Cassidy took a shot as well. She wobbled over to the bed and sat back down next to me, putting her head on my shoulder.
“Werewolf suffrage?” I asked.
“I’m tired,” Cassidy mumbled. “I don’t even remember what I was talking about.”
Toby and Peter shook hands, calling the debate to an end, and Austin turned the music back up.
Someone pulled the blankets off one of the beds and turned the balcony into a fort. Couples ducked in and out for snatches of privacy, and I wondered if Cassidy would suggest we go inside, but she didn’t.
Austin broke the baguette in half and dueled Toby, sloppy drunk and laughing, until Phoebe crawled out of the blanket fort and yelled at them.
“Do you have any idea,” she fumed, “how difficult it is to keep a baguette from going stale in a suitcase overnight?”
This set everyone into hysterics.
I was decently buzzed by that point, the room spinning gently as I sat on one of the beds with Cassidy curled against my shoulder like a cat. We were playing Fruit Assassin on Austin’s iPad, trying to sabotage each other with renegade swipes. The music was still on, quieter stuff now.
“Hey,” Cassidy said, putting down the iPad. “Hi.”
“Hi back,” I said. Yep, definitely drunk.
“I think Blair likes you,” Cassidy said, biting her lip to keep from giggling. “I’ve talked with her approximately twice ever, so I am an expert in this and trust me, she is probably even in love with you.”
“Well, of course she is,” I teased. “I’m irresistibly charming.”
“Oh, you are?” Cassidy grinned. Her face was inches from mine. Her braid had come undone, and her hair tumbled over her shoulders, smelling of mint shampoo.
And then Toby bellowed, “Fine! You guys can all be beautiful snowflakes! I’m gonna go over here and be an awkward snowflake!”
Cassidy glanced at me and started to laugh while Toby spluttered indignantly at Sam and Austin, not truly angry. And I felt the almostness of our moment drift away, over the railing of the hotel balcony, and into the shopping center where we’d all pretended to celebrate Cassidy’s birthday dinner. And maybe it was just as well, after all, since I wanted our first kiss to be more than some drunken thing at a debate tournament.
The party ended around two, everyone making a halfhearted attempt to clean up the evidence before the Wentworth team went back to their own hotel rooms to catch a couple hours’ sleep. Cassidy brewed coffee for everyone in the little coffeemaker, and we drank it out of plastic champagne flutes.
“Okay, time to figure this out,” Toby said, swaggering out of the bathroom in a hotel robe, his hair wet and his contacts swapped for glasses. “Who’s bunking with whom?”
Phoebe appeared in the doorway to the other room wearing a towel and flip-flops long enough to announce that she and Luke were sharing a bed in there.
Sam and Austin looked at each other and shrugged.
“I don’t mind if you don’t snore,” Sam said.
“Yeah, same.” Austin shuffled past Toby and disappeared into the bathroom.
“Either of you want a bed to yourself?” Toby asked Cassidy and me.
Cassidy glanced at me, but I knew better than to say anything.
“We’ll just share this one,” she said, patting the duvet. “Captain’s privileges, Ellicott. You get your own bed.”
And that was how I wound up sharing a bed with Cassidy Thorpe.
Before I knew what was happening, Cassidy had changed into a tank top and pajama shorts and crawled under the covers. I came out of the bathroom in my boxers and T-shirt, feeling horribly self-conscious. Austin and Sam were already asleep, scooted toward opposite edges of their bed, both of them snoring.
Cassidy put a finger to her lips and nodded at Austin, whose mouth was wide open.
I grinned.
“Hey,” I whispered, “I didn’t bring pajamas. Do you mind if, er, is it okay?”
I was trying to be a gentleman about climbing into bed with her in my boxers since I’d stupidly underpacked, but Cassidy shook her head and peeled back the covers.
“Just get in,” she said.
I sat down, plugging in my phone on the nightstand, an action that felt incredibly grown up when there was a girl on the other side of the bed. And then I felt Cassidy’s hand on my leg.
“Does it still hurt?” she asked, sliding her fingers over my knee.
“No,” I lied quietly.
Cassidy’s fingers traced over my scars, and I could tell she didn’t believe me.
“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “About kicking me in your sleep or anything.”
“But I wouldn’t want to.” She propped herself on one elbow, staring at me. “You’ll have to hold me tight, to make sure I don’t.”
And with that, she rolled over and turned off the light.
I crawled under the covers, waiting for my eyes to adjust and having the strange idea that Cassidy could see me just fine in complete blackness. The blinds were drawn, and the room was thick with an expectant sort of darkness filled with sleeping bodies and girls wearing tiny blue pajama shorts.
If I stretched, our arms would touch. The possibility of it, of our skin meeting under the covers, thrilled me. I wondered if she was thinking about it too. And then she sighed.
“What?” I whispered.
“Shhh,” Cassidy whispered back, scooting toward me until her head was on my shoulder. “Don’t ruin it.”
Even though it was late and I was tired, I must have lain there for an hour, frustrated and hard and unable to do anything about it as Cassidy slept with her cheek against my shoulder.