0.13 - Thursday 11:31 p.m.
Maverick Bale
I can't sleep.
Tomorrow night is the party where I'm probably gonna hook up with Lauren. But instead of looking forward to it like I usually would, I'm dreading it.
Then there's Rhys.
Even though I try not to, I replay his words over and over again in my mind, attempting to decipher what he meant.
You think I want to fucking talk with you?
You don't understand.
My fingers pull at my hair and I twist around in my sheets, my skin feverish and clammy.
I sit up, breathing hard. My phone vibrates on my nightstand and I grab it shakily.
Lauren: need a ride after school?
Me: Jules is already taking me
I haven't confirmed this, but there's no way I'm hanging out with her before the actual party. And even if Jules can't, I can either find another ride that's not her or just not go, which honestly doesn't seem like a bad option.
Lauren texts back a minute later.
Lauren: aw okay
Lauren: see you tomorrow <3
Mav: yeah goodnight
Then I turn my phone off and place it back on the nightstand, not caring to look whether she responded.
***
Usually classes on Friday drag on sluggishly, the hands on the clock barely seeming to move, stretching the time between school and the lacrosse game and any parties afterward.
Not today.
First period finished between one blink and the next, and second period flew by faster than Usain Bolt. I figured lunch would be the time I gathered my wits about me or whatever the fuck that means, but instead, I barely finished eating my cafeteria-made rice and beans when the bell rang.
"Do the classes feel shorter to you today?" I ask Jules as we walk to math class.
"Feel the same to me," Jules replies with a shrug.
Third period went by a fraction slower, but only because it's math. After an impossibly short amount of time, fourth period abruptly came to an end and I had no moment of breath before I was jogging onto the field for our first lacrosse game of the season.
After some messy plays and lucky saves, we scrape past with a close win, launching our season off to a rocky start. Coach forces us to run three laps around the field afterward to make up for our 'lack of energy and focus' in the game.
By the time I finish showering and changing, it's nearly 8:00 p.m. Ten minutes later, Jules pulls up across the street, and we drive to his house where we planned to meet with Hunter and Alex before heading over to Tristan's party.
"You good, man?" Jules asks after a quick side glance at me. My stomach turns like I might puke, but I force a smile.
"Yeah, just feeling a little...," I try to loosen a breath, my eyes shifting around the car, "nervous."
Jules gawks. "Nervous? Dude, you're probably going to hook up with Lauren Winter for the millionth time, what's there to be nervous about?"
He has a point. It's not like I haven't hooked up with Lauren before. I have and I've enjoyed them a lot, so why was tonight any different?
"I don't know...ever since—" I stop, not knowing how I was planning to end that sentence. Did I just almost out myself to Jules? My neck burns.
"Ever since what?" Jules asks, puzzled.
"The party," I say decidedly. "Ever since that night, I feel like Lauren likes me more than just..."
"...whenever-there's-no-one-else-to-hook-up-with buddies?" Jules finishes with a crooked smile.
I snort. "Yeah. That."
Jules smiles, then remembers something, and his lips turn down in a troubled frown.
"Then...what's up with you and Rhys?" Jules asks, his voice strained.
"Nothing," I say sharply, firmly turning my head towards the passenger window. And it's technically true. Rhys wants nothing to do with me.
"If you say so," Jules says under his breath.
"What about you and Beverly?" I shoot back, feeling quite rewarded when Jules flushes, clearly embarrassed and guilty.
"Wh—" Jules starts, abandons the effort and clears his throat, "Beverly and I...yesterday...we kinda..." he trails off quietly. Despite how Rhys has treated me recently, I can't help the shot of betrayal and anger that pains my chest.
As if sensing my disapproval, Jules starts babbling excuses. "...she was the one who came onto me...you know how she is...and we were so fucked up...I mean, Rhys had this coming—"
The anger inside me snaps and words pour harshly from my mouth.
"What the hell, dude? Rhys isn't some Northview idiot you can fuck around with. He's one of your best friends."
Jules looks simultaneously distressed and stung, his knuckles a stark white compared to the velvet black of the steering wheel.
"Stop being a dick about this," Jules says.
I scoff. "Me? Being a dick? Whatever. I'm not the one who has to explain to Rhys why I couldn't keep my hands off a girl for once."
"I won't have to explain. Hunter is telling him that nothing happened," Jules says, too guilty to sound smug about it.
"We'll see how long that lasts," I say with a shake of my head. Jules narrows his eyes at the road ahead of him but doesn't reply.
***
Any tension in my limbs dissipates when I exhale one last lungful of Jules's Juul. Once we got to Jules's house after our small...disagreement, the first few minutes inside were beyond awkward. But then Hunter and Alex arrived and a few jokes and a passed joint cured the tension between Jules and me.
