Things were mostly back to normal between Taylor and I after I made myself calm down, except for the fact that he was still spending a lot of time with Brooklynn. I didn’t care so much as long as he stopped ignoring me. Hunter and I hadn’t spoken in days, and I was hesitant to initiate because I didn’t know what to say to him. I had the feeling that my excuse for pulling away from what was supposed to be comforting wasn’t something he would want to hear about any more.
In fact, I was starting to have the distinct feeling that Hunter was wanting more than what we had, despite what he said, and that scared me. I hadn’t had a good guy be interested in me, well, ever. Good guys had never really been my type, but that was how I got myself into messes like I was currently in. I looked forward to all of my time with Taylor, thankful that if he was going to spend time with Brooklynn that it was as friends and nothing more.
Taylor, Jackson, Chris and I were hanging out in his room the next Friday night prepartying a bit before heading to Jake’s place when the door opened abruptly and Brooklynn strolled in alone with cleavage up to her neck and a skirt so short I feared that any sudden movement would give us quite a show.
“Hello!” she said, taking a seat in the only empty chair.
“Hey,” we all responded, Taylor slightly more enthusiastically than the rest of us. I just buried my face behind my cup and tried to restrain myself from making any comments regarding the realness of her chest or any sorts of demonic creatures or STDs. I had been trying a little harder to make nice with Brooklynn, but we basically just continued to pretend that the other didn’t exist.
“Do you want something to drink?” Taylor asked her.
“No, I think I’m going to take it easy tonight. I have to baby sit for Dr. Johnson’s kids tomorrow morning,” she replied. I choked on my drink, wondering who in their right mind would let someone who looked and acted like Brooklynn be responsible for their children’s lives. “Is everything okay over there?”
“Oh, I’m just great, thanks for asking,” I said, matching her fake sweet sounding tone. She suppressed an eye roll and turned her attention back to Taylor.
“Where’s Hunter? I thought I told him to be here by now,” Taylor said, glancing at his watch. My eyes opened wide and I again hid myself behind my cup. Since we hadn’t spoken in days, I wasn’t really ready to see him in a situation like that, especially since Taylor assumed we were still hooking up regularly. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that it wasn’t true, and that the problems stemmed from my feelings for him. “Have you seen him today, Cams?”
“Nope, sure haven’t,” I stated.
“Who’s Hunter? Is he that freshman who showed up really drunk here a few weeks ago? He was annoying, why would you invite him?” Brooklynn asked as she adjusted her skirt.
Pure seething anger was the only word to describe the emotion that coursed through my body at her words. Who in the hell did she think she was? Jackson, sensing my mood, lightly touched my arm, bringing me back down to reality.
“He’s actually not so bad, you just met him at a bad time. He’s my brother Zac’s best friend and a good friend of Cams’,” Taylor explained and I wanted to kiss him on the spot for not blowing my cover to Brooklynn. She cast a sidelong glance at me.
“Oh, well that explains it.”
“What is your problem?” I exclaimed, unable to control myself any longer, “I haven’t said one mean thing to you and you still insist on being a bitch to me. You don’t even know me, Brooklynn!” She just smiled a little and shifted her body weight, effectively turning herself away from me.
“I only make observations, Cameron, and it seems that you and Hunter are just perfect for each other.”
“Why, because we’re both annoying?” She just shrugged and continued to smile.
“Brooklynn, stop it,” Taylor said sternly under his breath.
She sighed and leaned back into the lumpy chair while I sat there plotting her death in a number of highly gruesome ways. The silence in the room was thick and laced with a variety of different emotions. Brooklynn was clearly feeling a sense of undeserved victory, Taylor looked torn, I had never wanted to hit someone so badly in my entire life, and Jackson and Chris looked more enthused to get drunk than ever. It was then that Hunter entered the room, obviously immediately sensing the tension in the room.
“Hey everyone, should we go?” he asked, not even willing to leave the doorway to enter the apparent battle zone. I stood before everyone else and made my way into the hallway. “Hey Cammy.” I just breezed past him and started to make my way down the hall. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him, but I knew that I needed to take a minute to cool down before I said anything to anyone. Hunter watched me walk down the hall but waited for everyone else to leave the room.
“Did you just call her Cammy?” I heard Taylor ask Hunter.
“Yeah, why?” he answered, sounding slightly taken aback at the question.
“No reason. Let’s get going.” I suddenly wasn’t in the mood to go to the party any more.
