Riley glanced back at me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m walking.”
“When did you get so tall?” he asked me.
I lifted my food to show him my high-heel wedges, only I lost my balance. I would have gone down if he hadn’t grabbed me and held me upright. “Oops.”
But in the movement, I had accidentally kicked a guy standing by the garbage can filled with barf booze, the miscellaneous alcohol punch that anyone could pour in to, only the brave and stupid would drink out of. Before I could apologize, he shot me an angry look and said, “Watch it, you drunk cunt.”
“Ah!” I was stunned at his venomous dig. Normally I would have a quick comeback, but I was too drunk to be quick-witted.
But before I could do anything, Riley had dropped my hand and stepped in front of me. “Excuse me?” he asked the guy.
“You heard me,” Douche Bag said, his hair flopping in his eyes, lip in a sneer as he eyed me. “She’s a cunt.”
Then Douche Bag’s face was in the barf booze and it was Riley’s hand and arm shoving it there.
Robin screamed, and Aaron dragged me backward out of the way as there was gurgling and splashing and scuffling. Tyler was wedging himself between Riley and the guy, and he was saying urgently, “Come on, man, bad idea.”
Riley pulled the guy’s head back up and yanked him by the hair hard, tossing him to the side. Douche stumbled and sat down on the ground, swearing. “Asshole!”
“You don’t call my girlfriend a cunt,” Riley said. “You’re lucky I didn’t knock your fucking teeth out.”
“Trailer trash. She’s just slumming for a thrill, you know.”
For a second, I thought Riley was going to kick the guy in the chin with his boot, but he took a few deep breaths and clenched and unclenched his fists.
More sober, I realized that a fight was the last thing Riley needed right now. I reached out and touched him. “Hey, let’s go, sweetie. This asshole isn’t worth it.” I inserted myself between them and urged Riley backward.
I’m not sure I would have turned my back to the guy on the ground if I hadn’t been making friends with vodka all night, but fortunately, he didn’t do anything in retaliation. There was some grumbling and exclamations, but for the most part, everyone else seemed to want to stay out of it, so we cut across the yard. I snagged Robin by the arm on our way by and she resisted, tugging herself out of my reach.
“I’m staying. I’ll get a ride with Nathan.”
“Okay. Text me when you’re home safe.”
“K.” She blew me a kiss.
I had to walk fast to catch up to Riley, who was eating up the sidewalk with long strides. “Hey.” I tried to take his hand but he shook me off.
Tyler just shook his head at me, indicating I should leave Riley alone. My ankle turned in my dumbass shoes, and it was Tyler who grabbed me this time, not Riley.
Since I wasn’t exactly sober, and I definitely didn’t appreciate the silent treatment, I stopped walking. “I’m going back to the party.”
Riley came to a dead stop. He turned and glared at me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Well, you’re ignoring me.”
“I’m pissed off! I’m trying to calm down so I don’t go and beat that guy’s face in.”
“I didn’t mean to kick him,” I said. It just seemed like the right thing to say.
Riley’s frown softened. “I know. Which is why he was so far out of line.”
Tyler pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I think Riley is a little old for the Shit Shack, Jess. He doesn’t have the patience for drunk idiots.”
“Like me?”
Finally the tension in Riley’s shoulders eased up. “No. You’re the only drunk idiot I can tolerate. Everyone else there can go to hell.”
“I’m sorry.” I felt sad, and I wasn’t really sure why.
He sighed. “Do you really want to go back? Were you having fun?”
Was I? Not particularly. I just had a good buzz and didn’t want to waste it. But I’d rather be with Riley. I shook my head. “No.”
“If you don’t want to go home yet I’ll take you to the townie bar and we can play the jukebox.”
I wasn’t sure if that sounded fun or not. I wasn’t sure I even knew what a townie bar was. Standing there, not even moving, both ankles gave out from my drunken wobbling, and I fell off my shoes.
Riley laughed. “Alright, come here. Hold my shoulders.” He squatted down and grabbed my ankle.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m taking these stupid shoes off your feet before you break your ankle.”
I held onto his shoulders, digging my fingers into the fabric of his shirt to stabilize myself as he undid the straps on my shoes. “I’m fine.” On the spectrum of fine I was probably right in the middle, and that was good enough for me. “The ground is icky. I don’t want to be barefoot.”
“Tough.”
Then my shoes were in his hand and I was on stable ground. Or as stable as the ground is when you’ve basically had a vodka IV in all day.
“Where is your phone?” Riley asked me. “Did you bring a purse?”
“Oh, poop!” I felt my pockets and my boobs. “I had a wristlet. I think I set it on a toilet.”
“Do you remember which toilet? There were about twenty laying around that yard.”
I burped and tried to pretend I didn’t. “The pink one.”
“Alright, come on.” Shoes in one hand, Riley used the other to pull me back toward the yard.
Tyler followed a step behind and I turned and made a goofy face at him for no apparent reason. He laughed and shook his head.
As we moved through the crowd I noticed a girl from my design class was letting a guy do a shot from between her breasts. “Hooter tooter!” his friends were chanting.
She was giggling and bending over as his head tipped back so that tequila and her tits fell into his face. So maybe I could see why this wasn’t Riley’s kind of party.
Riley didn’t say anything though. He just wove us through the crowd from toilet to toilet. I wanted to offer advice on where the toilet had been, but I couldn’t quite remember. I was actually doubting that I had even left my purse on a toilet. I might have set it down when I had refilled my drink. Or when I had been dancing. But after a few minutes Riley pointed. “Is that it?”
My little red bag was on a pink toilet lid. Yay, me. “Yes!”
He leaned over and snagged it from between two girls. The one glared at him, but he ignored her. I held my hand out to take the purse but he just kept it tucked in his palm along with my shoes dangling from his fingers. I was starting to think he didn’t trust me to have my shit together tonight.
I was starting to think he might be right.
Because I actually walked into a neighborhood bar with Riley barefoot with no concern whatsoever to what might be sticking to the bottoms of my feet.
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey, what’s up?” the bartender said to Riley when we walked in.
Riley waved and pulled out a stool for me. I eyed the bartender, expecting him to card me, but he looked more interested in checking his phone than preventing underage drinking.
So this was a townie bar. It was dark, with a full display of liquor bottles behind the bar, the chairs cracked vinyl. It was nothing like the dance clubs we always went to, but more like what you see in movies, where hairy loggers are grabbing a beer before the zombie apocalypse.
Spinning on my bar stool to get a view of the room, I lost my balance and almost wiped out. I wasn’t sure why I was having so much trouble staying upright.
Riley laughed. “Settle down over there. I’m going to get a beer. I hesitate to ask this, but do you want something?”