Ryan Hunter

went on for a couple more hours but was abruptly over when Veronica Malloy threw up on the floor in the hall. Her friends helped me clean up the mess—or maybe they did all the work because by that time I could hardly keep myself upright. Beer, in combination with Claudia’s wine cooler was a very bad thing. But heck, the strawberries were a tasty addition.
    When everybody had left, I dragged myself upstairs and into my room. The door slammed shut behind me. I didn’t care about being loud, because my mom and dad were still out and I was the only one in this big, dark house. In the silence, my ears still rang from the loud music, and my head felt like a truck had run over it.
    “Hunter?”
    Holy shit, I nearly jumped out of my skin. There was someone in my room. The voice sounded familiar, and if my head didn’t hurt so badly, I probably would have recognized it in the first instant. Now I tried to focus on the girl sitting on my bed in the darkened room. Liza? Memories came back in a blurred vision. Good memories.
    “You’re still here?” I drawled, unable to believe my luck. Unbuttoning my shirt, I kicked my shoes into the corner and flung the shirt on them.
    “Where is here exactly? And why are you undressing?” She sounded very uncomfortable and rubbed her temples.
    “Well, for one, t his is my room. And second, that thing you’re lying on is my bed. Since I don’t usually sleep in clothes, I figured I’d just take them off.” Duh.
    “Is the party over?”
    No, baby, the party begins now. I sneered at the beautiful creature waiting for me just a few feet away. But then I realized she probably meant the previous party, and my shoulders slumped. “Someone puked on the floor. Yeah. Party’s over.” And here I stood, totally regretting that I’d had way too much to drink tonight. I should have stayed sober and enjoyed this moment without a subway tunneling through my brain. “I swear, next time Claudia brings her strawberry soda, I’m going to kick a girl’s butt for the first time in my life. Harmless, my ass.”
    Liza groaned. “What time is it?”
    “Three.”
    “A.m.?”
    No need to get hysterical. “It’s dark outside. Of course it’s a.m.”
    Suddenly, she was out of my bed, on the floor and crawling around. It happened so fast, I could only stay rigid and watch.
    “Where are my shoes?” she croaked, patting the floor.
    What did she need shoes for? I wanted to tell her to get back into that bed and just snuggle up to me like she’d done when I carried her in. But she didn’t look like she wanted that, too, when she got to her feet again. “What are you doing?”
    “Going home!”
    “Oh-woe.” Not going to happen. I had to do something to stop her from leaving. We weren’t done with each other. I wanted more cuddling, goddammit! Think fast. Make her stay. While thinking itself was hard enough, coming up with something quickly was next to impossible. For a start, I placed my hands on her shoulders and pushed her down onto the mattress. “So not a good idea,” I told her. “Since we already agreed that it’s the dead of the night…and you’re sixteen…and drunk—”
    “Drunk? No .”
    All right, she was in the denial stadium, which was totally fine with me, because I was way past that stadium and knew what was really going on. “Whatever. I can’t let you do that.”
    “Do what?”
    Yeah, what ? “Walk alone.”
    She frowned. “You want to come with me?”
    Hell, yes! But not tonight. Because she would only send me home and I’d be down on my luck. I sat down next to her and tried to focus on her eyes that gleamed nicely in the moonlight shimmering through the window. “It’s a mile and a half to your house. That’s three for me to walk. I’m positive I won’t make that tonight. So if you really want to go home, I’ll have to drive you. But right now, I’d rather not.” I was drunk, but fortunately I wasn’t an idiot.
    “So what do I do now?” She looked every bit helpless and lovely.
    “I’d say lay back. Sleep. And worry about everything tomorrow.”
    “What about you?”
    I will lay back, won’t sleep, and stare at yo u until the morning. If she let me sleep next to her, that was. But how to convince her? “The floor is hard. And I’m beat. There’s room for two in that bed…”
    She looked at me for an intense second, then she suddenly dropped back onto the pillow without another word. Either she was just weird, or she was getting sick.