Page 13 of Stay With Me

Noah grabs my hand, drags me to the dance floor, and we let loose with our friends. Travis catches up to us and hands us our drinks. He then secures a tabletop and chugs a beer while watching me.

“Lemme try your piña colada,” Noah shouts over the music after I’ve sucked down half of it. “I haven’t tried one before.”

“Yeah, can I taste yours?”

We swap, and I moan at the sweet strawberry puree flavor. Instead of switching back, we keep drinking each other’s. Oh well, I’ll get another one later.

After dancing for five or seven songs and a pound of sweat across my forehead, we stumble our way back to Travis. Ourdrinks are nearly empty, but I want to do shots before getting another fruity one.

“We need to do some blow job shots! And Sex on the Beach!” I shout. “Oh, and I need a piña colada since Noah stole mine.”

Travis’s eyes lower to our glasses and his jaw clenches. “Noah drank yours?”

“Yeah, she wanted to try it, and then we forgot to switch back.” I shrug because who cares? We share our things all the time.

“Fuck,” he mutters, threading his fingers through his slicked-back blond hair. “Um, okay. Just stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Travis goes to the bar and then my gaze finds Tripp with some redhead hanging on his arm.

“Maybe I shoulda dyed my hair, and he woulda liked me,” I mumble toward Noah.

“Huh? What’re you—” Then she realizes who I’m looking at. “Oh, shush your mouth. Tripp has his own issues. It has nothin’ to do with your hair color.”

“You sure?” I blink a couple of times when my vision gets fuzzy. “He’s lookin’ at her like he’s ready to devour a medium-rare sirloin steak smothered in mushrooms.”

Noah snorts, hanging closely as we study her brother. “Of course you’d know his favorite meal, you psycho stalker. But if it’s any consolation, I’d say he’s lookin’ at her like she’s a bowl of cold pea soup.”

I furrow my brows at the visual. “What’s that mean?”

“He hates soup. And pea soup is the worst of ’em all.”

We’re in a fit of giggles by the time Travis returns with a tray of shots. Noah grabs one, then holds it up high. I wave our friends over and tell them to grab a shot, but I take one of each for myself.

“To the motherfuckin’ birthday girl and my best friend!” Noah shouts, and everyone hollers in return. By how much she’s yelling tonight, she’ll have no voice tomorrow.

We down them quick and easy before slamming the glasses on the table. Then I hold up my second one. “Who wants a BJ?”

Travis shoots me a disapproving scowl, so I ignore him. If he doesn’t want to have fun with me, then I’ll find someone else who will.

The commotion of our little party gets Tripp’s and Landen’s attention, and they walk over.

“Tripp, you wanna BJ?” I ask mostly to toy with him but also to see if he’ll actually do it.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” His gaze shifts from mine to Travis, who’s no doubt giving him a murderous glare.

“Kneel in front of me and do what I say,” I order.

Once Tripp begrudgingly does what I ask, I stand in front of him. “Now open your mouth.”

He raises a brow, but I nod confidently. Once he does it, I tilt back my head and pour the shot in but don’t swallow. Holding it in my cheeks, I lean over Tripp, then spit the liquid into his mouth. Before he can swallow it down, I smash my lips to his.

His eyes widen as his throat moves.

“Yeah, go birthday girl!” one of my friends cheers, but I’m too stuck on the fact that my lips are touching Tripp’s to holler back.

After all this goddamn time, and it’s happening like this.

In front of my boyfriend. Oops.