Page 27 of When Stars Collide
“Are you sure?” Luke asked, looking between Peter and me.
“You’ll have your hands full with Elle tonight … probably literally with as many times as she’s stumbled in the last five minutes. I’ll take Mena with me and drop her off in the morning.”
“All right, man. It’s your funeral.”
“I’m going to let that one slide, Hutchins.”
Twenty minutes later, I found myself stumbling across the threshold of Luke and Peter’s apartment.
“There was literally nothing there for you to trip over.” Peter closed the door behind us as I plopped down on one of two oversized beanbag chairs in the center of their small living room and removed Elle’s baseball cap, tossing it across the room.
“When you’re short, everything’s a tripping hazard.”
Peter snickered. “I guess you got me there, only because I have no idea what it’s like to be short.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket, grabbed a pack of cigarettes, and headed outside to the patio, closing the screen door behind him. From inside, I heard the click of his lighter as I focused my efforts on willing the room to stop spinning around me.
“You know those things will give you lung cancer, right?”
“And alcohol consumption leads to liver disease. So, I guess we’re both screwed.”
“Have you always been this delightful?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m the product of my environment. A hardened example of what years of disappointment and being a disappointment in return can yield.”
Peter appeared back inside of the apartment. “Really? Exactly what hardships could you have possibly faced?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
He stared at me as though waiting for me to elaborate, changing his mind before I could do just that. “You’re right. I really don’t know anything about you, and maybe that’s for the better.”
Only the faintest hint of cigarette smoke followed him around the room, dissipating when he sat down in the beanbag chair next to me.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I marveled, gesturing around the practically barren room. “Very minimalistic.”
“It’s called broke … I think that’s the HGTV term you’re looking for. This apartment is furnished by a couple of college guys with pockets as deep as a conversation in a high school locker room.”
His smile when he spoke intensified that earlier feeling inside of my stomach, confirming it hadn’t, in fact, been the alcohol, after all.
God, he’s sex on a stick.
Rein it in there before you do something you can’t take back.
Shut up, Sober Mena.
“Are you feeling all right?” Peter asked.
I realized then that I had been staring at him the entire time logical Mena and sloppy Mena were throwing down in my head.
“I-I’m okay.” I stood up too quickly for a sober person, let alone one who was entirely the opposite, and before I knew what had hit me, I was stumbling forward. The same pair of hands that had so nimbly caught me earlier in the night, reached out to me again, except this time, they weren’t enough to keep me from falling—right on top of him.
We lay there with me on top of him and him on top of the beanbag for several seconds, completely silent, save for the sound of our breath and my heart, which was beating so furiously I feared it may rouse the neighbors.
“I think we’d better get you to bed.” Peter’s arm was still draped around my waist, where it had been since his failed attempt at breaking my fall. “Y-You can sleep in Luke’s bed. It’ll be the most action it’s seen since … well, ever.”
“I don’t want to go to bed yet. At least, not Luke’s bed.”
“Mena.” My name came out of him as something of a hoarse whisper. His grip around my waist tightened.