Now Taylor knew why I had asked him not to call me that, and the thought of being around Brooklynn for five more seconds make my skin crawl. Instead of going down the next flight of stairs, I just stopped on my floor and started to unlock my door, wishing that our room wasn’t right next to the stairs.
“Cammy, what are you doing?” Hunter asked as I struggled with the key.
“I’m not going,” I replied.
“Cams, come on. Don’t do this,” Taylor said, joining Hunter at my door frame.
“I don’t feel like it, so just back off,” I spat, at which one of them I wasn’t sure. Taylor rubbed his hand over his eyes.
“Please don’t do this, it’s not going to help anything.”
“No, what isn’t going to help anything is if I rip her throat out, which is pretty much all I want to do right now,” I whispered so Brooklynn, Jackson, and Chris wouldn’t hear, “And don’t tell me that you’re okay with the way she talks to me. I am trying to be civil with her and she just won’t have any of it.”
“Of course I’m not okay with it.”
“Then why do you keep hanging out with her? She’s not a nice person.” Brooklynn looked thoroughly annoyed that we were having a conversation in hushed tones that she couldn’t hear.
“Can we not talk about this right this second? We’ll talk about it tomorrow when we haven’t been drinking, okay?” he asked, “Now can we please just go to the party?” I opened my mouth to protest but Hunter butted in.
“We’ll meet you there in a bit, okay? Cammy will cool down and then we’ll come in awhile,” he said. Taylor gave in with a weak nod and headed for the rest of the group. I didn’t even look at Hunter, I just walked inside and heard him follow me. The room was dark and empty. Hunter turned on the overhead lights and followed me over to my desk. “What happened up there?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said honestly. He grabbed me by the shoulders and made me face him.
“Don’t care. Talk,” he stated, pushing me down into my desk chair. I found myself leaning back in my chair and fussing with my hair instead of answering him which resulted in him giving my foot a light kick, “I’m waiting.”
“It’s just stupid Brooklynn. Taylor mentioned that you should have been there by then, and Brooklynn started making fun of you and me saying that she could see why we were friends because we were both annoying. God I hate her,” I said, covering my face in my hands. He pulled them off and leaned down so he was level with my face.
“You’re cute when you’re mad. Did you know that?” he asked, eliciting a scoff from me at his lame but successful attempt to cheer me up.
“I’m always cute.”
“No argument here. Shall we go to the party now?” he asked, offering me his arm goofily. I took it and let him escort me to the party, now relatively calmed down.
We arrived at the party only about twenty minutes behind the others and immediately settled in at the bar, accepting the shots that Chris had bought us before ordering more.
“Are you sure you really want to get this drunk when you’re already pissy?” Hunter asked with a smile, pushing some money towards Jake across the bar.
“Oh, I’m very sure. Tonight, I’m going to be the wasted one and you’re going to take care of me,” I said, halfway joking. I felt an arm snake around my waist and turned to see Taylor standing next to me.
“Are you better now?” he asked in my ear, his hot breath there causing my eyes to flutter shut and my body to lean into his.
“I’m great and getting even greater,” I murmured as I felt his long fingers sneak a touch at the exposed skin at my hip.
“Let’s go talk,” he said, pulling me away from the bar.
“I thought we were talking tomorrow,” I said, feeling the effects of the multiple shots I had done trickle through my limbs.
“I want to talk now,” he stated, leading me out of the room and towards the stairs.
I could feel Hunter’s eyes on me the entire time and didn’t dare look back for fear of seeing his face, which I knew would not be bearing a look of happiness or approval. I knew that leaving him there was shitty, but Taylor wanted me upstairs and whatever that meant, I knew I wanted to be there. We sat down in the hallway where I had made a royal ass out of myself a few weeks prior and both leaned against the wall nursing our drinks.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked, feeling the heat from his body all along my side as we sat there.
“You look great tonight,” he said, staring rather obviously down the front of my shirt.
“So do you,” I replied, taking him in. He leaned over and kissed me gently. I would have responded, but was so shocked at the action that I found myself unable to do so. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I was just curious.” My heart was thudding harshly against my ribcage, and I ached to hear the words I hoped were coming.
“Curious about what?”
“What it would feel like to kiss you, I guess. We’ve been friends for so long, I guess I just wondered what it would be like.” And with that he just stopped with no inclination as to what he had thought. I looked over at him and found his alcohol-laden eyelids sagging slightly as he stared straight ahead. “I’m sorry that you and Brooklynn don’t get along.”
It took me several moments to recover and respond. “Yeah, me too,” was all I could manage.
