None of the Above(20)

Each time I dilated, it got a bit easier. But the morning of the party, I knew it wasn’t enough.

When Vee drove up in her mom’s minivan just after seven, she looked surprisingly chipper for 1) being the designated driver and 2) driving her mom’s minivan instead of her Jetta. But she’d been much less bitchy since her doctor had switched her to a soft cast and told her she didn’t need to use crutches anymore.

“All right, girls—are you ready to paaar-TAY?” she crowed as I got into the backseat.

“You do know that the whole point of being designated driver is that you don’t do any drinking, right?” Faith asked. As SADD secretary, she had been the one who’d organized our car pool. After extensive soul-searching, she had decided junior year that the Bible did not specifically support laws against underage drinking, and that God would forgive her for doing something technically illegal as long as she wasn’t hurting anyone else.

“Of course, Miss Prissy Pants,” Vee said, giving me her patented love-Faith-so-much-but-OMG-can-she-be-a-buzzkill eye roll. “Can’t you see that I’m just high on LIIIIIFE?” She put down her window and whooped into the frigid night air, setting some neighborhood dogs barking.

“Sweet Jesus, girl,” Faith’s boyfriend, Matt, yelled. “Turn the damn heat on. And the stereo.”

“Sorry, Mattie,” Vee purred, flipping him the bird, “I don’t have any Hannah Montana for you to listen to tonight.” But she switched on the radio and found something loud and bassy.

When we picked Sam up, he pulled himself next to me and gave me a deep, hard kiss. Involuntarily, my knees pulled together. I felt a phantom throb between my legs and forced myself to breathe in and out. I willed my thighs to relax.

“Everything all right?” Sam asked when he came up for air, and to put his seat belt on.

“Of course,” I said. I had to get my act together. “It’s just freezing in here.”

“Here, take my coat. I’ve got the perfect thing to warm you right up. . . .”

My hands were ice-cold, but he slipped them underneath his waistband.

“Jesus, Wilmington. At least wait until we get to Sullivan’s house?” Bruce, sitting shotgun, peered back through the rearview mirror at us. “You’ve got dibs on the master suite. We get it.”

I blushed, and used it as an excuse to pull my hands out of Sam’s pants. He turned and leaned forward to grab Bruce in a headlock. “What, lordy-boy? You giving up your territory? We can wrestle for it.”

When we got to Andy Sullivan’s place, everyone else congregated at the keg in a parade of red Solo cups, but I spotted some people doing tequila shots at a back table.

“Hey, Krissy, you want?” asked Craig Martinez, holding out his arm.

I didn’t want. I needed. I took a lick of salt with lime in hand and tossed down two shots.

“Thanks,” I said, my eyes watering. Craig grinned, and in the light it looked like a leer.

I went back over to the keg. About halfway through my second cup, I was finally ready to face Sam. He was down in the rec room playing pool with a bunch of his teammates, and I brought him a couple of vodka shots, thinking that if he were drunk off his ass he’d be less likely to realize that something was wrong with me. I watched him for a while with Faith, until Vee came down and told us people were starting to go into the hot tub.

She made a face when I brought out Aunt Carla’s suit. “Oh. My. God. Why did you bring that thing?”

“I couldn’t find the bikini you gave me,” I lied.

“Whatev. Good thing Sam’s probably so horny he’d screw a horse.”

My laugh sounded tinny even to myself.

Vee and Faith shrieked as they stepped out onto the freezing deck. When they dropped their towels and slid into the hot tub I tried not to stare, tried not to be that creep in the locker room who checked out the other girls.

I chugged the rest of my beer and let out a breath. It hung like a cloud in the frigid air as I let my towel slip to the floor and plunged into the hot tub.

Once I was in the tub I wondered what I had been worried about. It was so steamy that no one could see anything, and anyway I was safe under the water. Safe and warm and starting to get very drunk. Everything that everyone said was hilarious, the funniest thing I’d ever heard. My brain felt Saran-wrapped. I hardly noticed it when Sam came out onto the deck, didn’t register anything until there was a splash next to me and hands reached around my waist.

“Have I ever told you how sexy you are when you laugh?” Sam nuzzled into my neck.

“You’re just saying that because you’re so horny you’d screw a horse.” I giggled.

“Doesn’t mean you’re not sexy, though.”

He thought I was sexy even in Aunt Carla’s spandex nightmare. My drunken heart melted. “You’re the best boyfriend ever,” I slurred, dangling my arms around his shoulders. I kissed him, and our wet bodies rubbed against each other and everything was heat and muscle and lust.

“Dudes!” someone shouted. We ignored him, our tongues tasting of lime and beer. The voice got louder and I felt someone’s hands on my shoulder, shaking us apart.

“Yo, Wilmington. Lattimer,” Andy Sullivan yelled into our ears. “What did I say in my email? No cum in the tub. This is a five-bedroom house.”