No Resolve (Alex Gaskarth)

No Amount of Resolve Will Ever Fix This

During New Years' Eve, Eve and Alex are forced to sleep in her parents' basement due to some unforseen events.

Which leads to Alex getting aroused.

And Eve feeling humiliated.

Mine and Alex's first New Years as newlyweds was one to remember.

No thanks to my parents, God bless their hearts.

It had all started when my father, eager to have his family—immediate and extended—under his roof for the new year, had decided to open his liquor cabinet.

In not having followed the adage, "Don't mix your drinks", but rather served light cocktails during the appetizers, red wine to accompany the stuffed turkey, limoncello during dessert, and last but not least, champagne during the countdown, he had accidentally inebriated his guests.

Perhaps inebriated wasastretch, as it wasn't intentional by any means, but, in truth, no one was fit to drive back home or to their temporary lodgings.

In particular, my older sister who had a five-year-old under her care, Mr. and Mrs. Gaskarth who were taking residence at a nearby Airbnb, the length of their trip to visit their son, and myself and my husband, as I wasn't comfortable with driving at night.

And so, it was decided at 1:22 AM on New Year's Day that my childhood house would be the site of a last-minute sleepover.

An on-the-spot and idealistic decision, and so, not fully thought out, one major clause hadn't been factored it.

The number of beds available.

Or, rather, the lack thereof.

With the Gaskarths taking up residence in my brother's Queen, my parents in the master en suite, my brother on the living room La-Z-Boy and my sister and niece in the bedroom we shared as children, Alex and I were, similarly, given a unique form of privacy.

Otherwise known as the pullout couch (that I was pretty sure was a hand-me-down from a distant relative) in the basement.

A beige well-loved fabric sofa that, despite the memory foam inserted on top of the mattress, was nothing more than a glorified double air cushion, for we weren't sleeping on the floor.

Oh, how close I was from bargaining with my sister for the bubble gum pink walls and preteen paraphernalia of my childhood bedroom if that meant not having to sleep here.

That is, a basement covered from floor to ceiling in a sand carpet that looked grainy in permanence; furnished with a handcrafted wooden console holding a relic of a television; soundtracked by the mechanical sounds emitted from the canteen and boiler room, and illuminated by the blue light of my brother's work computer that he never bothered to shut off.

Spending the early morning down there was, to put it lightly, not how I intended to start the year.

But alas, as was most often the case, my niece and her comfort superseded my wants.

I had been given, however, some form of familiarity, in the form of the lace-lined blush sheet set I'd used as a late teenager, along with the grey fleece blanket that had seemed to be the cure-all when you or either one of my family members was sick.

Even Alex seemed to be relishing in the nostalgia they brought, judging by the way he pressed his back flush to my chest, encircled his arms around my waist, tangled my legs with his own and lightly rubbed his scruff against the nape of my nape.