Chapter 34 Emergency
Emergency
We walked across campus together with me leading the way while Josh and Kellan sauntered behind me, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, drunkenly singing “My Life Would Suck Without You” off-key. I was sure they thought they were hilarious.
Though it was a fairly short walk to Grey’s apartment, the mixture of alcohol and excitement made the journey feel like an eternity. And the fact that my stomach was in knots at the anticipation of seeing Grey again after so long didn’t help it go by any quicker.
Finally, we made it to his apartment. Grey was waiting for me at the entrance, wearing a look of amused confusion.
“Hi,” I said, suddenly breathless as I got to him.
Somehow, it felt as if the simple word contained a million meanings.
It held how much I’d missed him the past couple of weeks, the yearning I’d felt while he was away.
It held the “I love you” that I’d yet to share with him.
It was a vow to make the most of the precious time we had tonight.
“Hello.”
Grey’s eyes simmered, catching the light of the streetlamp, and my stomach fluttered in reply.
“Hi, Grey!” Kellan called from behind me, quickly getting shushed by Josh.
“Hi, guys,” he said, the corners of his lips tugging up, but his eyes stayed on me.
“Sorry. We know you weren’t expecting us,” Josh said, ever the responsible one of the group. “We had a lot to drink and wanted to make sure Ethan didn’t end up passed out in a bush.”
“I appreciate that.” Grey finally tore his eyes from me to address my friends. “Thank you.”
“See you guys later.” I shot them a look over my shoulder to emphasize that they should get lost.
Kellan gave a teasing “ooh,” but Josh shushed him again.
“See ya.” His grip on Kellan firmed, and Josh steered him toward home.
“Sorry about them,” I said once they were far enough that I was sure they were actually leaving.
Grey laughed. “Why? They’re good friends.”
“Good, annoying friends.”
“Still.” Grey grabbed my hand and pulled me up to him.
My head swirled as his lips pressed against mine. I could feel myself melting in his arms, but I couldn’t do that yet. We weren’t even inside the building.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to spend the night wandering campus, trying to track you down.”
“Yeah.” I grinned against his lips. “That would’ve sucked big time.” Grey took my hand and led me upstairs. My stomach churned for a moment on the landing, but I decided it was nerves and kept going. “You should know, I’m very drunk.”
Grey chuckled. “I figured as much.”
“It’s Kellan and Josh’s fault. They made me drink.”
“How dare they.”
“But I missed you a lot, so I still wanted to come tonight.”
Grey held open the door for me to go into his apartment.
“I missed you too,” he said, helping me out of my jacket. “More than you know.”
“I think I missed you more.” I gave his arm a playful push—or at least that was what I’d intended to do. I missed his arm completely and wobbled for a second.
Grey grabbed that hand, too, and gave me another kiss. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“You have a lot of stuff going on,” I said, which definitely helped to prove my point. “You probably didn’t even notice I wasn’t around.”
“Not true.” Grey brought me into his room and sat me down on his bed, where I swayed with drunkenness.
Am I getting more drunk somehow?
“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. But you should know that I wished you were there every second.”
That made me smile as I flopped back onto his bed. The ceiling was circling for some reason, and my stomach twisted again, much more uncomfortably than the past few times. I fought the urge to curl into a ball.
Grey watched me, a flash of concern crossing his face.
I didn’t like that. “Are you getting bored with me?”
“Bored with you?” he repeated blankly.
“I’m scared I’m not interesting enough for you,” I half whispered.
The fear had bubbled to the surface over these past few weeks, but I’d never let myself think about it too much because it would be paralyzing if I did.
So, of course, it would come spilling from my mouth after a few drinks.
I immediately wished I could take it back, but my stupid mouth kept moving.
“You’re going to have so many exciting things come your way, and then there’s me just here and”—I blew air through my drunken lips—“boring,” I finished.
I couldn’t say it was my strongest argument, but the ceiling was too busy spinning for me to care.