“I know that you don’t understand why I’ve been spending time with her because she treats you so badly. But I just… well, I guess she just lets me see a side of her that she doesn’t show to anyone else. When we’re alone, we talk for hours and really open up to each other. I wish she would show that great person to everyone, but she won’t,” he said and I tuned out eventually as a million thoughts started clouding my head.
It was then that I realized that I couldn’t be mad at Taylor for caring about Brooklynn when his reason for doing so was the same as my reason for caring about him. I almost felt sorry for him in the same way that I frequently felt sorry for myself. He was constantly having to defend his relationship with her in the same way that I had to constantly defend my relationship with him to my roommates and Hunter. I knew that I still didn’t like her, but knowing that information at least resolved some of my anger towards Taylor for violating our friendship.
“I don’t want to lose you, Cams, but I’m not giving Brooklynn up either.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll try, Taylor, but I won’t let her walk all over me. That’s not fair.” He shook his head and pulled me over for a tight hug.
“You’re a good friend, better than I deserve,” he said into my shoulder, and I could tell that the liquor was starting to hit him hard as he held onto the hug for longer than was necessary. I just ran my hand over his hair and breathed him in.
Hugging him felt warm and perfect, like this was how we were always supposed to be. When he finally pulled back, he left a kiss on my cheek before forcing himself into a standing position. His hands grabbed mine and he pulled me up before we headed downstairs and went back to the bar where Hunter was now talking to Jackson about something that warranted the conversation being halted as soon as Taylor and I approached. I refused to meet his eyes, knowing that they would be looking at me questioningly.
“Where did you two run off to?” Jackson asked.
“We were just upstairs talking,” Taylor said before flagging down Jake, “Shots for me and Cams! Tequila or something.” As soon as we had downed the shots and finished them off with limes, Brooklynn came over and dragged Taylor away and out the front door without so much as a hello.
“Everything okay?” Jackson asked, giving my shoulder a squeeze. I shrugged him off and ordered another drink, knowing that I really didn’t need to be having one.
“I’m fine,” I lied, still reeling from the brief contact Taylor and I’s lips had made just a few minutes earlier.
“Are you sure you were up there talking?” Hunter asked softly into my ear.
“Yeah, he told me all about how he likes Brooklynn because she lets him see a side of her that she doesn’t show to other people,” I said back, knowing that he would understand why that was such important information.
He once again reached comfortingly for my hand, but withdrew almost as if he had been burned. Jackson turned to talk to some of his other friends, leaving me with the open opportunity to pay all of my attention to Hunter. I slid my arms around his waist and rested my head on his shoulder, pulling him as close to me as I could.
“What’s this for?” he asked as he put his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice almost inaudible over the crowd, “I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you hold my hand. I just…”
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. That was a boyfriend thing to do, not a, well, you know.” I groaned and buried my face in the crook of his neck.
“God Hunter, this is getting out of hand. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to do just what we have been doing all along and nothing else,” he said. I knew he only half meant it, but that was enough for me. With that, I stepped back from him and accepted my now finished drink from Jake.
A few drinks later, I was drunker than I had been in a very long time and my hazy eyes were constantly searching the crowd to see if Taylor had returned. Jackson and Chris were entertaining Hunter and I with a ridiculous story when Taylor made his way back to us sans Brooklynn.
“Taylor!” I screamed, unaware of the volume of my voice until Hunter placed his hand over my mouth to silence me. I batted his hand away. “Oh stop it, Dad”
“If you do with your Dad what you did with Hunter, then you’ve got one fucked up family,” Chris laughed.
“That’s fucking gross, man,” Hunter said, trying not to laugh himself. I just ignored the perverseness and tried not to stare at Taylor’s mouth.
“Should I order another round?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah, more shots!” I yelled, thrusting both hands into the air and doing a little dance.
“I think you’re done,” Hunter laughed.
“You’re such a party pooper. The night is young!”
“The night is over. It’s after three already,” Taylor smiled, “Let’s get you home, Cams.”
“I can take her, I’m ready to head out,” Hunter said, setting his cup on the bar. Taylor shook his head and grabbed for my hand.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m going where she’s going, right? We’ll see you all tomorrow!” he said, not waiting for a response before taking me through the crowd.
“Bye Chris! Bye Jackson! Bye Hunty!” I shouted over the remaining people’s conversations.
Taylor made sure that I was safe in my room before heading up to his own. I changed into my pajamas before managing to climb my way into bed and collapsing hard onto the mattress. It took me hours to fall asleep that night thinking of Taylor’s lips pressing ever so briefly against mine and how badly I wanted a chance for a repeat.