Going Long (Waiting on the Sidelines #2)(42)

“Yeah, I know. She did shots—a lot of them. I’ve been trying to get her to go home for the last hour,” Sienna said.

“Well, you have to find her. I think she might just be outside, somewhere close,” I said, hearing the sounds of the music kick in again. Sienna was on the move.

“Hang on, I’m going out front. I’ll find her Reed,” she was just as frustrated as I was. When the music died off again in the background, I knew she was outside. I heard a few voices and the sounds of cars roaring by on the road. “Wait…I see her. She’s sitting in the gutter…with her freakin’ shoes off, ohhhhhh.”

I heard Nolan’s voice in the background, and laid my head on the steering wheel, exhausted by the whole thing. “What happened?” I asked, wanting answers but knowing Sienna really didn’t have the time to give them to me. “Where’s Gavin?” I asked, my mouth repulsing at saying his name.

“Gavin?! Why the hell would Gavin be here?” Sienna said, her voice a little muffled from laying the phone on her shoulder. “I got you. Come on girl…really, this time. It’s time to go home, okay?”

I heard Nolan, “Mmmmm.” She sounded sleepy. I knew this stage of a hard night out. She was near passed out. I couldn’t even imagine what she looked like.

“Reed? Look, I gotta go. Thanks for calling me. I’m sorry you had to,” she was a little short with me before she just hung up.

“What the f*ck?” For the next 20 minutes, I sat there just thinking about what had just happened. I hadn’t heard her voice in weeks, not that she sounded like herself at all tonight. But when I asked about Gavin, Sienna sounded like I was crazy. Maybe she didn’t know that they had hooked up? Clearly they weren’t dating or anything. My head was spinning, not sure what was right anymore, and I was just left missing everything that I’d finally started to come to terms with losing.





Chapter 10


Nolan



I woke up on Sienna’s sofa, my face crusty with dried saliva, and God knows what else. My throat was dry as hell, and I wanted to gulp glass after glass of water, except when I sat up my entire world shifted, forcing me back flat on my face into the cushions. I was still wearing my clothes from last night, and my boots were stuffed in the sofa cracks, almost as if I’d clung to them overnight like they were a teddy bear. I was pretty sure I never wanted to feel like this again.

The kitchen light flickered on, and I heard the faint sounds of coffee brewing and pans sliding from a cabinet. I pushed myself up on the sofa and cracked one eye barely open to see Sienna leaning on her hands across the counter staring at me. Not really ready to deal with the look on her face, I just grumbled and fell back into the couch.

“Well, good morning, sunshine,” she said bitterly. “You ready to hear about the fantastic night you made me go through? Or do you want to throw up and whine about your splitting headache for a while?”

She was full-on banging pans on the stove now, flinging the fridge door shut with extra muscle, and cracking eggs to fry so loudly you would think she was throwing water balloons onto the stove.

“Uuuuuuuuhhhhhg. Sienna, do you have to do all of that now?” I spoke, my face still buried into the pillow.

“Yes, Nolan. I do. It’s 11:30 in the morning. I’m hungry, and I’m sick of watching you twitch and wail, and flop around my living room couch. I want to watch TV, so sit your ass up,” she was bullying me. It was a side of her I’d never seen, and I both admired and hated it.

She was flipping cushions up to move me now, so I slid to the end of the couch to curl up in a ball, and keep my face buried in the covers and my hands. “Stopppp, I get it. I’m moving,” I said, my voice defensive, like I had some right to be. I had no idea what events led up to me being here, but I knew that there were at least 7 or 8 ounces of vodka involved. My stomach felt like a tar pit, bubbling and full. I left my arm wrapped around my chin, my nose covered and protected from any smells. I hoped this would keep me from vomiting.

“Noles, I swear to God, if you throw up on any of my shit, our friendship is over,” she said, flipping through the channels and not even looking at me.

“Geeeeeeze, what the hell crawled up your ass?” I rolled my eyes, or at least the one that was open.

At that, Sienna shut the TV off again and got up off the couch to return to the kitchen. I had pissed her off, and I knew I was acting like a major bitch, but I was so miserable that I couldn’t seem to turn it off. “I’m sorry…” I half-heartedly grunted from my sofa corner.

She just scoffed. I listened to her bang around the kitchen some more, before I drifted back into a light sleep. I slipped in and out of it over the next two hours. When I heard the unmistakable sound of Sarah’s voice added into the mix, I finally rose from the dead, my body a little more prepared to sit upright…and possibly take in some liquids.

“Jesus, Noles. You look like shit,” Sarah said, tossing a clean T-shirt at me from the chair on the other side of the room. On instinct, I pulled my night-before top off and put on the one she’d thrown to me. When I saw the small traces of vomit on my new blouse, I realized how bad the situation probably had been.

I finally got up from the couch and slid into the kitchen to pour myself a giant cup of coffee and sift through Sienna’s cabinets for aspirin. “You won’t find it in there. Hang on, I’ll get the bottle from my bathroom,” Sienna said from behind me. I hadn’t seen her and her words startled me a little. She came back seconds later with two pills, and I took them quickly, thinking the faster they were in my system, the faster the nail pushing into my skull would go away.