“How could this be boring?” Grey asked, his tone teasing, but his eyes were anything but.
“You know what I mean.” Actually, I wasn’t sure he did, but trying to explain myself again felt like more effort than moving mountains.
“I do.” His eyes crinkled with a smile, and he leaned down to kiss me.
As far as responses to my drunken ramblings went, I had to admit that was a pretty good one.
“I love you,” I said when he pulled away, then I froze. “Oh—I wasn’t supposed to tell you that yet.”
Color rose in Grey’s cheeks. “You weren’t? Why not?”
I put a finger to his lips. “It’s a secret until I’m sober.”
“Fine,” he said around my finger. “It’ll be our little secret.”
I pulled him in for another kiss, but then the ceiling decided it wanted to stop spinning, and it lurched violently to the side, somehow bringing my stomach with it. “Bathroom,” I managed to get out before making a run for it.
Grey’s footsteps followed me, but I barely registered them as the entire night’s worth of bad decisions reappeared into the toilet bowl.
If I’d had any ideas of sexy times with Grey that night, they never came to fruition.
I spent the next couple of hours being sick off and on, with Grey slowly feeding me water and saltine crackers, which helped until they, too, were added to the toilet.
Eventually, my stomach stopped rejecting the water, and keeping my eyes open became an impossible task.
It wasn’t until Grey was gently nudging me awake that I realized I had fallen asleep with my face on the toilet seat.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“Don’t apologize,” Grey said. “It happens to the best of us.”
With his help, I managed to pull myself to my feet. I stopped by the sink to borrow some mouthwash, too lazy to locate my spare toothbrush. I took several long pulls of water from my cupped hands before letting him take me back to his room, where he rubbed my back until I fell asleep.
I woke with a fuzzy tongue and a stomach tied in knots.
The light shining through the window made my head throb like someone had driven spikes behind my eyes while I slept.
I sat up with a grunt. Grey wasn’t in the room with me.
That made sense. I was pretty sure I’d made an idiot of myself the night before.
The memory of my confession of love replayed in my mind, and I cringed, shoving my face into my hands with another groan.
Why did I do that? Why did I do any of that?
I shouldn’t have gone out with Josh and Kellan.
I should’ve kept my ass at home in my room like a good boy and waited for my boyfriend to call.
If I even still have a boyfriend after last night.
I heard the doorknob turn, and my head jerked up in time to see Grey stepping into the room, holding a giant cup of water.
“You’re up,” he said, offering me the water.
I gratefully took the cup. “Unfortunately.” My throat felt raw when I spoke, so I chugged half of it as quickly as I could.
Grey smirked. “How are you feeling?”
“So great,” I said. “Do me a favor, and never let me drink again.”
“Aw, and miss out on how fun you are when you’re drunk?” he teased.
My face warmed. “Yeah, about last night… I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Puking my guts out, being generally annoying…” I sighed. “Saying ‘I love you’ at an inappropriate time.”
“I thought that was supposed to be a secret,” Grey said.
I glared at him in response.
Grey laughed and sat next to me, resting a hand on my leg. “Did you mean it?” he asked, toying with a stray thread on a pair of shorts I didn’t remember changing into.
My knee-jerk reaction was to deny my words, to do anything and everything to take it back, because if I admitted the truth, then I would be exposing myself way too much.
And my unease at the way the past few weeks had gone with Martin and the band had me craving the safety of denial.
But I wouldn’t do that. Partially because I still desperately needed him to know, and more because I could feel it in my bones that trying to take back the words would do nothing but blow up in my face.
“Of course I did,” I said. “I’m in love with you. How could I not be? You’re so fucking perfect.”
Grey looked at me for a long moment—so long that I was getting uncomfortable with the lack of a love confession in return. Then, I noticed the extra moisture in his eyes and realized he was holding back his emotions.
He had to clear his throat before he spoke. “I love you, Ethan,” he said with a husky voice. “I love you so fucking much.”
