“Yes, I’m a girl, but I’m just boring old Natalie, and you’re Aiden.”
“I don’t think...that your connotation of your name and my connotio—connotation—” he worked through his slur with a smile “—are the same.”
The words made my heart pound, and I could come up with nothing to say.
“Huh.” I became very aware of the hand he still had on my knee. It hadn’t seemed weird before. I was facing him with my legs pulled up. But he tightened his fingers a little, and warmth surged through my whole body. Our smiles faded, and we didn’t unlock our eyes.
Suddenly I shook my head. Oh, my God, what was I thinking? What was I doing? This was why people shouldn’t drink. It affected judgment. That was why I was feeling this way. I would never sit this close to Aiden usually.
“Have you ever been in a hot tub when it’s cold out?” he asked.
I started. “I’ve barely been in a hot tub at all. One time at a Holiday Inn when I was in Florida. And it was hot out and overall a ghastly experience.”
“No way. And you’re the Northerner. Well, get ready.”
“We can’t—”
“It’s happening, Shepherds, no fighting it.” He stood and held out a hand to me.
“Oh—”
“Nope! The decision has been made.”
Temptation and curiosity got the better of me. Okay, temptation, curiosity, Aiden and several drinks got the better of me.
He led me to the sliding glass door and opened it for me. There were other people around at least.
“Give me, like, two seconds and I’ll meet you out there,” I said.
I should have known, as I went upstairs to see where Brooke was, that what I was doing was wrong. I should have recognized that, by checking on Brooke, I was checking out whether or not I would get caught. And I should have understood that the thrill I felt when I found her passed out on the couch next to Alexa was not the thrill a best friend should feel.
I remember looking at her and starting to feel guilty and stupid for the moment of flirtation downstairs. That didn’t mean that my heart wasn’t still pounding or that my skin didn’t feel like it was on fire from the excitement.
I saw Eric in the kitchen, where he was refilling a drink. Shirt off. All by himself.
I hadn’t really noticed before, but damn. He really had the body of a Grecian god.
As luck would have it, that was when my mind went fuzzy. I remembered him saying something, laughing, and then it all goes black.
CHAPTER FOUR
I WOKE UP the next morning with an awful throbbing headache, a sense that I was in a dream and a couple of seriously questionable flashbacks. I lay in the dark room for about five minutes, my hands clasped over my eyes and forehead, trying to make the spinning and thudding stop. When I finally sat up, I almost threw up, then almost screamed. On the opposite side of the bed, luckily as far as possible from me, was Aiden.
My heart plunged and I became hot and cold all at once. The only light was the gray glow from the other side of the blinds in the tiny basement window. I got out of bed and realized I was wearing a sweatshirt I knew to be Aiden’s, my pair of hot-pink cheeky underwear and nothing else. Socks, though, weirdly. I guess even when completely hammered, I don’t like to sleep with icy toes.
I pulled on my jeans. I winced as I pulled them up all the way.
Whoa.
I was sore, in the region that Brooke had started demurely referring to as “Brazil” after reading Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes when she was fourteen. I had only felt this particular Brazilian soreness once in my life.
Last time I had gone to a party.
Last time I had done shots.
Last time I had had sex.
Holy. Cow.
I looked at the bed, where Aiden was sleeping on his stomach, shirtless.
No. There was absolutely no possible way. Right? No way. No, no, no.
How could I not remember? I had never blacked out before. Even the night with Reed, I had known what I was doing. It was stupid, but I had known. Was blacking out really that literal? Did you really completely forget things that happened? Even enormous, life-changing, multiple-friendship-ruining events?
Could alcohol really change your personality so much? I would never do that to Brooke.
I tore off the sweatshirt, turned my bare back to Aiden and pulled a tank top from my bag. I left the room quietly and went upstairs to the kitchen. Everyone was still asleep. But Brooke wasn’t on the couch with Alexa anymore. Shit.
What if she had come downstairs, seen us in the same room together, or worse, seen something more NC-17 and left? I hadn’t checked my phone to see if there was some kind of furious “our friendship is over” text.
I went to the fridge and got some water, and then riffled through the cabinets until I found headache medicine. I then sat on a stool at the counter and tried to piece together the night before.
Brooke and Aiden and had gotten into a fight. The girls were all being stupidly supportive of her. I’d gone downstairs. Played a drinking game. Then...I remembered Aiden and me on the couch. He’d asked me if I had been in a hot tub in the snow. I’d run into Eric in the kitchen.
There was a gap then, and I remembered being in my bra and underwear—really, me?—freezing cold in the snow, and then getting into the tub. Aiden was there, Eric was there and a couple other people I didn’t really know that well, including Reed, which had annoyed me. But then...unless I’m going crazy...I recall him actually being pretty fun. I remembered laughing a lot. Playing Never Have I Ever—a game that makes me basically Glinda the Good Witch. Reed had dared Bethany and her friend Megan to make out, and they had. Hah! Eventually, I remembered, Reed had left, and it had been down to Bethany, Megan, Eric, Aiden and me.
Then the other girls had left, and it was just Eric, Aiden and me. What had we talked about? I remembered feeling flattered by something someone said. I remembered cracking up loudly at something else.
I had an infuriatingly vague memory of talking to Eric alone outside as I pulled a towel closer to my trembling, wet body. He had kissed me.
How Aiden and I had ended up in a room together, I had no recollection.
“Good God, I feel like utter hell.”
Brooke came out of the hallway and into the kitchen in sweatpants and only a bra.
“Brooke! Whose pants are those?”
“Morning, sunshine. I don’t know. I fell asleep over there—” she pointed to the couch “—and at some point relocated. I think these pants might be Alexa’s little brother’s.” She chuckled and massaged her temples.
She clearly had not gone downstairs and seen anything she could misinterpret.
“Nice,” I said.
“I totally blacked out after Aiden’s and my fight.”
Thank. God.
“Uh, so did I.”
“No way!” she trilled, and then covered her mouth to stifle her volume. “So proud of you, Nattie.”
“It’s not like it’s super positive, though....”
She shrugged. “I mean, whatever. It happens.” She suddenly looked devious. “Sooo, I went downstairs after waking up from a little catnap, after you all were in the tub and I saw you outside....”