"Man, he is so fucked up," Hunter says. At first, I tried to be mad at Hunter for lying to Rhys, but the part of me that was hurt by Rhys felt almost happy that in some twisted way, he will feel the same way I did.
"What's he doing now?" Alex asks, leaning towards Hunter to get a better look at what was on his phone. "Wow, he's already going insane and it's not even past midnight yet."
"Wait, show me," I say. Hunter brings his phone towards me over the center console and I strain around in my passenger seat to see the screen. It's someone's Snapchat story at Tristan's house, posted seven minutes ago.
"Fucking hell," I mutter when Tristan in the video tries to backflip from the diving board into his pool. Tristan splays off to the side, clearly drunk, and lands flat, backside down on the water with a resounding crack. After a few seconds underwater, he resurfaces with a sloppy grin. I release the breath I didn't notice I was holding.
"That's gotta hurt," Jules says.
"I heard Tristan invited a bunch of girls from Summerfield," Hunter says with a wicked grin. He shoves Alex's shoulder, but Alex only rolls his eyes.
"What? Still hung up on Sarah?" Hunter teases. Alex mutters something filthy and punches Hunter's arm. Jules and I laugh at their identical scowls and reddened cheeks.
"Damn," Jules says as we turn the corner onto Tristan's street. Even if we didn't already know which one was his house, right now anyone could figure it out solely on the booming music coming from the sleek, enormous modern house sitting at the end of the cul de sac.
Not only that, but the streets were packed with cars, and groups of people were entering and exiting the large, wooden front door.
"Where are his parents?" I ask in wondrous disbelief.
"Probably somewhere in Italy," Alex says. The sad thing is it's probably not far from the truth.
Jules finally squeezes into a parking spot, a few houses over, and we make our way to the end of the street.
The beat of the music was so loud that I could practically feel the vibrations through the sidewalk.
"Wonder how long this is gonna last," Jules says with a shake of his head.
"Not that long, so let's hurry up," Hunter says as we speed up our pace and make our way across the front yard. There are a few clusters of people outside, talking in low voices.
On the edge of the grass, I spot Jackson talking with some guy I've never seen before. He lifts his head and we make eye contact before I quickly turn my gaze towards the ground.
"Hey guys," Alex says, nodding to two buff seniors on the football team that guard the door. They nod their shaved heads, letting us through without even consulting the list. We are, after all, Tristan's best friends.
If the music from outside was loud, inside it's deafening. Tristan really went overboard. Bulky, expensive-looking speakers are everywhere: on tables, behind potted plants, beside couches. A DJ's voice occasionally yells something, resulting in a responding chorus of shouts. I can barely even breathe, the air stuffy with people and smoke, along with a bombardment of intense scents, most prominent being the ever-present smell of sweat and weed.
"There they are," Jules says quietly to me, sounding nearly as apprehensive as I felt.
I saw Rhys first, sitting right next to Sarah on the edge of a large couch that was obviously pushed to the center of the room. I wish I could say Rhys was hard to miss, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
Rhys has his hoodie pulled over his head, casting dark shadows across his face that seems set in a permanent scowl. And he couldn't have picked a more secluded seat. His edge of the couch is pushed past the set of loveseats perpendicular to it, so that if it wasn't for Sarah sitting next to him, Rhys would seem like a loner.
"Earth to Mav," Lauren says, followed by a nervous laugh. A hot blush travels my neck when I realize I had been staring blatantly at Rhys. I force my gaze down and in front of me on Lauren, who smiles almost shyly before stepping forward and giving me an awkward hug.
"Hey Lauren," I say, stepping back and shoving my hands into the pockets of my pants, catching a curl of disappointment on Lauren's frown as she eyes the movement.
"Wanna go to the kitchen?" Lauren asks with a raise of an eyebrow.
"Um..." I glance around fastidiously, then force the lie out of my mouth, along with the guilt, "...no, I actually drove here. So I don't want to drink anything." Lauren looks at me perplexed.
"But I thought Jules drove you," she says.
"No," I lie again, this time the words spilling more easily from my lips, "I changed plans last minute." She tilts her head, brows still furrowed. After another beat of silence, her face transforms and a small smile blooms on her lips.
"You should've told me!" Lauren says enthusiastically. "We could've taken an Uber together." I stretch my mouth into a smile, but feeling fake I drop it when Lauren shifts her gaze to the ground.
"Yeah," I say, lacking any of her conviction, "of course. Next time."
Lauren nods her head in agreement, looking back up again. "Next time."
"Hello everyone!" a girly voice shouts from behind me. I don't need to turn around to know whose it belongs to. My eyes cut to Rhys unwillingly, but nothing about his body language besides a slight shift in his seat signals his reaction to the arrival of Beverly the Bitch.
