19. Haven
Chapter 19
Haven
My phone vibrates against my hip, dragging me from a tequila-induced coma. Seconds later, a pillow hits my head.
“Fuck!” I shove into a sit, arms up in case more feather-stuffed missiles are headed in my direction. “Why’d you do that?”
“It’s been going the whole fucking night,” Melissa groans. “Turn it off.”
There’s drool on the side of my cheek.
Did all my saliva migrate? Would explain why the fuck my mouth is so dry.
“Oh, God. I’m already hungover,” she says, her bedsheets rustling as she turns over.
I dig my phone out of my pocket and unlock it, staring blearily at the screen until my eyes decide to focus.
Missed calls?
No one even has this number.
That’s when my bladder sends a frantic help signal to my brain. Fuck, I need to pee. I turn to the shape of Melissa’s bed to ask her where the bathroom is, but on cue, she begins snoring.
Can’t be that difficult to find, right?
I try to untangle myself from the blanket wrapped around my legs, and end up rolling off Melissa’s sofa and onto the floor.
“Ow.”
Thankfully, I don’t wake her or her roommate, name unknown.
After we’d finished our assignment, we went downstairs and joined the rest of her sorority for dinner. It was some of the best low-fat, zero-carb, vegetarian shit I’ve ever tasted.
I was pretty drunk by then, of course, so maybe my taste buds had shut down. I fended off attempted efforts at pouring more booze down my throat, but Melissa had another two cocktails with her sorority sisters.
Her roommate was asleep by the time Melissa announced I’d be spending the night, because I was way too drunk to walk back to my car and she was too drunk to drive, and Agony Hollow’s one and only Uber driver apparently wasn’t cute enough to drive me anywhere.
My new friend is strangely protective when she’s drunk.
And strangely, kind of fun.
I barely thought about Kai or my shitty life at all.
There’s another chime from my phone. Panicking, I kick off the blanket and hurry down the hall, squinting at the doors I pass.
One of them is standing open far enough for me to see toilet stalls inside, which is weird, but not something I question as I slip inside one to go pee.
Oh thank fuck.
No better feeling in the world than emptying an overfull bladder. Once the flow gets going, of course.
My phone chimes again, and my eyes jerk back open. Did I pass out?
I giggle at myself. No, I’m not that drunk, am I?
Not that I would know. This is the most I’ve ever had to drink in one sitting. Probably better that I’m getting used to alcohol, because it seems unavoidable in this place.
I wipe, flush, and then sit down on the closed toilet lid when the world takes a nice slow spin around me.
God.
I pull out my phone and open my call log. Three missed calls from an unknown number.
Like…what the fuck?
My phone lights up with a phone call. I juggle it, nearly drop it. I stab the answer button, and whisper-shout, “Hello?”
There’s a long pause. “Haven?”
Fuck.
Fuuuck.
It’s Professor Rooke.
“Professor?” Am I slurring? Why does it sound like I’m slurring?
Shit, I’m slurring.
I should hang up.
“Were you asleep?” He cuts off with a sigh. “My God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be calling you this late on a school night.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he’s too fast.
“Why are you awake this late?”
“I’m not! I mean… I wasn’t!” I’m still whisper-shouting because this phone call should not be happening. Not here, especially not now. “I was sleeping. You woke me up.”
“Why wasn’t your phone on silent?”
I throw my hand up. “Why did you call me in the first place?”
He’s quiet for a beat. “I got your submission. I just…I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
My submi…Oh, right. “Yeah. Old news.”
“Who sent this to you?”
I open my mouth, and for some reason I’m almost about to tell Professor Rooke. About everything.
Who’d have known alcohol was a truth serum?
“No context,” I say. “Your rules, not mine.”
He huffs through the phone like he can’t believe my audacity. Then makes that quiet sound.
“Hm. You’re right. I’m sorry. Not just for prying, but being an ass earlier.”
“Asshole,” I correct, tucking my hand into my armpit. “You were an ass hole .”
“Go back to sleep,” he grates out.
“Hey. Hey!”
He gives a terse, “Yes?”
“The fuck is up with this game of yours, anyway?”
It was messing with my head the whole way through dinner. I so badly wanted to sneak that envelope out of Melissa’s laptop bag so I could read what she wrote about me. But I have a feeling that sticker isn’t the kind you can peel without tearing off the top layer of paper.
I don’t dare fail us both just to satiate my curiosity.
There’s a long pause before he replies. “Game?”
“Your fucked up version of Truth or Dare.” Shit, I keep swearing.
“Hm,” he murmurs, and then chuckles.
Bastian chuckling in your ear is not something any woman of ovulating age should hear after she’s consumed as much tequila as I have.
I swear he just got me pregnant through the phone.
“So you’ve completed the assignment. I’m glad. I despise it when someone squanders their potential.”
Potential? Squander ?
“Yeah, uh, I’ll pass on your Ted Talk,” I mutter. “That game was bullshit baloney.”
There’s a beat of silence, then a sigh. “Haven…are you drunk?”
“What? No! You’re drunk.”
“I am most definitely not. I am confused, though. You were pretty adamant that you don’t drink.”
“I don’t. Usually. But ‘pparently today’s the exception. College girls are persuasive.”
“So you forgive me for spiking your drink?” he says dryly. “Because the thought that I’d corrupted an angelic freshman was keeping me up.”
“Aw,” I croon into the phone. “Maybe you should have thought about that before pouring bourbon down my throat.”
I wince. “Sorry.”
But then, because tequila, I add. “Not sorry.”
“Jesus, you are drunk.”
“So what?”
“You’re underage.”
“Didn’t stop you.”
There’s a long, awful beat of silence. “You’re right. I was wrong to treat you as an adult. Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again.”
My head is spinning from our rapid-fire conversation. Or, possibly, because I’m still a little drunk.
What the hell is his problem? Calling me at—I try to read the tiny clock on the top of my cellphone’s display, but this must be what it feels like to get old, because it’s impossible.
I lock my phone and turn on the display to read the much larger clock.
Bastian’s calling me at three in the morning?
Something flutters in my stomach, but I don’t know if it’s excitement or uneasiness. Either there’s something wrong with me…or something very, very wrong with Professor Rooke.
Or the flutters are something else, because that’s when my body rejects what’s left of the tequila.
I barely have time to spin around and lift the lid before I empty my guts into Gamma Alpha Zeta’s pristine toilet.