Page 19 of Say Something
“Jaws?” I called out.
Mom shook her head, and kept drawing. There was now a person in the water beside the boat.
“Titanic?” One of the guys shouted. I looked at Mr. T’s drawing. It was similar to Mom’s.
Mom erased the boat and re-drew it under the water line. So it was a sunken ship, but it wasn’tTitanic.What other movies had a shipwreck?Mom drew something that looked like a tornado...butTwisterdidn’t make sense. OrWizard of Oz. Could it be a storm? A storm that capsized the boat? Oh!
“The Perfect Storm!”
Mr. T groaned as Mom jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
“Girls rule, boys drool,” Melissa said to the other team, sticking out her tongue. Mom, Mrs. T, and I followed suit, sticking out tongues out at the guys.
When we were finished celebrating, we lined up and shook hands with the other team. It was kind of silly, but it was our parents’ way of making sure we all left game night on good terms. No grudges.
Danny and I were last in line, and when it was our turn, my breath caught as he leaned forward to whisper in my ear. “You did good, Jessie.” I shivered as his warm breath moved the loose tendrils of hair around my ear. Danny pulled back and grinned at me. He had the cutest smile. It was always a little crooked on the right side, like he was up to something.
And maybe he was.
He’d asked me out three days later.
“Does Michael have a cat?” I groaned, wishing I was back inside my dream of one of our fun family game nights, rather than lying in a strange bed with a horrible hangover.
“What? No. Why?” Melissa groaned back.
“Because I think his cat threw up in my mouth.”
“He doesn’t have a cat.”
“Was it you?”
“You’re so disgusting!” Melissa whined, hitting me in the head with her pillow. “No one threw up in your mouth, except maybe you.”
“Not so loud,” I whisper-hissed. My head was throbbing. My skull ached where the soft pillow had hit it, and I actually felt my pulse in my brain.Throb. Throb. Throb.I refused to open my eyes, instead keeping them clenched shut, so I had no idea what time it was.
“Maybe next time you won’t drink all the shots in the bar,” she said. Her smug tone irritated the crap out of me. If I remembered correctly, she was right by my side, feeding me those shots after…after I saw Danny and completely broke down. Like a fool.
“Why are you here, anyway?” I asked, bitterness coating the words. If she wasn’t going to join my pity party, she could leave.
“You begged me to stay last night. You begged Bryan to stay, too. It was kind of adorable how excited you were over the prospect of a sibling slumber party.”
A small smile graced my lips. I didn’t remember that part of the evening. “And you stayed.”
“We all did. Well, Bry might be gone by now, but he was making his bed on the couch when Mike and I finally wrangled you in here.”
I rolled over towards my sister, not letting my nausea from the movement deter me. When I bumped into her side, I blindly wrapped my arm around her. “Thanks for being here.”
“Thanks for letting me be here,” she said, patting my arm. “But damn, your breath really does smell like vomit. Can you go brush your teeth?”
I opened my eyes and glared at her, then blew out a quick breath right in her face and rolled quickly in the other direction. As suspected, I got hit in the back with another pillow as I sat up. At least it wasn’t my head this time. I was lightheaded when I stood up—still a little drunk, apparently—and I’m not talking about that little hangover buzz you sometimes have after a night of drinking, I’m talkingdrunk. How much alcohol did I consume last night?
I balanced on the furniture and the walls to get myself to the bathroom, where I promptly relieved myself, washed my hands and my face, and brushed my teeth. I was thankful someone had the foresight to bring my toiletry bag into the bathroom. Maybe it was me. No, that was doubtful since it would have required some sense and I didn’t seem to have any of that left.
On the way back to the bedroom, the smell of coffee resulted in me taking a sharp right turn down the hall towards the kitchen. Coffee had the potential to cure just about anything. Slowly making my way down the hall—hands on the wall still to keep from falling—I found Bryan sitting at Michael’s small kitchen table with the morning paper.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” he greeted, looking up at me with a smile. A smile that quickly turned into a frown. “You look rough. I knew I should have stopped you before the tequila.”
“Tequila?” That explained it. I did not do tequila well.
