I swallowed, finally ripping my eyes away and stacking cups for a new game. “Mm-hmm.”
“He looks hot.”
“Everyone does, it’s a hundred degrees in here.”
Jenna smirked, nudging my elbow before letting her eyes find Jamie again. “Man, maybe I should have waited until after graduation to break things off. Would be nice to have one more night with him…”
“I’m going to go figure out what to do with my hair,” I said quickly, giving up on setting up a new game and ducking through the crowd to my room. There were several signs on the door with warnings of those who dared to enter, clearly marking it as a NO PARTY ZONE, which I was even more grateful for when I slipped inside and felt the only air-conditioned relief in the house. I sighed, back against my door, and took a few much-needed breaths through my nose before opening my eyes again.
I fanned my neck, crossing to my small vanity mirror and taking a pulse check of my appearance. My makeup was somehow holding up, eyes dark and dramatic like Jenna had shown me how to do, but my hair was frizzy and unruly, so I twisted it into a tight bun on top of my head and secured it with a few bobby pins before reapplying lipstick. The deep, dark red almost made my freckles pop more under my gray eyes, but I embraced them.
Turning in the mirror, I eyed the wet spots on my tank top, debating changing, but knowing that would earn me a few raised eyebrows from my classmates. I’d just called attention to what I was wearing and it would be weird to walk out in something new now.
Once I had regained my composure, I slipped back out to the stifling heat of the party and made my way to the kitchen, a new idea for cooling myself sparking to life. Frozen margaritas. That’s what this party needed. But first, I had to get to my mom’s blender, which was conveniently placed on the very top shelf of our top right cabinet.
I opened the cabinet wide and eyed the edge of the blender peeking out over the shelf, hands on my hips, debating options. I’d just braced my hands on the counter and was about to lift myself up when strong hands found my waist.
“Here,” he said, voice low and husky. “Let me help.”
His hands gripped tighter and he lifted me, my knees finding the counter as I tried to find my breath and a little balance. For a second I just stayed there, staring at the blender within reach now, but not being able to focus on anything other than where his hot skin touched mine. My tank top had risen, his grip on the slick skin of my hips. I forced a breath, grabbed the blender, and made to turn but was stopped by him once more.
He had stepped closer to the counter and every inch of my body brushed his as he lowered me down. First just my hips in his hands, but then my ass rubbed against the front of him, causing him to groan into my neck as my toes finally found solid ground. I turned, his hands still on me, my breath still caught in my throat as I lifted my eyes to his.
“Hi, Jamie.”
He smirked down at me, his eyes too heated, too low. “Hi.”
I cleared my throat as a sign for him to drop his hands from where they seared themselves to my skin, but he didn’t catch the cue. Or he didn’t care. So I slipped out of his grasp and plugged the blender in, reaching into the freezer for ice and searching mom’s cabinets for margarita mix. I found some, blessedly, and snatched what was left of a Jose Cuervo bottle on my way back to the blender.
Jamie stood next to it, casually leaned up against the counter, arms crossed. His hair was longer than I remembered, curling at his ears and laying in a perfect wave across his forehead. He hadn’t changed out of his graduation clothes, but he’d loosened the tie around his neck and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, rolling the sleeves up to cuff just below his elbows. It was clean, crisp, and white, calling attention to the tan he’d clearly been working on since I’d last seen him. I wondered if he had been surfing, work keeping me from doing the same.
“You’re wearing makeup,” he said as I sidled up beside him, dumping ice cubes into the blender and covering them in tequila.
“And you’re wearing dress shoes.”
He looked down, chuckling, before lifting his hazy eyes back to mine. “We should dance.”
“Wh—”
I didn’t have the chance to ask my question because Jamie grabbed my wrist and twirled me before pulling me flush against him, attempting some sort of drunken version of a waltz in my tiny kitchen as high schoolers weaved in and out around us, oblivious to the way he was making my heart race. I giggled, breaking free after another spin and finding my place back at the blender, topping off the tequila with margarita mix and snapping the lid in place.
“You’re drunk, Jamie Shaw.”
“And are you, B Kennedy?”
I clicked the blend option and spoke over the noise of ice breaking. “I’m getting there.” I eyed him, my head tilted to the side as I tried unsuccessfully to figure out what had changed. Jamie seemed more dangerous that night. He stood too close, watched me for too long. It was unnerving, but in an oddly pleasing way. “What have you been drinking, anyway?”
“Whiskey,” he answered easily, and a short laugh escaped my lips.
“Of course. I should have guessed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shrugged, using a spoon to break up a large ice chunk before replacing the top on the blender and turning it on again. “Just makes sense. You’re practically whiskey on legs, anyway. The color of your hair, your eyes, the way you smell — it’s like your spirit drink.”
“I remind you of whiskey?”
“In every sense of the word,” I murmured, maybe too low for him to hear. I thought of how his skin burned mine when he touched me, how just being in his vicinity made my limbs tingle.
I realized then that it was harder pretending like he didn’t affect me when he was no longer tied to my best friend.
“We should do a shot.” Jamie pushed off the counter and grabbed the only bottle of Jack Daniels, filling two of my mom’s shot glasses to the rim before turning back to me. He slid the one branded with the downtown casino’s logo into my hand and lifted the other.
“I’m making a tequila drink,” I pointed out. “Mixing will probably screw me in the long run.”
“Nah, you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know, Jamie…”
“Oh come on,” he challenged, taking a small step toward me. It was tiny, barely even an inch, but suddenly I felt the heat from him surrounding me and I picked at my tank top with my free hand, desperate for a breeze. “Don’t you want a little whiskey on your lips?”
My eyes shot to his, because I knew as well as he did that there was more than one question beneath the one he’d voiced out loud. He cocked a brow, waiting, and though I should have pushed him back, made space, poured up a margarita and walked away from him, I lifted my glass to his instead.
“To bad decisions.”
His grin widened, his eyes never leaving me as I tilted my head back, letting the amber liquid coat my throat. Jamie took his slower than I did, inhaling through his teeth as the burn settled in.
And just like that, I’d taken my first shot. I didn’t tell Jamie it was my first one, I didn’t think I needed to. I wanted to hate it, to detest it, to grimace and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and reach for a chaser. But we set the glasses back on the counter slowly, our fingers brushing, and Jamie’s eyes were on my lips where leftover whiskey remained. My tongue traced the liquid, and he inhaled stiffly, eyes snapping up to mine.