Page 43 of Mostly My Boss
Sleeping alone was for losers.
8
Harvard
Julia
I was drunk. For the first time in my life. And it wasn’t so bad. I could still stand, could still manage the beer in my hand, could still deal with the crush of people in the bar for St. Patrick’s Day. My fake ID worked, as Ethan had said it would, so I didn’t turn it down when Ethan pushed a beer into my hand.
So this was what it was like? I didn’t really feel stressed out about anything. Not the fact that I was drunk, certainly. And I was pressed up against Ethan and I thought that felt nice, too. When we were like this, I realized how much taller than me he was. And when I could feel his torso and his chest pressed against my side, I realized how hard he was all over.
Not skinny, but lean and tight and he smelled good.
And he was mine.
Notminemine. But close enough. Because it really didn’t matter how many girls he was with: he always came back to me. I was his lodestone.
“You’re looking at me funny,” he bent to say in my ear. It was the only way we could talk in the crush of people.
“I am not. I just…I’m your stone and I know that, that’s all.”
He beamed. “You’re drunk! Excellent. I’ve done my job and phase two is complete.”
“It feels really weird. But not too bad.” I finished my beer and he ordered us two more. “Like I’m not exactly in control of my thoughts and they’re just springing up all over the place now that they’re free.”
I watched as he took long sip from his plastic cup. No glass on St. Patrick’s Day for this bar. Given the amount of beer currently spilled on the floor, I would say that was a sound decision.
But watching him drink, something didn’t sit right in my brain. “Should you be drinking?”
“Shut up, Mom.”
I slapped his arm, but not hard.
“Seriously, are you drunk?” I asked him.
“Yes, because it’s St. Patrick’s Day. It’s, like, a law or something.”
Well, if it was the law, I suppose I couldn’t be too upset. His mother wouldn’t be happy, but she wasn’t here. His father would definitely not be happy.
But I got the impression his father was not happy with anything Ethan did. At least, that’s how Ethan saw it.
There was something else that was off about this night. Different than how things usually were between us.
“You’re not hooking up with any girls,” I pointed out. He was always hooking up or trying to hook up with girls. That was his thing. Blondes, brunettes, short, tall, skinny, full-figured. He did not have a type.
Not me, though. Never me. Uh-uh. Nope. Not once.
But we’d established that we weren’t talking about that.
I guess ever.
“I came here with you,” he said into my ear and it made me shiver. “So you could have your first drunken bar experience. I’m not leaving you.”
He wasn’t going to leave me. That was nice.
“What if I want to hook up with a guy?”
“I’ll kick his ass.”
