The Cliche Gone Wrong

Chapter Fifty-six

I walk into the party floating on a fucking cloud, ignoring the blaring music and crowds of people bumping into me as I walk down the main hallway to the open concept downstairs living room of Connor's house. I mean, I'm showing up a couple hours later than I said I would, but it's better late than never, right?

And besides, no one probably even notices I'm not even there. At this point, everyone will be so far gone they won't even remember me being there in the first place. All I gotta do is find Connor and Alan to say hi so I can go home and get some sleep before I go shoe shopping with Kenedi tomorrow.

I find Connor sitting on a couch with some random chick in his lap and his arm draped around another's shoulders.

"You're late!" Connor screams when he spots me, his hand drifting along the girl's leg before he pushes her off of his lap.

He sloppily gets up from the couch and stumbles over to me, making it clear that the only reason he realizes I'm late is because he's already drunk. I catch him as he trips into me, his arm draping around my shoulders as I hold him up.

"Look who's finally here everyone!" Connor bellows loudly, the sound leaving a ringing in my ear as he struggles to be heard over the immense noise in the room.

I roll my eyes at his theatrics, taking a moment to look around the room and see what's going on. Everything is the same as it always is. A bunch of people I barely know (but probably should know better after spending almost every weekend with most of them since Freshman year) sipping from plastic cups while listening to music so loud you have to scream to be heard.

How did I put up with this for all of these years?

A plastic cup is shoved into my hand by some guy on the basketball team walking by with a rough pat on the back. I flinch from the spill that drips down my jacket sleeve, looking at Connor as he tries to get a hold of himself and his cup.

"Lissen Jud," he slurs into my ear, leaning so close his lips practically brush my earlobe. "Thess gurls are ready man. Thur ssoooo ready fur us all we haf to do iss get em ustairs. Or the Jacuzzi yeah we can do dat first but you gotta help me finish this."

I wrap my arm around his waist to stop him from lurching forward back to the couch, where the girls are flirtily eying the both of us. I look at them carefully, but neither of them has a drink in her hand or looks drunk in the slightest; so I just think Connor is seriously misreading the situation with his vodka goggles.

"Listen bud, it's almost 1am. I think it's about time to start getting you upstairs to bed."

"Ya ya yur right," he nods enthusiastically. "Less skip da Jacuzz and go straight to ma lovin room!"

"I don't think there's gonna be any 'lovin' going on in your room tonight." I laugh as I put down my cup to get a better grip on Connor's slouching body.

He looks up at me from his stooped over position, his brown skin almost blushing from the sudden rush of blood going straight to his freckled face. "Whatchu mean?"

"I just mean..." I'm not really inclined to answer, sensing how Connor is at that tipping point where he isn't completely in control of himself. "I mean, from where I'm standing those girls don't look ready for your lovin room. You have a lot of work to do to get to that point. So why don't you go sit down and talk to them for a couple more hours?"

"Yeah yeah." He nods along, like he totally sees where I'm going with this. "Yeah and you can hep me seal da deal! I'll even let you pick which chick you wan!"

I laugh at that, shaking my head as I start to lead him back to the couch. "Connor, you know I have a girlfriend. I don't want either of them and I'm not sticking around long enough to be your wing man."

"What're you talkin bout?" Connor asks as he goes along with me reluctantly. "You jus got here."

"It's been a long day, so I was just stopping by to say hi," I shrug.

".........Nah yur jus playin." Connor laughs as he starts letting me drag him back to the couch again. "Dis da firs time we chilled in weeks bruh. But at least yur comin to New York right?"

Oh shit I totally forgot to ask Kenedi about that! Eh, well it's not like I don't already know what her answer will probably be.

"Yeah I'm not going to New York either." I grimace as I struggle to think of a way to make it up to him. "Maybe we can hang out after practice sometime this week?"

"Man fuck you!" Connor explodes, pushing me away so forcefully that I fly into the wall four feet away.

Connor barely catches himself from falling to the floor by propping himself up on the back of the couch. I take a second to catch my breath and hold in my urge to jump up and punch Connor in the fucking face for putting his hands on me.

"Ever since you started dating dat bitch things've been fucked up!" The slur is nearly gone from Connor's voice as he glares at me.

"You better watch what the fuck you say about Kenedi!" I growl, my teeth grinding together.

He scoffs loudly, nearly losing his balance from the move. "What're you gonna do if I don't, huh?"

I ball up my fists at that sentence, feeling myself standing right at the edge of a cliff. And if Connor doesn't watch what he says next I'm not going to stop myself from punching him in the fucking face. Before Connor can say anything else I spot Alan lazily meander into the room.

"Alan!" I shout, my eyes flickering to him quickly before I look back at Connor. "Wanna step in before something happens?"

"I thought you didn't need me looking out for you anymore because you could take care of yourself." Alan looks from my balled-up fists to Connor's furious face before he turns to walk out of the room with a lazy wave aimed at me. "You wanted to be a big boy so bad, take care of your own shit!"

I look away, hating that he threw my own words from a month ago back in my face. Why are they making things so fucking difficult? Kenedi doesn't get upset that I leave her to chill with the guys. Why are they so pissed that I want to spend time with my own fucking girlfriend? I should have just went home like I fucking wanted to.

"Why the fuck did you even bother to come?" Connor's words are clear despite the booming music and shouted conversations.

"I was just asking myself that same thing." I don't bother to say goodbye to anyone as I turn around and make my way down the hallway toward the front door.

A/N I swear I haven't forgotten about y'all! But I just started my new job this week and I've been struggling to do the training and pick up shifts and get enough sleep to pretend to be a human being and everything so I've been a little busy!

But what do you think about this chapter? Were you expecting SHIlls' friends to have this type of reaction? Do you think this was just the alcohol talking, or did they finally get the liquid courage to say what's been on their minds the whole time? Did Shills have this coming to him, since he was blowing off his friends for a relationship? What do you think Shills is going to do in response? Is Killer gonna get involved?

Let me know what you think! Comment below!

Until next time!

Much Love,

Naomi