for work that day so my sister was the only one home, she helped me get the blanket into the washer and dried before Dad came home from work and find Taylor a clean shirt. I called him every name in the book that morning and he didn't remember a damn thing from it when he woke back up at noon.
"Mkay," he sighed, rubbing his eyes and plopping down on my bed.
Thankfully, he had already had his "hyper" stage of drunkenness and was now in the "black-out and sleep for a day" stage that made him much easier to put up with him than when he was hyper and starving and wanted me to take me to Taco Bell and spend all my money because he ate like an absolute pig.
"Move over," I said after kicking off my sweatpants and changing back into the shorts I had been sleeping in before he called, "You know I sleep on the right side of the bed."
"Sorry," he said, rolling over.
"Thanks," I smirked as I pulled the covers over my body and fell asleep.
###
The next morning, I woke up to my alarm going off at eleven thirty. I typically had a class at nine, but it was a game day so I had an excuse not to be there if I didn't want to be there. I was glad for that after being woken up in the middle of the night by Taylor, I didn't want to be groggy for gameday, especially for the first home game of my career.
"Nice to see you're finally up," Whitney said as she brushed her hair.
"You too," I said, rubbing my eyes, "Someone called me at three thirty last night."
"And you picked him up anyway?" she asked.
"I can't let him walk home," I sighed, "Or drive, he'll kill someone, or himself."
"You let him slide too much," she said.
"Whatever Whit," I said, rolling my eyes, laying back down on my back and scrolling through my Twitter feed to find that Kayla was Tweeting at Taylor wondering where he was and why he wasn't answering his texts, calls and Snapchats.
"Taylor, Taylor," I said, shoving him.
"It's too early," he groaned.
"It's eleven thirty and Kayla's looking for you!" I exclaimed.
"She can wait," he groaned, pulling the blanket over his face.
"She's going to lose her shit if she finds out you're with me!" I exclaimed.
"Chillax Tess," he said, repeating what seemed to be his favorite phrase when talking to my dramatic self.
"I need to be at the team lunch in half an hour," I said, "So you and your sorry ass should probably leave soon."
"Where's lunch?" he asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
"The dining hall," I replied.
"I'll come with," he said.
"By the way, Kayla thinks you left with Tess last night," Whitney piped up.
"Fantastic," I groaned.
"Whatever," he said, "She'll get over it."
"And until then, I'll just be the bitch that took her boyfriend home, sounds great," I mumbled as I walked out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.
Twenty-five minutes later we were getting ready to walk over to the dining hall for lunch. I would've been ready to leave ten minutes earlier, but somebody wouldn't get out of bed.
"Got any deodorant?" he asked, sniffing his pits.
"Really?" I asked, giving him a disapproving look.
"I know you use men's deodorant," he smirked.
"Damn you," I groaned, grabbing my deodorant and handing it to him.
"Thank you," he grinned, whipping off his shirt and putting on the deodorant.
"I see you still don't like ab workouts," I said with a straight face.
"Hey it just wouldn't be fair to the rest of the guys in the world if I was this hot, this great at hockey, and had killer abs," he said with a smirk.
"Some things never change," I said, trying not to laugh and encourage his dumb ass as we walked out of my dorm.
###
***