“Shit, sorry,” a drunk girl stutters.
“It’s fine, really,” I respond. Her black hair is so shiny that it literally makes me squint. How is that even possible? I must be more intoxicated than I thought.
“Come sit down before you get trampled over,” Steph teases, and I laugh before taking a seat on the edge of the couch.
“So did you hear about Jace?” Tristan asks.
“No, what about him?” The mention of his name makes my stomach turn.
“He got arrested, then just got out of jail yesterday,” he explains.
“What? Really? What did he do?” I ask.
“He killed someone,” the redhead answers.
“Oh my God!” I gasp, and everyone begins to laugh. My voice is much louder now that I’m on the verge of being intoxicated.
“He’s just fucking with you; he got pulled over and had some pot on him.” Tristan laughs.
“You are such a dick, Ed,” Steph says, and swats the guy’s arm, but I can’t help but laugh at how quickly I believed him.
“You should have seen your face.” Tristan laughs again.
Another thirty minutes go by with no sign of Hardin. I’m getting slightly annoyed by his absence, but the more I drink, the less I care. Some of that is due to the fact that Molly is within eyeshot, and I can see she’s found herself a blond plaything for the night. His hand keeps snaking up her thighs, and they’re both so drunk they look sloppy and ridiculous. Still, better him than Hardin.
“Who’s up now? Kyle has obviously had enough,” a guy with glasses says, gesturing to his drunken friend who is lying in the fetal position on the carpet.
I look over at the table lined with cups and put two and two together.
“I’ll play!” Tristan shouts, gently pushing Steph off his lap.
“Me, too!” she chimes in.
“You know you aren’t very good,” Tristan teases her.
“I am, too. You’re actually just mad that I’m better at it than you. But I’m on your team now, so there’s no need to be intimidated.” She bats her lashes playfully, and he shakes his head.
“Tess, you should play!” she yells over the music.
“Um . . . no, I’m okay.” I have no idea what they’re playing, but I know I would be terrible at it.
“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun.” She brings her hands into a praying motion to beg.
“What is it?”
“Beer pong, duh.” She shrugs dramatically before bursting into drunken laughter. “You’ve never played, huh?” she adds.
“No, I don’t like beer.”
“We can use the cherry-vodka-sour mix instead. They literally have gallons made. I’ll grab one from the fridge.” She turns to Tristan. “Line up the cups, boy.”
I want to protest, but at the same time I want to have fun tonight. I want to be carefree and let loose. Beer pong may not be so bad. It can’t possibly be worse than sitting on that couch alone waiting for Hardin to come back from wherever the hell he is.
Tristan begins to put the cups back into a triangular formation that reminds me of bowling pins. “Are you going to play?” he asks.
“I guess. I don’t know how, though,” I tell him.
“Who wants to be her partner?” Tristan asks.
I feel foolish when no one speaks up. Great. I knew this was—
“Zed?” Tristan says, interrupting my thoughts.
“Er . . . I don’t know . . .” Zed responds, not looking at me. He’s been avoiding me the entire time that I’ve been here.
“Just one round, man.”
Zed’s caramel eyes flicker to me quickly before moving back to Tristan and giving in. “Okay, yeah, one game.” He comes and stands next to me, and we both stay there silently as Steph fills the cups with the alcohol.
“These cups have been used all night?” I ask her, trying to hide my disgust at multiple mouths drinking from them.
“It’s fine.” She laughs. “The alcohol kills the germs!”
I notice Zed smile out of the corner of my eye, but when I look at him, he looks away. Yup, this is going to be a long game.
Chapter fifty-seven
TESSA
Just toss it across the table into any of those cups, and they have to drink the cup that the ball lands into. Whichever team knocks out all the other’s cups wins,” Tristan explains.
“Wins what?” I ask.
“Uh, nothing. You just don’t get drunk as fast because you don’t have to drink as many cups.”
I’m about to point out that a drinking game where the winner gets less to drink seems counter to the party mentality, when Steph shouts, “I’ll go first!” She playfully rubs the small white ball against Tristan’s shirt before blowing on it and tossing it across the table. It bounces off the lip of the front cup before rolling into the cup behind it.
“You want to drink first?” Zed asks.
“Sure.” I shrug and lift the cup.
When Tristan tosses the next ball across the table, he misses. It falls to the floor, and Zed picks it up, dipping it into the lone glass of water on our side. So that’s what that is for. It’s hardly sanitary, but this is a college party . . . what do I really expect?
“Yeah, I’m the one who sucks,” Steph taunts Tristan, who only smiles at her.
“You go first,” Zed instructs.
My first attempt at playing beer—well, cherry-vodka-sour—pong seems to be going well, given that I make my first four shots in a row. My jaw hurts from smiling and giggling at my opponents, and my blood is singing from the liquor and the fact that I love to be successful at things, even college drinking games.