A staggered chorus of 'Hey Beverly' flutters from the surrounding people. She saunters over to us with a perfect smile and sits on Rhys's lap, facing Sarah. Rhys's stony face remains, although he does put his arm around her waist. I want to catch his eye and ask him when they made up, but then I remember we're not friends right now.
Sarah and Beverly squeal in hushed voices, diving straight into the news and gossip of the week, acting like Rhys is as significant as one of the pillows. It's work not to roll my eyes. I wonder not for the first time how Rhys stands her.
"I was thinking...maybe we could go upstairs?" Lauren asks so softly for a second I thought she hadn't said anything. It didn't help that the music threatened the health of my eardrums. Or that I wasn't paying any attention to her, whispered an annoying voice in the back of my head.
"Now?" I ask before I can stop myself. Lauren's smile drops, and I rush to amend the rapidly deteriorating situation. "Or yeah, now's fine," I say with a weak chuckle. "The party is going to get shut down soon anyway."
Lauren's smile returns, and she grabs my arm, pulling me towards the stairs. We shove through the thick mass of bodies surrounding us.
"There are so many people here," I say as I elbow a guy from my English class out of the way. Lauren turns her head without slowing her pace.
"What?" She half yells.
I shake my head, giving up. There was no way we'll be able to talk here.
Once we find the staircase and climb a few steps up, the noise level drastically drops, and inside the actual hallway is eerily quieter than downstairs.
"What did you say?" Lauren asks.
"Nothing," I say, "just that there's a lot of people."
Lauren nods energetically, but it's like she's not really listening to what I'm saying. She looks around, craning her neck to get a better view of the hallway.
"Why don't we go in there?" she asks, before dragging me towards one of the white doors lining the walls. Lauren opens the door to a small guest room, a plain gray bed in the center. She walks in hesitantly.
"So..." she says quietly, suddenly a lot less bold than before. Lauren releases my arm. I can feel the familiarity of the situation and the fear of severe awkwardness with a girl kick in.
"Come here." I grab her hand with mine and pull her towards me, my other hand slipping behind her neck. Our lips find each other softly, and Lauren shyly wraps her arms around my waist. Her mouth is warm, and she tilts her head, attempting to deepen the kiss. She's really getting into this, is my first thought. I'm really not getting into this, is my second.
I break apart, trying to reassemble the scrambling pieces of my brain.
"Fuck, I need a drink," I mutter. Lauren raises an eyebrow, still slightly out of breath.
"I thought you were driving," she says.
"Not anymore." I unwrap her arms from my waist.
"You're getting a drink now?" Lauren asks. Frowns angrily. She's been doing that a lot tonight.
"Yeah," I say, "now."
She rolls her eyes. "Fine, but let's be quick." Guess that means she's coming with me.
I open the door, immediately feeling better when the cooler air hits my skin. Or maybe that was just my im─
"..shh.." Beverly.
Nope. I try to edge back inside the doorway.
"...how about..." Rhys.
Shit, shit, shit.
Someone moans. Probably Beverly. Again. Yep, definitely Beverly.
"...this way..." Rhys.
Beverly giggles drunkenly.
Behind me, Lauren tries to shove me further down the hallway and I throw back a scowl. I reluctantly step out so she doesn't think I was just frozen by Rhys and Beverly making out, which logically, is exactly what Lauren is going to think.
"Oh, hey Lauren. And Mav."
I turn away from Lauren and up in surprise at Beverly's slurred voice. Down the hall, blocking our route downstairs, stands Beverly in all her blonde glory, arms tight around Rhys's neck. She smiles, but it looks more like a smirk. Rhys's relaxed features shutter once he hears my name.
"Are you guys done with that room? Because we could use some...privacy," Beverly says slowly, apparently finding herself very funny if her following peals of laughter are anything to go by.
"I didn't realize you guys were on a talking basis, let alone a fucking basis," I spit out, surprising myself with the venom lacing the words. Lauren gasps and Rhys's eyes widen fractionally. Beverly only smirks wider. I definitely fucked up. My words can only be used against me.
"I guess I could say the same for you," Beverly says, her unnervingly light blue eyes twinkling deviously. My breath drops to my stomach, even though I have no idea what she's talking about. Lauren's brows furrow, as confused as I am. Rhys's green eyes have gone a steely hazel.
Before I can come up with a biting response, Beverly and Rhys walk breezily past us, their balance wobbly but decisive as they enter the room we just left.
"What did she mean by that?" Lauren asks, her voice strained. "What did she mean, I could say the same for you?"
I stare at the white, closed door of the guest bedroom, the feeling of something sharp and grating in my chest.
"Don't listen to her. She's just drunk." But as we walk back downstairs, I'm unsure whether I was trying to convince Lauren, or myself.