“Zeke!”
I raised a middle finger in the air and yelled over my shoulder, “Take care of my shit.”
“What are you doing?”
I raised my middle finger higher.
By the time I got to her, he was gone with the cart.
Ava had no idea I was there. Her head was down except when she’d tip it back for a drink, and she was moving in a way—I saw the headphones. She was dancing, listening to whatever as I saw her pull her phone out of her pocket and skip to the next song.
It was a lively one because she began jumping around, her head going the opposite direction. Her arms were doing…something.
I wouldn’t call this dancing. It was more like flailing around with a baseline of rhythm.
I watched her for two complete songs before her eyes opened. Seeing me, she startled, gasping, and a screech came out of her at the same time.
I smiled and held up a hand. I mouthed, “Hi.”
“What?! I can’t hear you!”
I nodded, pointing to her headphones.
Understanding dawned, and she started laughing, pulling off the headphones. “Hi. Sorry. I forgot I had them on.” Her music was blaring out of them. She didn’t move to stop or pause the song. She was frowning at me, half-squinting. “Zeke? What are you doing here?”
I cocked my head to the side. The glaze was minimal. She wasn’t slurring. She was speaking like she was sober, and without the electrocuted dancing, she now looked sober too.
I was somewhat impressed.
“Right.” I motioned around us. “We’re on a golf course, where I do the normal douchey thing and golf a few times a week, and your question is as if I’m the one out of place.”
At my words, she jerked her head around, sweeping in the entirety of the Fallen Crest golf course. Her eyes were almost bulging when she focused back on me. She spoke in a shocked whisper. “What am I doing here?”
I was nodding, but I edged closer and reached out, taking away the vodka from her hand. She didn’t notice. Then I almost started laughing. She’d barely drunk any. Maybe two shots’ worth. “Are you drunk or not? I’m having a hard time telling.”
“I think I’m drunk.”
“You barely touched this.”
Her gaze snapped to the bottle as I raised it, and she looked confused. Her eyebrows came together before she held her hands up, both of them, and gasped. “I didn’t even feel you take that.”
She was drunk.
She raised her gaze back to me, her hands still up in the air. “I parked at Manny’s, grabbed a bottle, and just started walking. I wasn’t paying attention. Dancing, drinking.” Her voice dropped low again. “I’ve never drunk before.”
Whoa.
My head went back an inch. “Never?”
Her eyes still wide, she shook her head at the same time. “Never. I accidentally went to a party once because my boyfriend was the local Uber. He went to pick someone up and I had to go to the bathroom. He thought I went in to stay and join the party.”
I… I had no words. I was quite aware that most of my life, if there was a night I didn’t party, that was the oddity.
“Oh my God. You’re looking at me like I’m a freak.” Her face flooded with color, and she closed her eyes. She was still holding her hands up.
“Okay.” I didn’t know what was going on here, but I moved in, took both her hands, and lowered them for her. She opened her eyes, and there was no reaction that she knew I did that. “Have you eaten today?”
She shook her head.
“You want to eat?”
“Um.” She started chewing on her bottom lip, her eyebrows still pulled together. Then she stopped. Her face cleared. She blinked. “No. I need to keep drinking.” She grabbed my beer and took a long draw. I was waiting for the sputtering, thinking she didn’t realize she reached for the wrong bottle, but nothing came. She kept drinking.
I got fixated on how her throat was working, chugging that down.
She was taking long and slow pulls, and she kept going.
It clicked she just chugged a third of my beer and I had a thirty-two ouncer with me today before I grabbed it back. “Stop.”
She reached for it, stepping with my arm.
I moved, turning and using my body to check her. “No.”
“But—”
I raised the beer so she could see it clearly. “That wasn’t yours.”
Her mouth opened. She was going to argue, but she stopped. A gasping sound came next before she slumped, her forehead falling to my arm. It was raised right in front of her. She moaned. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I’m a mess.”
If two shots of vodka already had her wasted, that beer was going to finish her off.
I glanced back to the country club, but she’d be a mess there. I didn’t think Ava would want people seeing her like this.
Taking her arm, I began to walk to the parking lot.
“Wha—where are we going?”
“You need some food.”
She started to put on the brakes.
Nope. I wasn’t having this.
And I wasn’t questioning myself why I was doing any of this as I let her go, put both caps on the alcohol, and stuffed them into my pockets. I had large pockets. Then I turned, bent down, and picked her up. She was slung over my shoulders.
“Wha— Zeke! Put me down!”
I kept going. “You need food, Ava, or you are going to regret that beer. Trust me.”
Being slung over my shoulder probably wasn’t the best idea, but I didn’t want to waste time fighting with her.
She tried to raise herself up, so maybe she was thinking the same thing. “How do you know?”
“Huh?”
“How do you know I need food?”
Right. She never drank before.
“Of the two of us, I’m thinking we should go with my knowledge of drinking.”
“Oh.” She got quiet. “That’s a good idea.”
Food it was.
6
AVA
This was what being drunk felt like. Huh.
I was sitting in Zeke’s kitchen, in a chair, by the table, in the corner, in his kitchen—I already said that— and whoa. Wowee. I moved my head upside down, or as much as I could, and the kitchen looked amazing this way too. We should all look at the world this way.
Wait.
I twisted around, laying my head down with my feet up, and oh yeah. This was so much better.
We could walk on the ceilings. The shelves could be benches. It made so much sense now.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Huh?” I swung my head around and WHOA! Zeke was like a god. Standing. Defying gravity. Staring down at me.
This was amazing.
I was having a spiritual event.
“You’re going to get sick if you don’t sit upright.”
I started to tell him that would defeat the whole point, but I felt a rush of nausea coming on and he was a god. He totally knew what was going to happen before it happened.
Then I let go and fell. I crumpled to the floor, and oomph. That hurt.
Hands touched under my arm, and I was being lifted. I moved, not thinking, just reacting, and when I blinked, I was clinging to Zeke like a monkey. Legs around his waist. Arms around his shoulders and he was holding me in place with a hand under my ass.