Page 27 of Give In

I was having so much fun talking with him, the one last beer turned into three. Adding in the few shots I’d knocked back between them, I was feeling no pain.

Unfortunately, the alcohol had only accentuated my exhaustion.

When my frequent yawns had basically turned into one continuous one, Brooks’ lips tipped up. “Ready to go?”

I nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s all good.” He gave me a soft, melty kiss. “I’m just glad you took the night off.”

“Me, too.”

We headed toward the front door, but a commotion grabbed our attention.

Holden stormed down the stairs, his face thunderous.

“Dude, wait,” someone called from above.

Not looking anywhere but the door, Holden grunted, “I’m going out for the night.”

There was some pounding on the steps, and I looked up to see Nixon jogging down, a sheet wrapped around his waist. The whole dramatic picture became clearer when two girls followed—one wrapped in a blanket and the other unabashedly naked. Both were more focused on pulling Nixon back upstairs than on the audience they had.

“Looks like Holden found Nixon,” Brooks muttered, shaking his head as we walked outside. “Frankie, breathalyzer.”

The other guy used the breathalyzer himself before turning it so we could see the reading. “All good.”

“I’m coming with you to drive Eden home.” Brooks opened the door for me as he rattled off my address.

“What was that about?” I whispered when Brooks slid in next to me.

“At every party, a rotating handful of pledges have to DD. A few years ago, one of them was sneaking drinks the whole time. He crashed a few blocks away.”

“That’s awful. Was everyone okay?”

“Luckily, he was going slow and only hit a tree, but it could’ve been worse. After that, we instituted the breathalyzer rule. Any pledge on DD duty caught drinking is booted. It doesn’t matter if it’s half a beer or ten of them. If you can’t take one for your brothers, you have no place with us.”

“That’s really smart.”

He tried to appear outraged. “Don’t sound so shocked.”

“You know what they say about the cute ones being all looks with no brains,” I teased, smiling up at him.

Brooks glanced toward the front seat. “Frankie, no one likes a perv. Remember that.”

My laughter was cut short when Brooks unbuckled himself and then me. Pulling me to him, his lips crashed down on mine.

His hands spanned my ribs as he shifted me to straddle him. The kiss lost control as I ground against him.

It seemed like only a couple minutes had passed when Frankie spoke. “Not looking, not looking. But we’re at Eden’s.”

“Damn,” Brooks groaned, holding my hips to him for a second as he kissed me again. “Let’s go.”

“Thanks for the ride, Frankie.” I smiled and waved.

“Uh, yeah…” Frankie mumbled back.

“Don’t smile at the kid, Eden. He’ll be dazed for a week now.”

Following Brooks out of the backseat, I gave him my drunken version of a serious expression. “If you don’t want me to smile, don’t say sweet things.”