Page 13 of Try Me

I lifted my head one inch closer to his face.

“Sure that’s a good idea?” The words were quiet and provocative, and they ghosted over my lips like I’d imagined his mouth would, like I wanted it to.

Chet let go of my wrist and clamped down on my throat, thumb tucking under my chin and nudging my head back and away.

“Not sure of much right now,” I admitted.

The tension around his eyes slackened with something like regret. “Fuck, you’re totally gone.”

“What?” I mean, I definitely was—my stomach had started a telltale roil, and my peripheral vision was swaying. I opened my mouth to say something about the concern I thought I saw behind Chet’s frown, when his features vanished altogether in a flash of white light.

“Stop where you are!”

Reflexively shielding my eyes, it took a second for the terse voice to jigsaw itself into some kind of sense.

“Shit,” Chet muttered. “Go.”

His weight vanished from on top of me, and I struggled to get upright because my legs had gone noodly. I stumbled, hit a knee, and then an arm hooked under my shoulder and suddenly I was on my feet. “Move, moron.”

I lurched forward as Chet shoved me, and took off running in a graceless sprint, but at least my legs were functioning again.

Lungs and muscles burning, we tore across campus and didn’t stop until we were in front of my place.

“Fucking campus police,” Chet hissed and then collapsed to the ground beside me, gasping for air.

My stomach chose that moment to revolt, and I baptized the bushes beside the front door with my last beer. I would’ve been embarrassed except the relief was so immediate. And besides, it wasn’t like Chet hadn’t seen anything like that before. Shit, a stomach bug had once hit him right in the middle of a Call of Duty game. He’d hurled violently all over one of my mom’s fancy rugs, and she’d been all understanding about it before spending three hours attacking the stains with chemicals and a scrubber. I’d heard her mutters and curses in my room next door.

Dropping heavily onto the front stoop, I folded my forearms over my knees and rested my head on top, struggling to slow my breathing. “Fuck,” I groaned.

“Is someone else here?” Chet spoke a minute or two later, and I lifted my gaze, surprised he was still here. He’d rolled up to sitting position. Unlike earlier, his expression was unreadable to me now.

“Jesse’s car is in the driveway.” Why the fuck was he asking? His gaze darted toward the bushes, then back to me.Oh. Guess he thought I might puke in my sleep or something. “I’m touched that you care, but I’m fine.”

His eyes lingered on my face. I wasn’t sure what else he was looking for. I swiped a hand over my mouth. Maybe he wasn’t looking for anything. Maybe I just had puke on my face. For the first time all night, it occurred to me how fucking deeply I was going to regret every minute of the last three hours when I woke up in the morning.

Chet rolled to a stand. “All right.” He shrugged, then turned around and trotted off into the darkness back toward campus, just like that. It was so abrupt I wondered if I was having some drunken hallucination. Except I still felt his grip on me, the weight of his body, the brief moment he’d closed his hand around mine when I’d stumbled again while running.

Ten minutes later, I stood and dusted myself off, straightened my shirt. I needed to sleep this shitshow off and start all over again tomorrow. Banish Chet from my mind. Erase him altogether, like I’d always meant to, and move the hell on.

Inside, the kitchen light over the sink was on, faintly illuminating the living room where my roommate Jesse was passed out on the couch, one leg hanging off the cushions, a shoe in the middle of the carpet. The other shoe was still on his foot, and as I passed by on the way to my room, I stopped to unlace it and tug it off. I collected the other shoe and set both near his feet, then pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and spread it over his tightly folded arms.

In my room, I undressed automatically, a headache gathering force at my temples like an oncoming storm front. After taking a piss, I crawled beneath the covers and reached to dig through my shorts pockets for my phone and wallet to toss on the bedside table.

Except my phone wasn’t there.

5

Chet

Iwoke up to pounding. Pounding in my head, pounding on my door. I rolled onto my back and opened my eyes, groaning out a cease and desist.

Adam flung open the door, catching it just before it banged into the wall. “Damn, dude, I’ve been knocking for, like, five minutes. Texted you, too.”

“Late night.” The doors and walls in student housing were so thin you could usually hear a gnat blink, so I must’ve been seriously out.

“Obviously. Anyway, will you call maintenance and ask them to come fix the wall sockets in the kitchen? They’re dead again. Had to make the coffee in the living room.” Adam gestured dramatically to emphasize the hardship this had caused him.

“Woe,” I grunted, and he flipped me the bird.