The Best Laid Plans(78)

It ends just as quickly as it began, and as I pull away, my eyes flutter open and I remember where we are: surrounded by people, surrounded by the girls of Andrew’s past, the girls of Andrew’s present. I look away from him, trying to focus my eyes on anyone, on anything else.

“Collins, your turn to spin!” Danielle says. She hands the bottle to me and I take it with shaky hands, my heart still beating wildly in my chest. I feel slightly out of my body, like everything is happening to someone else and not to me. I sit back down, and the circle parts to make room for Andrew and Hannah on either side of me. Hannah squeezes my knee and I look over at her and she breaks into a big smile, clearly pleased with herself.

“Spin, Collins,” Danielle says again. She’s drumming her black fingernails against the wood floor.

I feel dizzy as I lean forward and place the bottle down. I don’t want to spin—I’m already too confused, too disoriented, and kissing Ryder or Chase or Simon or anyone will only cloud my head more. I want to think about what’s just happened with Andrew, to figure out what it means. If it means anything at all.

“Spin!” Ava shouts, her tone light and gleeful. I turn my head too quickly to look at her, and she blurs—two Avas in one, four boobs bouncing as she claps her hands together. She raises her arms up to cheer and a trail of light and color follows the motion. I have to shake my head to clear it away.

“Spin!” somebody else says, and then a chant starts: spin, spin, spin.

I lurch forward and raise a wobbly hand to my mouth.

“I don’t feel well,” I say. “I’m gonna be sick.” I trip as I try to get onto my feet, my sock slipping on the polished wood floor.

“Ouch, Reed!” somebody taunts. “How rank is your breath?”

I run down the hall to the bathroom and slam the door before anyone can come after me, shutting out the sound of the laughter and jeers from the other room. Leaning over the sink, I run some cold water and splash it over my face, then rest my head against the mirror, the cold glass making me feel better. Maybe I can hide in here, my face on the glass, until everyone moves on, keeps drinking, and forgets I was ever here in the first place. Would anyone even notice?

There’s a soft knock on the door.

“Collins?” It’s Andrew, voice muffled. “Are you okay?”

I don’t answer.

“Can I come in?”

There’s a long pause as I consider if I can handle lifting my forehead off the mirror. I don’t know if I want to be near him.

“I’m fine,” I say, my voice raspy. “I just didn’t feel like playing anymore.”

“Because I’m a horrible kisser?” I can hear the playful note in his voice. “I know for a fact that’s not true. I have sources.” There are some shuffling sounds outside, the tapping of his fingers against the door. “Maybe I’m such a good kisser you were overwhelmed with bloodlust and you had to get out of there. It’s—”

“Bloodlust is a thirst for blood.” I pull my head off the mirror. “I don’t want to kill you.”

I open the door a crack and see him grinning on the other side. He comes in and shuts the door, sitting down next to me on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. Even though it’s the downstairs bathroom, the one right next to the guest room, it’s still huge, twice the size of my parents’ bathroom. Next to the sink, there’s a framed photograph of Danielle from middle school, standing proudly next to a horse. I turn away from her stare.

We sit in silence on the edge of the tub. Somehow it was easier to talk to him through the door, to remember how to be his friend when I couldn’t see him. Now that he’s next to me, his left leg against my right, the slight smell of him—his sweat, his shampoo, the beer that’s now drying in his hair—is making me dizzy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?” I ask finally. I pick at a thread hanging from my shorts. “I was always so proud of us because we’d managed to stay friends after growing up. But maybe we just have to accept the fact that it doesn’t work.”

“Of course it works,” he says. “It’s been working for years. Just because we kissed in a stupid game, it doesn’t mean we can’t—”

“It wasn’t just that stupid game,” I say. “It was everything else. It was the Plan. It was you seeing me naked, touching my boobs.” Saying it out loud, I burst into unexpected laughter. Andrew starts laughing too, and I feel something ease inside of me.

“They’re nice boobs,” he says, and I swat him. His eyes widen and he loses balance, falling backward into the empty tub. I yelp as he pulls me with him so that I land hard on his stomach, bumping my elbow against the porcelain.

“Ow!” I hold up my elbow where I know a bruise is going to form. But I can feel him shaking with laughter beneath me, and so I’m laughing too. It all feels so natural again, like the old days.

“Can we just stay here the rest of the night?” I ask. “I don’t want to go back out there.”

“Deal,” he says, leaning back into the empty tub and rearranging himself so we fit sort of comfortably. He sits back against one end and brings his legs inside, bent at the knee. I sit back against the other end, so that we’re facing each other. The tub’s nozzle is right next to my neck and I have to tilt my head to the left to avoid it. He folds his arms behind his neck and closes his eyes, pretending like we’re in a real hot tub.