Preath: Head In The Game [Complete]

18: Strip Or Swig - Part Two

I wasn't sure how long Christen was outside, but by the time I got worried, the clock on the microwave was getting almost too blurry to read. Already, I regretted drinking so much. She wasn't even on her phone anymore. She just stood there, not drunkenly, just pensively. I stood up and felt a sticky hand and stabbing backward engagement ring grasp my bad ankle. I didn't wince because of my ankle, but the prongs sure hurt.

"Where ya goin' Harry?" Allie asked.

"Careful, please," I said.

She gasped. "Oh shit, I'm sorry. I can kiss it better if you want."

If the team wasn't already full of lesbians, alcohol turned the rest rainbow... along with their puke. A roomful of lesbians is crazy, but a roomful of straight girls metamorphosing into lesbians for one night is a shitshow. I shook my foot away. "No thanks, Al." I left the shitshow for the balcony.

The air outside instantly made me feel tired, humidity floating around me like a standing bath. Or maybe it would be called a 'still shower.' I loved sleeping with the window open too, especially when I was in a stuffy sleepover with my lunatic teammates. Thanks to the game of Strip or Swig, I was barefoot too, and my feet made tiny rocks come loose when I stepped on them. I wondered if enough walking would cause the balcony floor to wither away into nothingness. I shut the glass door behind me, but Chris didn't turn around.

"Hey," I said. I realized as I spoke that my intention was to announce myself, but she already knew I was there.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just... can't look at you right now."

Suddenly, I was aware of the inner fabric of my sleeves, scraping at my goosebumps. "I... don't understand," I said slowly.

"I mean, I don't want you to see me right now." She leaned harder on the rail. "I look like a mess."

"If this is you as a mess, I'd like to see you when you look 'tidy'," I said.

She sighed. "My mom's having another operation tonight. They're still worried about making more damage, but they have to at least try."

I approached her until her back was against me. I was walking into a fire, but I didn't care. She warmed me externally... and internally. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"I couldn't hear you well enough back there," I said, wrapping my arms around her waist like she once had. "And, you needed a hug." Even through the predominant alcohol smell, I picked up that same scent of flowers that her carry-on and journal had. Her thick hair seemed to hold it captive. I still couldn't figure out what type of flower it was. I decided it would make the most sense if it was a Chrysanthemum.

She leaned away from the railing so my arm could become her rail. She held it tightly as if it was, and exhaled in relaxation or gratification - I couldn't tell which. My skin was burning. Just then, someone shouted, "Whoa!"

"Who was that?" Chris asked, chuckling.

"Who knows," I said. "They reach a point where they all sound the same."

"Should we go in before Allie and Kelley start talking to us through the air conditioner?" she asked.

"Not unless you're cold."

"I'm not," she smiled.

"Good." I buried my head in her neck and she froze. Slowly, I kissed her there. For a second I thought she'd lost her balance, but I was there to keep her up.

She let out a surprised laugh. "Oh Tobin, you're drunk too, aren't you?"

"I'm not drunk," I murmured into her shirt.

"Yeah you are."

"No, I'm not," I said. "I don't need alcohol to recognize a beautiful person."

She turned. "You think I'm beautiful?"

Now that I'd come this far, I knew there was no point in changing the subject or euphemizing it. Besides, I was too drunk for that kind of logic. "Duh," I said.

It was then that I noticed how pink she was, and I wondered why she bothered to put blush on in the first place. I mean, she was brighter than Julie's housecoat. Like the centre of a Chrysanthemum. 

She turned back to the garden of lit-up roofs and balconies in front of us that sort of resembled ours, but not quite. A city should be more of a garden than a city, I decided.

"So what did they do to you in there?" she asked.

"Nothing much. They made me drink but when I didn't react the way they wanted or expected they left me alone."

"Hm." Her eyes seemed to look beyond where they had been looking.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked.

"Just how extraordinarily bright everything is."

"The lights?"

"The sky. It's like the moonlight that would usually be swallowed by the darkness is ricocheting off all the cloudiness."

"Right. The pollution."

"Don't tarnish my poetic revelations."

"Who said pollution couldn't be poetic?" I said. "Here, I'll write you a song right now. Pollution for which we need a solution because fumes cause us confusion so bad that the illusion of the pollution made you think the sky was nice and amusing but really our planet is losing and that is the conclusion."

"Beautiful," she said.

"Really?"

"No, it needs some work."

I pouted at her. "Why are you so mean?"

"Because I can't lie to you."

"Why not?"

"Other than the fact I'm terrible at it?" she laughed, then became serious. "I just can't. You give me that concerned sunken eye with your jaw like... sitting there in expectation, and I just can't do that to you."

"Are you saying that I'm too cute?" I asked.

She chuckled with a hint of sardonicism. "Yeah, sure, why not." 

I pressed my lips behind her ear, then watched for her reaction. She'd closed her eyes. I kissed her down to her shoulder again like a tattoo needle. She took a sharp breath, and with it, my fear dissipated. She didn't ask me what I was doing, and she didn't tell me I was drunk. She just breathed. Breathing until the wind of it pushed her like a pond reed. I couldn't believe how relieved I was when she finally turned and kissed me so strongly that I couldn't tell where she was touching me and where I was just tingling. The movement of the surrounding humidity started up again and left cool strokes all over my skin.

"I want to finish what we started this time," she whispered all at once. "If you'll let me."

"Wait," I managed to get out. "Where do you want to go?"

"Crystal will probably crash here and you can come with me to my room."

I was nodding before she was done talking. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Okay." Then she slid her hand up under the hem of my sweater all the way up to my collarbones and kissed me one more time.

Of the eight eyes which were being decorated with various eyeshadows in the bathroom, discounting Julie's shut pair, not one saw us when we were out on the balcony, coming in from the balcony, or exiting through the front door.

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A/N: Hello! c; Thank you for voting for this story more than 550 times! Thank you for sticking around with me these past four months and reading about dumplings, protocol, face cream, flipper football, crockpots, fry gum, angry little turtle bastards and all that fun stuff! Have to number the chapters now b/c I'm starting to lose track. I'm also writing a fanfiction on The L Word story (about Alice and Dana), so if you ship them please comment b/c I would love to meet more people who like them. Don't forget to vote! (pretty please :p I'm in such a bubbly mood)

~HRW