Two staggering figures interrupt by bursting out of the party, the smaller one clinging to the door for support and the larger one clinging to the smaller.
“I love you so much; I’m so sorry,” someone slurs, and someone else makes comforting shushing noises, and before I have any time to react, the larger, drunker shape doubles over a foot in front of me and pukes a thin stream of watery sludge that smells disconcertingly like citrus.
I bolt up and back, crashing my shoulder into the windowsill as vomit spritzes my ankles.
The puke-spewer groans, and the companion—one of the girls I played against today, though I can’t remember which team—offers a sheepish apology. “He had a lot of lemon drops . . .” She shrugs, and then pats the boy’s shoulder. “But we’re going to get you a PB&J and some water, okay?”
I nod, tensed like an upright mummy with my lips sewn shut in disgust. Once they leave, I stare down at my Converse in horror.
“Andrew McPherson.” The cute boy shakes his head and grimaces at his own tennis shoes, which seem to have taken even more damage. “Not my favorite Andrew. You okay?”
I nod. I know I have to go inside and wash up, but that means facing more drunk people, a long bathroom line, Melissa, John . . .
I start laughing. I can’t stop. “This is my life,” I say. “This is my big rebellious adventure. Every remaining scrap of respect or goodwill my parents might’ve had for me, thrown away for this.”
The boy slides his body across the window, and for a second I think he’s going to sit, but instead he slides sideways until his shoulder bumps mine. “Hey,” he says. Then he doesn’t say anything else until I get curious and raise my head to meet his shining black eyes. “You’re okay,” he says, smiling that unbounded smile. “It’s okay. Do you want to use my room to wash off? It’s just a floor up.”
Here is the thing about cute college boys inviting you to their room: you are supposed to consider your answer very carefully.
However, here is the thing about someone else’s vomit drying on your legs: your priorities shift.
So without letting my brain get caught up in the quicksand of cute-boy analysis, I say, truthfully, “That sounds amazing. Thank you.”
I think this might be his biggest smile yet.
24
The whiteboard taped to the front of the door has a note addressed to Andrew and Phil, which serves as a reminder that I do not know Prince Jersey’s name. Did he introduce himself while I was busy looking at his face? I definitely told him my name . . . I think.
I watch him fiddle with the key. Andrew? Phil?
“It’s pretty much all college kids in this complex, huh?” I ask, nodding at the whiteboard. “I was wondering how we were getting away with such a loud party.”
“I don’t know.” Andrew or Phil jostles the doorknob. “It seems like it is, more or less.” He finally gets the door open and beams. “There’s a big community of Deaf people, too, because Texas School for the Deaf is nearby, and I hear their parties are even louder. My friend keeps promising he’ll get his neighbors to invite me to one someday. Here we go, sorry. The lock hates me, apparently.”
I follow him inside and crash when he stops in the dark doorway. The door swings shut behind me, and I feel Andrew or Phil’s chest move as he mutters, “Ah, damn it.”
By the time his scrambling hand hits the light switch, every one of my internal filaments glows bright and hot because, well, dark room and cute boy and close quarters. I’m sure that the overhead light is revealing bright red cheeks, so I quickly scoot past Andrew or Phil and enter the apartment living room.
It looks a lot like the party apartment, only mirror-imaged and less crowded. Couch, coffee table, lots of papers and textbooks. Dirty dishes, snacks.
“Uh, sorry,” he says. “I thought other people would be here, but . . . you can use the bathroom right there, and I’ll just be over here.” He points me toward one door and then heads toward another with a handwritten notebook-paper sign declaring Stay out of my room, Phil!
Andrew, then. Thank God for college boys’ obsession with marking their territory.
Andrew enters his room, and I catch a peek at more sleeping bags and an unmade bed. Then I enter the closet-sized bathroom and scrub my ankles down with hand soap and toilet paper, running my shoes and socks under the tap until they smell more like Tropical Island Fresh than Lemon Drop Barf.
“Hey . . .” I stick my head out the door, not quite confident enough to say Andrew’s name. “Do you, sorry, but do you have any towels?”
Probably-Andrew walks into the bathroom barefoot and glances around. “Sorry, I don’t know if . . . will you be grossed out if I offer you this?” He holds out the dirty T-shirt in his hands. “I used it already, but . . .”
“Yeah, whatever, that’s fine.” Priorities.
I drag my feet against the shirt until they’re more or less dry. The motion reminds me how much my legs ache. I sling my bag back over my shoulder and carry my wet tennis shoes and socks back to the living room. Andrew follows and watches me collapse onto the fuzzy blue couch.
He approaches, his smile twisting up on one side as he scratches his shaggy hair. “You’re welcome to hang out for a bit, if you want. It’s quieter here. But also, definitely I’ll walk you back if—”
“Yeah, I’m not standing back up anytime soon,” I interrupt. “Everything hurts.”
It’s more than half true, but my stomach still flops over itself when Andrew plops onto the other end of the (small) couch, his arms and legs splayed out so that his knee almost brushes mine. I breathe deep and let my body sag the extra half inch to the right.
Andrew’s smile gets bigger, but then he shifts a tiny bit, pulling his leg away.
Boo. Come back here, leg.
“So tell me about, uh, your . . . stuff,” I say, like the brilliant seductress I am not. Andrew blinks at me, his smile inexplicably undaunted.
“My stuff?”
“Like, your, I don’t know, classes. Or your life goals. Or your fandoms.”
He laughs. “Well, Harry Potter minus everything JKR’s said since book seven, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Are fandoms a good way to get to know someone?” he asks. My cheeks probably flush again, but he stares straight into my eyes with that sincere smile. Not mocking. Curious.
I don’t feel like being sincere back. “I gave you the option of life goals. You have no one but yourself to blame.”
The comment earns another laugh. I like Andrew’s laugh and his smile and the way his eyes hold mine, interested.