CHAPTER EIGHT #2
It was at that moment the door flew open, and I bolted upright onto my elbows to face the intruder, the awful asshole putting a stop to what Ash was doing to me.
Except she didn't stop.
She kept going.
And I wished she had.
Because there, standing in the doorway, was Meg.
“O-oh. Oh God,” she said, turning away to cast her gaze toward the hall outside the door.
Panicked, I pushed Ash off me and scrambled from the bed, pulling my shorts and underwear back up.
“What the fuck?!” Ash exclaimed.
Not at Meg, but at me.
One glance at her face told me she was pissed, as if it didn't faze her in the slightest to be caught doing that.
“Seriously?” I asked, flabbergasted.
That was when Meg turned to look at me, her eyes narrowed. “Wait. Noah?”
I cleared my throat and awkwardly smoothed my T-shirt and readjusted my waistband.
“H-hey, um … hi.”
God, I could barely speak to her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Here.
Did she mean the party … or what she'd just walked in on me doing with Ash?
I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to ask.
Still, it was a high schooler's party, and Meg was far from being a high schooler. I wasn't sure exactly how old she was, but she had to be in her early twenties. Maybe twenty-two, twenty-three.
So, I gathered every bit of confidence I could muster and asked, “W-what are you doing here?”
Meg turned her gaze from me to level Ash with an angry glare. “Your sister asked me to stop by after work and make sure you weren't up to anything your parents wouldn't be okay with, Ashley.”
Then she crossed her arms and turned back to me. “And yours definitely wouldn't be okay with any of this.”
She was angry. And disappointed … in me?
“Oh, shut up, Meghan,” Ash muttered, rolling her eyes. “Like you weren't doing this shit when you were a teenager.”
Meg's expression morphed into one of condescension as she scoffed. “Oh, I had way more respect for myself than that.”
“Yeah, because your daddy forced you to be a prude,” Ash fired back, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, mimicking Meg's stance. “I bet you're still a virgin.”
Eyes widened, I turned to look at Meg. Shocked by the comfortable way Ash was talking to her while also being sort of curious as to what her response might be.
I didn't know much about Meg. Didn't know if she had a boyfriend, didn't know what she did for fun. Hell, I didn't even know how to find that stuff out, so if Ash's brazen commentary could help me learn something about the woman of my dreams, then …
“I am not discussing my intimate life with either one of you,” Meg stated. “Let me point out that you're children.”
I wilted on the spot at that word. Children. I felt ten times smaller, despite being a foot taller than her. Four years separated the me now from the kid I'd been that night when I first met her. I grew hair on my face now. My voice was deeper. I could lift heavier things and reach higher places.
But she didn't see any of that.
She saw a child.
“And you're a bitch,” Ash said with a sneer.
I turned to her with a furrowed brow, instantly disgusted that I’d allowed her to put that mouth on me when she could say such a horrible thing to a woman who was anything but.
Meg seemed unperturbed though. “Whatever. Get these kids out of here and clean up before your sister comes home. Let's go, Noah.”
I glanced in her direction with a raised brow, only to watch as she hurried from the doorway and toward the stairs.
“Are you seriously gonna listen to that cunty bitch?”
Slowly, I brought my gaze to Ash's and took a step toward her, looming over her with rage in my eyes.
“If I had known what a bitch you were, I never would've let you put your fucking mouth anywhere near me,” I said, my voice low and—I hoped—menacing.
Then I took off after Meg, leaving Ash slack-jawed and fuming.
***
She gave me a ride home, and I should’ve been excited to be sitting in her car … but I wasn’t.
Instead, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had somehow let her down, even though she hadn't said as much.
But I hated it.
“How much did you drink tonight?” she finally asked as we neared my street.
“Uh …” I swallowed at a knot in my throat. “Ash gave me, um … one … just one drink. One cup.”
“That pink shit in the kitchen?”
I nodded.
She sighed and shook her head. “I don't even know how much alcohol she put into that crap. I can only imagine. It smelled like sugar and kerosene,” she went on, so much disapproval and disgust in her tone.
“I found two bottles of vodka and a bottle of rum in the trash. All empty. And you drank a whole cup of it? How full was it?”
I shrugged, trying to evade the questions she was throwing at me. “Pretty, uh … pretty full, I guess. I-I dunno. I don't … I don't remember.”
She sighed again and muttered, “Jesus Christ. When you get home, go straight to bed. Keep a trash can next to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn't a lot.”
“You might not think so, but it was enough,” she scolded.
She spoke to me the way Mom did, and, God, it made me so mad. But could I blame her? She was a woman—easily five, six years older than me—and I was, as she had stated very clearly earlier, a child.
I didn't bother replying then. I looked out the window as we pulled up to my house. The living room light was off, but Mom and Dad's was still on.
Fuck.
“I won't say anything,” Meg said with a tired sigh, as if she were reading my mind. “Not about you anyway.”
I turned to look at her in the darkness of the car, but I didn't speak.
“You're a good kid, Noah. Don't let kids like Ashley Montague drag you down with them.”
My mouth was dry as I soundlessly nodded. Then I mumbled, “Thanks for the ride,” before climbing out of the car and hurrying up the walkway to hopefully make it to my room without alerting my parents.
All while realizing I had finally, finally spoken to her after four years of indifferent glances and tight-lipped waves, and I couldn't help but smile.
Because it was something.
And something was more than nothing.