Anything to Have You. Paige Harbison

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      I looked back to Aiden. “Hurry your ass up, Brooke is starving.”

      “So I hear.”

      “Hey, um...” I looked into the basement living room. I dropped my voice and moved in a little toward him. “Do you think maybe we should say you slept out there on that little couch?”

      He looked where I was pointing. Justin lay passed out on one of the couches, but a love seat was empty.

      “Looks like I got a terrible night’s sleep.” His tone had changed. Suddenly he sounded like hardened Aiden. The one I was used to hearing after he and Brooke fought. All curt responses and no joking. Had I made him mad? Was it my fault somehow? Had I creepily and stalkerishly climbed into bed with him?

      “Do you...have my sweatshirt?” he asked, standing.

      He remembered enough to know that I had worn it. Yeah...I would have to ask him for some clarification on the night’s happenings at a better time.

      “Oh, yeah, it’s over here.”

      I tossed it to him, quickly gathered my stuff and went upstairs to Brooke.

      “Is he coming?”

      “Yeah, he’s getting dressed.”

      “Dressed? What, was he...naked?”

      “No, no.” I laughed nervously. “Putting his shoes on and whatever.”

      Reed came out of the hallway, wearing only dark, low-hanging jeans. It looked like he wasn’t even wearing boxers or anything. He rubbed his face and went over to the fridge. He pulled out a beer and popped it open.

      I observed his body, which was covered in tattoos. They wrapped around his ribs, disappeared down his pants and laced his collarbone. He was so gross. I would never understand why I’d thought sleeping with him—or even touching him—was a good idea.

      “Seriously? A beer right now?” Brooke asked with a sneer.

      “Would you prefer to take a shot with me instead?”

      She clicked her tongue and then grinned, trying, and succeeding, at being Dangerous, Sexy Brooke. “Maybe.”

      He gestured at the counter. “Pour it up.”

      Brooke gave a tilt of the head that said, Act like I won’t do it. She then walked over to the counter, poured two shots of whiskey and handed him one.

      “No chaser?” he asked.

      “Do I look like a pussy to you? Oh, wait, everything does.”

      “Oh-ho!”

      “Bottoms up, dickwad.”

      In unison, they clanged the glasses together, tapped them on the counter and took them. Admittedly, they took them like champs. They set down the glasses, each glaring at the other, waiting for one to waver. Then he laughed and crossed his arms at her.

      “Oh, my God, Reed. You are so beyond disgusting,” she said.

      It was obvious to me, and probably to anyone else, that she didn’t actually find him disgusting, and that she was in fact pleased at his evident approval of her. What was happening to my best friend? Parties do weird things to people.

      He leaned against the counter and looked at her with a smirk. “My disgustingness seems to work for me.”

      She glared at him. “I have no idea how you ever get girls.”

      “No? Maybe you should ask your bestie over there.”

      I was startled at suddenly being involved in the conversation. I wanted to say something nasty back but I lacked the guts to actually do that. Luckily, I had Brooke as my mouthpiece.

      “Hey, Reed, why don’t you go fuck yourself?”

      He shrugged. “Got too many girls offering to do it for me.”

      Megan and Bethany emerged at that moment, both wearing very few clothes and very funny expressions. They said hi and then started giggling by the pantry.

      Brooke looked at Reed and cocked her head to the side and mouthed, No fucking way...

      He held up three fingers and nodded.

      She made a face that communicated all the ew now circulating through the room.

      So, last weekend, I was watching Netflix and doing yoga by myself and falling asleep at ten at night. This weekend, I was blacking out, waking up in bed with my best friend’s boyfriend with hazy memories of making out with the school’s most eligible potential prom king, and a threesome had happened in the same house.

      Lovely.

      Thank God we hadn’t ended up snowed in. I didn’t know that I could have dealt with an entire weekend stuck with all these people plus the mystery of what had happened the night before.

      The ride home was awkward as could be. Aiden and Brooke were clearly still in a fight. Brooke sat with crossed legs, staring out the window, saying nothing. Aiden drove without speaking except to say, “Later,” when he dropped me off.

      So much for my first night back in the game.

      * * *

      ONCE HOME, I spent the entire day in and out of panic attacks about what had happened with Eric. I thought about messaging him a couple of times, to clarify what had happened, perhaps find out what had prompted me to even want to do such a thing, and maybe—hopefully—confirm that we had used protection. But even though we apparently had gotten to know each other pretty well, I felt weird trying to talk to him. We had hardly ever spoken in our lives, and we had never said anything of importance. And maybe it was stupid, but I kind of felt like he should try to talk to me first. He hadn’t seemed that drunk. Why had he let me go through with it? He was surely aware that I was hammered, right? Shouldn’t he have done the noble thing and not hooked up with me?

      Instead of doing the smart thing and trying to figure out what exactly my body had been up to while my brain was in Blackout Land, I curled up in a ball and cried over soap operas all day. I would have stayed like that probably forever if my dad hadn’t called me downstairs for our weekly tradition of Sunday Diner Dinners.

      I managed to haul myself from bed all the way to a red vinyl booth. I felt this weird guilt sitting across from my dad, knowing that I had had sex the night before. I didn’t know why, exactly. Part of me wanted to talk about it, especially since I hadn’t said it out loud at all yet, not even to Brooke. But as close as I was to my dad, this was just too weird.

      I set down my patty melt, feeling a little queasy, even though it was as delicious as ever, and surveyed my father. I knew he would be disappointed in me if I told him what had happened at the party. It was the saddest thing in the world to disappoint him.

      Maybe it was his blue eyes, which had a shape to them that made him always look soft and kind, and even a little sad. He had aged in the past couple of years, gray starting to fleck his sideburns and stubble, and the lines around his eyes and СКАЧАТЬ