If I Tell

carpet like a normal irresponsible party person. I felt pleasantly dizzy.
    I giggled, an unnatural noise. Even my stomach loosened, like I’d relaxed a fist inside. More likely, I’d drowned it. Why hadn’t I done this before? Drinking made the party much more interesting. For once I’d become one of the fuzzy, happy ones.
    Usually I hung back and observed the older kids crammed into Marnie’s small house. Stoners hung in the kitchen and drinkers in the living room, while couples hooked up upstairs. When Ashley was there, she’d hang out with me and we’d talk about music or I’d play guitar, but for some reason she wasn’t at this party. Just as well.
    “Hey, good looking.” Nathan slid onto the couch, pressing his leg suggestively up against mine. He always did that to tease me and I always moved away, but this time I left my leg where it was, feeling the warmth. The connection.
    He put his hand on my knee and squeezed. I reached over and squeezed his knee back, giggling.
    “Whoa. You are getting hammered,” he said.
    “Got a problem with that?” I swallowed back a hiccup and grinned.
    He slid an arm over my shoulder. “Not even a little if it makes you this friendly.”
    I leaned against him. Drunk, I relaxed as his fingers massaged my shoulders, working out knots.
    A song blared over the speakers in the living room. I couldn’t name it if I’d tried, but I was feeling it. Lacey jumped up from beside me and grabbed the hand of some guy standing with his buddy near the couch.
    “Dance with me,” she demanded and pouted her lips in her practiced sexy way. She wiggled in front of him, shaking her money-makers.
    The guy’s friend punched him on the shoulder in a congratulatory salute as he pulled Lacey to the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the tiny living room. The two of them immediately started grinding.
    Nathan rubbed my neck to the beat of the song and we watched Lacey.
    “He is so getting lucky tonight.” I leaned against Nathan. “Lacey is such a sure thing.”
    He laughed his agreement.
    I closed one eye to focus on them as they moved to the beat of the song blasting on the stereo. I wondered what it was like. What sex was like.
    “I don’t blame her this time. That boy is seriously hot,” I slurred.
    Nathan stopped massaging my neck and leaned toward my ear. “You’re not interested in guys like that.”
    I studied the guy dancing with Lacey. Tight T-shirt. Low riding jeans. Boots. Long blond hair and stocky build. The polar opposite of Simon, thank God.
    “No. Tonight I think I am.” I hiccuped and giggled, finding myself terribly funny.
    “Nah. Stick with your own kind.” He buried his face in my neck, tickling me with his breath. “Did I mention I’m deep and intellectual?”
    I punched him on his shoulder. “My own kind? I don’t have my own kind.” I poked my finger into his scrawny chest, brave from the liquor surging through my veins. “And anyhow, who said you’re deep and intellectual?”
    “I know I am.” He blew softly in my ear. “You may not be all black, but you’re all beautiful.”
    “Gee, thanks.” I hiccuped again and supported myself against him.
    “You’re black enough for me,” he whispered.
    “Not anyone else. And by the way, who said construction workers are intellectual? That’s not a job qualification. And the only time you’re deep is when you smoke too much dope.” I shook my finger at him and took another swig of beer. “Don’t you know that’s very bad for you?”
    “You don’t need a degree to be smart,” he mumbled.
    “Tell my grandma that.” I lifted my bottle in a salute and imitated her voice. “Jasmine, the most important thing you will need in the world is a college degree.”
    He laughed. “Yeah? Well, a brother knocked up your mom when she was sixteen. That didn’t require a degree.”
    “Seventeen. And she got her degree after I was born. Instead of raising me, she let my grandparents do it.” I raised my bottle in another toast and took a big swig.
    “I guess she kind of sucked at being a mom.”
    I laughed until beer leaked out of my nose, which made me laugh harder while I mopped it up with my sleeve. “You think?”
    “I saw her and Simon the other day. He was rubbing her belly like he’d done something really great.”
    “Ha! A lot of talent it takes to get my mom pregnant. Not like he’s the first.” I turned my attention back to Lacey and her dance partner.
    Nathan touched my hand.