I jumped him then, unable to keep my hands off him a second longer. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the cup in my lap, and water got everywhere in the process. I didn’t care. I still had to kiss Grey.
“I love you,” I said between kisses.
“I love you too,” he repeated. After another, kiss he pulled away. “We should probably do something about the water.”
“Good point.” My hands trailed down to the hem of his shirt. “How about we start by getting you out of these wet clothes?”
“Be honest with me,” I said after we’d sat down at the closest restaurant to eat a couple of hours later. “How bad was I last night?”
“You weren’t bad.” Grey scanned his menu. His eyes flicked to me. “I thought it was cute.”
“Cute,” I repeated skeptically. Despite my tone, I still flushed at the words.
“Yeah, you were silly and lovey.” Grey shrugged. “Like I said, it was cute. Even if you ended up getting sick.”
“Yet, somehow, I’m still embarrassed.”
“Well, I can’t help that,” Grey said. “Other than pointing out that if you’d done anything truly embarrassing, I probably wouldn’t have had sex with you this morning.”
“You mean I’m not hot enough to be worth boning if I’m annoying?” I clutched my invisible pearls in mock indignation. “I’m not sure my self-esteem can handle that information.”
Grey held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, you might have me there. I probably still would’ve wanted to have sex with you.”
I laughed then winced as a fresh spike of pain shot through my temple.
Though I felt much more alive now that I’d had sex, showered, drank about a gallon of water, and taken three ibuprofen, I still didn’t feel what one might call “great.” My last hope truly was absorbing the rest of the poison in my system with greasy breakfast food.
And if that didn’t work, I would probably just walk into oncoming traffic and end it all.
“Are you okay?” Grey reached across the table to take my hand I’d rested there.
I nodded. “I did it to myself.”
He frowned. “Still, I don’t like that you’re not feeling well.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He was being so protective, so caring that, even though I felt like crap physically, everything seemed right.
The weeks apart hadn’t caused us to drift.
If anything, we were closer now than we had been before.
I’d been so consumed by his absence up to this point that I almost couldn’t believe how distant that time apart seemed now.
It was startling how much had changed since the previous night.
I was in love with him, and he was in love with me.
It was enough to leave me winded. I couldn’t get over how perfect life felt.
Grey’s phone went off with a shrill text notification that made my head throb all over again. He let go of my hand to grab his phone and glanced at the screen, but we both knew who it was before he’d even reached for it.
“It’s Martin.”
It was all I could do not to roll my eyes. It seemed our perfect moment was over.
“What does he want?” I didn’t even bother trying to keep the unhappiness out of my voice.
“It’s an emergency band meeting,” he said.
“Oh God. When?”
“Now.”
Of fucking course. I gave my menu one last longing glance, imagining the food that it looked like I wouldn’t get a chance to eat.
Hopefully, I had something at home that could cure my hangover while Grey went on to do band things.
And maybe, if I was lucky, I would get to see him again before the end of the semester.
“I’ll see you later, then,” I said numbly, trying my best to not think about how much time I’d wasted last night being drunk and annoying and sick.
I was sure I could’ve gotten at least a couple more hours with Grey if I hadn’t overdone it.
I sighed. Everything about this situation made my headache worse.
A nap was beginning to sound like a good idea.
“Actually,” Grey said slowly. “He wants you there too.”
I blinked in surprise. “What?”
He held up his phone for me to see, and my eye scanned the text in the group chat.
Just received some unfortunate information. Emergency band meeting at the studio NOW. Grey, bring Ethan.
“I didn’t even realize Martin knew my name,” I said, not knowing what it meant but knowing for damn sure that the last thing I wanted to do was go meet with the man.
“I hate to ask this, but will you come with me?” Grey asked, surprisingly subdued.
I let out another sigh. There was no way I could say no to anything he asked of me. But at the same time, I was way too hungover for this shit.