He looked at me over the hood of the car and I nodded. “You’re totally right.” I wasn’t going to argue with him. For heaven’s sake, I’d been ditched. Scarlett was shit-faced. Things had gone to hell in a handbasket.
“And don’t think I don’t know you’ve been drinking. Get your drunk ass in the car before I find that fucker who ditched you and fucking kill him.”
I opened the passenger door pronto and slid into the seat and buckled up right away. Oliver was livid and the truth was, he hardly ever got mad at me. I wasn’t scared of him in that moment. No, I just hated how mad and disappointed he was in me.
“I’m sorry, Winnie,” I said softly as he cranked up the car. He turned around and placed his hand on the passenger headrest to back out of the driveway. I’d never noticed before how hot guys looked when they backed out of a parking space or driveway, but I did now. I watched his bicep flex right next to my head and wondered what it would taste like.
But then I remembered this was Winnie we were talking about and I turned back to look out the front windshield and tried to clear my half-drunk head.
When we got out and onto a main road, he finally spoke to me. It was probably only five minutes later, but it felt like an eternity. I didn’t like Oliver being mad at me at all.
“Don’t be sorry, Hazel. Just don’t ever do that again. Don’t go somewhere and not know where you are. Don’t get so wasted that you pass out!” He said the last part loudly. “Do you hear me, Lettie?”
“Aye aye, Captain,” came Scarlett’s drunk words, as she rolled over and pressed her face to the back seat.
“It’s fucking dangerous. Y’all have to be smarter than this. I can’t spend my nights worried about you guys every time y’all go out without me.”
God, he was really good at making me feel like shit.
“You’re right. Rob is a douche and we should have brought you with us. Will you forgive me now?” I wasn’t being sarcastic. Tonight had been a complete shit show.
Oliver stared ahead out the windshield, granite jaw ticking. I wilted down into the passenger seat, feeling like a complete asshole. I was wishing that Scarlett were awake enough to feel like an asshole with me when I heard her gag.
“Oh, God. I think I’m going to throw up,” she muttered.
“I swear to fucking God, Lettie! If you throw up in the back of my car I’m going to lose my shit.”
She gagged again. Clearly, she didn’t care about Oliver losing his shit. I did, though.
I whipped off my seat belt and started stripping off the black hoodie I was wearing.
“What are you doing?” Oliver looked over at me briefly, eyeing me in my tank top before his eyes grazed over my arms. I knew what he was looking for. It had been years since he’d seen them. Since that night in his bedroom when I’d hidden in the bathroom all night.
I started to climb over the console and into the back seat. “I’m going to take care of my girl and save your car.” I only drunkenly wobbled one time before I reached Scarlett. Go me. I lifted her up and sat down before laying the hoodie over my lap and laying her head on top of it. “If you need to throw up, throw up on my hoodie. Okay, babe?” I said to Scarlett.
I have to admit that I didn’t actually think she was going to throw up on me and my hoodie. But I was dead wrong. Because the next turn Oliver took was the one onto their road, but the movement caused Scarlett to jerk and the next thing I knew she was violently throwing up right into my lap. I held her hair back off her face and tried not to gag, suddenly completely sober.
“Jesus,” Oliver grumbled from the front seat, but I didn’t know why the hell he was grumbling. I was the one with throw-up in my lap.
Oliver slammed on the brakes and quickly got out of the car. He opened the other side of the back seat, just in time for Scarlett to be done puking.
I looked at the front of the Knoxes’ house before looking at Oliver. “What about your parents?”
“We’ll have to be quiet. Give me her.” Oliver leaned into the car and held his arms out.
I could barely move without wanting to throw up. The smell. It was so bad. And it was all over my favorite hoodie in my lap. My stomach was churning as I pushed a passed out again Scarlett over to Ollie and he pulled her out of the car, cradling her like a baby.
I rolled my soiled hoodie up and got out of the car, following behind Ollie.
“Trash the hoodie in the dumpster, Hazel.”
I walked around the side of the house and said a little goodbye to my favorite sweatshirt, then ran back around the front. Oliver let us in the front door and I walked quietly behind him, tiptoeing, my damn heart pounding a mile a minute, terrified Mrs. Knox would find us out. She was a sweet woman until you broke her rules. Then all bets were off and a shit ton of her rules were broken right now.
Ollie took Scarlett and me to his room and then straight to his bathroom. He set Scarlett in the bottom of his tub. “You have to help her get cleaned up. There’s no way in hell I’m taking a shower with my sister.” His top lip curled.
“Fine, I need to get cleaned up anyway.” I grabbed the hem of my tank top that I was sure had a little puke on it. Oliver was just standing there looking at me. “Get out, Winnie!” I yelled in a whisper.
He did that from time to time. His staring thing. I knew what it meant, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself, much less acknowledge it with him.
He snapped out of it quickly and closed the bathroom door behind him. After stripping Scarlett down as best as I could, I finally turned the water on down by her feet and stripped myself down to my underwear and bra and got in the tub with her. I turned the shower on and went to it.
I almost felt bad for myself, but then I remembered I was the asshole who had left her alone for an hour. And I should have known better. Scarlett wasn’t a party girl and often felt awkward in social situations. She was probably trying to drink her anxiety away while I was outside hitting on some douchebag.
Halfway through the shower, Scarlett started coming around and helping me, thank God. When we were mostly clean, I hopped out and got us towels from underneath Ollie’s sink.
Scarlett wrapped one around her and snuck out of Ollie’s bathroom to her bedroom while I toweled off.
A soft knock at the door startled me. “Yeah?”
“I have some clothes for you.” The door cracked open and a hand holding what looked to be boys’ athletic shorts and a T-shirt slipped in.
I grabbed them, thankful I wouldn’t have to walk by Oliver in nothing but a towel. I slipped my wet bra and panties off and put on his shorts, rolling them a couple of times at the waist to make them fit. I pulled the T-shirt over my head and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath of what smelled like Oliver first thing in the morning. It was one of my favorite smells, but I’d never tell anyone that.
“Can I use your brush?” I called through the door.
“Yep,” he answered back.
After brushing my hair, I walked out into the room to find Oliver in a pair of flannel pj bottoms and nothing else spread across his bed watching TV.
I walked over and climbed onto the side of the bed and nudged his side with my knees. “Scoot over.”
I hadn’t been in Ollie’s bed since that night that felt like ages ago, but still he moved over and I sat next to him, my upper shoulders and back pressed to the headboard.