“YES!” I scream, throwing my hands in the air and making all the idiots around me look at the drunk, crazy girl. I should go and cheer them on.
Wait. I don’t want to be the reason to ruin this. I should leave them to get their freak on. After all, Tully really likes him and I know he likes her too, besides, she’s having a dry spell too.
They should have a little privacy. Hell, I don’t even care that Rivers seems a shitload shadier than Noah and hasn’t given me the time of day. He’s a good guy and after all, Tully wouldn’t allow herself to feel for someone if he wasn’t worthy of her.
I turn on my heel and with the knowledge that Spencer is probably making his way around the party with a hard on, looking for me, I slip out the front door with my bottle in hand, more than ready to go home.
I get about thirty steps down the road and realize this is going to be a much bigger task than I had thought. I pass a house. Then another. Then a big tree with a broken branch. I stop to carve my name into it and get halfway through the ‘H’ when a light inside the closest house comes on. “Whoops,” I grumble before I keep going.
I finish off my bottle but keep holding onto it. Maybe it will magically refill and keep me in this happy state. No, maybe I should go back to the party and get another. Excellent idea. I turn around and start heading back, but as I look up the street, I realize I don’t recognize a damn thing. Where was the party anyway?
Where am I?
I turn back around and my head spins. How many turns did I do? Am I facing the right way?
“Oh, well.”
I push forward and end up in a deserted little park. Well, of course, it’s deserted. There’s not going to be any kids hanging around here at three in the morning. Or is it four? Hell, maybe it’s only midnight. I’ll check my phone.
I feel around and realize it’s gone. “Damn,” I grumble, but something screams at me that I already knew that.
I wonder where Tully is. I bet she’s having a great time. A damn great time.
I take a seat on the park bench and rest my head against the cool metal of the table. Yeah, that feels good. With my eyes closed it makes it easier to manage the world spinning around me. I could probably have a little nap, rest my feet, and then keep going in a little bit.
Yeah, that sounds fantastic.
But then, they have some swings at this park. My head pulls up and I focus in on the swings, but the thought of sitting in one of those death traps while going back and forth, back and forth, makes me want to hurl.
I’ll pass on the swings.
My head goes back down to the cool table. Yeah, this is where I should stay.
Noah’s going to be a daddy.
I should have found my way down to the beach. It probably would have been a bit nicer. Oh, I could have gone swimming with the dolphins. We could have a little party and they could take me to visit their underwater world. The Little Mermaid would be there and I’d swim with them all night.
I’d make an excellent mermaid.
I push up off the park bench as something that sounds like the tune of ‘Under the Sea’ comes flying from my lips.
“Whoa, Little Mermaid,” a voice says at my back, catching my shoulders and steadying me when I go to fall back over the bench. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I spin around, terrified of who’s standing behind me and have to blink a few times to make sure I’m seeing this correctly. “Hey, daddy,” I grin, absolutely ecstatic to see him, though I bring my hands up and feel his face, just to make sure. “Where have you been? Not dealing drugs again, I hope.”
Noah grabs my hands and puts them down by my side as he laughs at the trainwreck before him, while ignoring my ‘drug’ jab. We both know he isn’t into that, or well, I hope anyway. “Spitfire, what are you doing out here?” he questions, a little more forcefully as his eyes roam over me from head to toe, no doubt taking in the empty bottle that lays carelessly at my feet. He inhales before narrowing his eyes. “Have you been smoking?”
I fall against him and instantly start melting. Yeah, this is where I want to be. “Let’s go swimming.”
“We’re not going swimming,” he tells me, wrapping his arm around me and leading me away as he presses a discreet kiss to the top of my head.