Chapter Nineteen

Today

I drink. A lot.

I hover in the kitchen for a long while, leaning over the island and clutching the neck of the wine bottle as if someone might try to take it from me. From this vantage point, I watch Tucker's back, his flat, strong shoulder blades shaking when he laughs. I smile when I hear him laugh. I smile when I see him smile. I feel my bones turn to goo when he looks at me.

I'm better off in the kitchen.

Johnny walks in and stands beside me, stiff and quiet. I'm happy to absorb the energy of someone with zero sexual interest in me. I say to him quietly, "Why are you looking at him like that?"

Johnny frowns. His glasses inch up his nose. "Because he's not supposed to make a move on you. He's going to ruin everything, Ella."

"It was a game."

"Not for him. It's never been a game to him." He tilts his head. "Are you really that naive?"

I stand up straight. "Naive about what exactly?"

"The way he touches you. The way he looks at you. He wants to sleep with you. That's all it's ever been for him." His lip screws up in disgust. "He's not your friend."

"You're just realizing this now?"

"I want everything the way that it was. Back when we were kids. You two shouldn't be fooling around."

His glasses are askew on the left side, and I have such an urge to flick them off his face. He's still shooting daggers at Tucker while his fiancée sits awkwardly on the couch beside Wyatt, getting a lesson in his conspiracy theories that she did ask for. I don't need saving. She does.

I say, "Um, newsflash Johnny, I'm not ten anymore. I do not want to fool around with Tucker, but I'm allowed to, seeing as I'm a fully grown adult woman." It occurs to me that he's okay with Tucker's distance for this very reason. "You don't mind that he stayed away from me, do you? Because then we'd be just as we were - your two separate friends."

He drops his can in the recycling. "You two have nothing in common anyway."

"We have literally everything in common, Johnny."

"So, I have to worry about you too, now?" he asks. "Maybe you and Ritchie should switch beds."

"Worry about me?" I say scornfully. "Wanting to sleep with him? You shouldn't worry about anything like that because I'm not an underaged prairie girl and you're not my dad!"

He rolls his eyes, and I steer my face in front of his.

I pick, "What's the deal with you and Jen?"

Johnny says simply, "We're engaged."

"You don't seem very comfortable about that. You also seem to have a whole slew of new traits and activities that you never told me about." I drop one last penny in the empty bucket that is his silent response: "I hope you're moving toward things you want, not away from things you're afraid of. You can't pick a safe person just because the unknown scares you, Johnny."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbles, focused on the swirls of the countertop.

I drink.

For the rest of the night.

I down my wine like I'm trying to wash Tucker's taste out of my mouth and drown out Johnny's words. Unfortunately, I'm not the kind of drunk who gets sleepy and affectionate. I'm the kind of drunk whose attention-seeking behavior turns up to a ten.

Music blasts through the house. Serena, Wyatt and I are dancing, Tucker constantly prying the wine from my hands. Johnny's shouting about not paying for damages. Callie and Ritchie engage in a deep, emotional conversation and Jen left a long time ago. That's probably for the best. There's a high probability I will strip off all my clothes.

"Let's go swimming!" I scream.

"Nope," Tucker slams an arm across my stomach.

"Let me go!"

"No."

"We're gonna jump in the pool."

"No - you're going to drown in the pool."

I twist and look him in the eye. "I already almost died, and you didn't give a shit."

His nose touches mine, he gets so close to my face. "Not true," he snaps. I'm slung over his shoulder. "I'm taking her to bed."

In my brain I'm beating against his back and telling him to put me down, but in reality, I've lost muscle control. I dangle against his shirt. I press my face into it. It smells good. He's so warm and strong. I wish I didn't hate him.

Suddenly I'm dropped on the bed.

"Here." Tucker sets a bottle of water on the bedside table. "Don't choke on your vomit, please."

"Wait," I call out in the dark.

"I'm still here."

I'm sprawled out atop the cushions and my tongue runs along the bumpy particles of food on my teeth. I hate that feeling. I hate the taste of my breath. I whine, "I need to brush my teeth."

Tucker exhales. "Then go do it."

"I can't move."

" Fine ." He grips my ankles and drags me to the edge of the bed until my feet hit the floor. He pulls me up with my hands and I fall against his body. He hoists me up, carrying me, my feet swinging, into the bathroom. I land against the wall and slide my butt to the ground.

Tucker roots around in my toiletry bag. He returns with my toothbrush, a drop of paste on the bristles. He holds it in front of me.

"I can't move my hands," I murmur.

He lets out a laugh and repeats, "Fine." He sits. One hand holds my jaw and the other brushes my teeth. When I sway, he rights my head. I look so closely at his eyes that I want to know if I was right about them - flecks of emerald - and he has to push me back against the wall before I fall.

"Spit." He holds a cup out.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Look who has control of her hands now ."

I watch him rinse my toothbrush and rinse the cup, put my toothpaste back in my bag.

"Sit back down," I tell him.

Tucker sighs. "Fine."

" Fine ," I mock. "Is that all you're going to say to me?"

He tucks one leg under himself, the other bends beside my body, arm at the ready to catch me if I wobble. "You should go to sleep now."

"Are you going to kiss me again?"

He looks at my mouth. "No."

"Do drunk women gross you out?"

"Sometimes. But that's not why. You could never gross me out."

I recoil. "I threw up on you once."

His elbow rests on his bent knee. "Oh, I remember. And it was two times."

"Oh, yeah." I lick my lips. "The ride to Disney and the -"

"Field party. I remember ."

"You didn't have to make a scene and drag me out."

" Me make a scene? You were standing in a truck bed, trying to take your sweater off but you weren't wearing a sweater, you were wearing a shirt. I stopped you before you flashed everyone."

I smiled. "That black knit halter top."

"I remember."

"I loved that shirt. I liked how you looked at me in it."

He scoffed. "Like a horny seventeen-year-old?"

"Do you remember when I got gum in my hair? That was gross."

"Because I slathered your whole head in a jar of peanut butter."

I laugh, thinking of it and my mother's face when she saw me. "You put it on my scalp like a hair mask." I snort. "It wasn't anywhere near the wad of gum." I fall forward, laughing, and he pushes me back up. "You kept saying, ‘I know what I'm doing,' but my head was so greasy, and I ended up having to cut my hair."

His hand, the one beside my arm, begins absently plucking the fabric of his sweatshirt. "I got it confused with lice protocol."

"Oh. I had that too."

"I know. And you gave it to me."

Even through the fleece, I feel his fingertips scrape against my skin. I close my eyes and whisper, "Do you remember the cruise?"

"Painfully."

"Do you remember prom?"

Tucker is quiet.

"You looked so handsome." I breathe in the quiet. "And you were so nervous." My heart ached. "I was so scared of other boys. But I wasn't ever scared of you."

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

My eyelids press into one another, pained by the vibration of him so close to me, the gentleness of his movements. "I liked it when you touched me. I wanted it."

His hand moves to my cheek, stroking the skin. I turn my head, so it falls into his palm. I open my eyes. He drags his thumb across my bottom lip.

I whimper, "Do you remember that night ?"

I don't have to explain. He knows what night.

Tucker's throat bounces. "Of course, I do," he mutters, his voice thick. He puts my hands on his shoulders, and slides forward, scooping me into his arms.

My legs hook around his waist, my face snuggles into his neck.

Gently this time, he puts me back on the bed.

I grapple for his hand. "Don't sleep on the couch, Eli. Please . Sleep here. I just want to pretend it's like it was." I beg, "Tell me you love me."

After a moment, he brushes the hair on my forehead and kisses me softly. "Go to sleep."