Chapter 12 #3
“Yeah. There’s beer in the kitchen. Kick back down here while we get ready, but take it easy,” Tiffani tells me, and the thunderous look she gives me is all the warning I need.
I embarrassed her last night, I know I did.
She reaches for Eden’s hand and begins pulling her toward the huge marble staircase that I have stumbled down drunk so many times before, and halfway up, she calls back, “We won’t be long! ”
Eden looks terrified as she is dragged away into the hell that is being under Tiffani’s control.
Honestly, I feel sorry for the damn girl.
She’s been here for—what?—a day? I don’t know what the parties in Portland are like, but I doubt they are anything like ours.
She doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into, and I can already tell that she’s going to regret it tomorrow.
I run my hand back through my hair and make my way into the kitchen.
There’s a stack of alcohol already there, waiting to be brought to the party, and I grab the first beer I find.
I pop the cap and take a swig, but I can’t even enjoy it.
I drank enough last night to last me the entire summer.
I force it down nonetheless as I lie sprawled on the couch in Tiffani’s living room, flipping between sports channels on the giant TV in the dark for what feels like forever.
I keep the box of Bud Lights next to me, so that I can easily grab another.
And another. And another. Take it easy? I wish I could, but Tyler Bruce doesn’t take things easy .
“We shouldn’t be too much longer,” I hear a voice say after a while, and it startles me a little because the beer is making me drowsy. I prop myself up and crane my neck. Rachael is hovering at the door, a drink in her hand. “You know, you were really, really wasted last night.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.” I roll my eyes at her, then purposely take a long sip of the beer in my hand just to remind her that I don’t give a shit.
“I’m just saying,” she mumbles, taking a step into the living room. She glances at the TV for a moment, and then back at me, her eyebrows pinching with concern. “You don’t have to drink that much, you know.”
“Says you, Lightweight Lawson,” I retort, turning away from her. I get bored of Rachael so easily. All she ever does is shake her head at me and comment on everything I do. What is up with everyone in my damn life trying to control me?
“That’s different,” she says. She takes several more steps into the room, standing directly in front of me so that I have no option but to look back up at her, even though I’m not interested in what she has to say. “I get drunk because I’m a lightweight. You get drunk because you want to.”
I sigh and keep my expression blank. “Are you done with your lecture?”
“Not really.” Taking a swig of her own drink, she sits down on the arm of the couch next to me and crosses one leg over the other.
“I’m just letting you and that ego of yours”—she taps her index finger against my forehead—“know that you won’t be any less cool if you have a limit.
It’s okay to turn down a drink.” She drops her gaze to the empty bottles of beer on the floor around us, and she frowns. “I think you’ve had a lot already.”
“Whatever, Rachael.” I nudge her away, pushing her off the couch, and she doesn’t put up much of a fight.
I hope she’s happy now that she’s done her good deed for the day.
She doesn’t say anything more, only sips at her drink as she turns and walks away.
I listen to the sound of her footsteps on the stairs until they disappear, and then I drink from my own beer again.
I wait around for another half hour, texting Dean and Jake to see if they’re at the party yet or not, before I finally crack and lose my patience.
I have been waiting two entire damn hours for the girls to get ready, and it’s becoming a joke.
I finish off the beer in my hand, my seventh, then get to my feet.
A wave of dizziness hits me, but I force my way through it and head for the stairs.
If the girls aren’t ready, then screw it. I’ll go without them.
I push open the door to Tiffani’s room, and it smells of burned hair and perfume.
The music is loud and pumping, and it feels stuffy in here.
But, thankfully, the girls are all dressed and have their hair and makeup done.
“Alright, can we head over there now?” I ask, stepping into the room and leaning against the doorframe.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Eden as she emerges from the bathroom.
She looks different. She looks like…them.
Like Tiffani, like Rachael, like Meghan.
Like a girl who is trying way too hard to impress.
She’s wearing one of Tiffani’s tiny black dresses, and the only reason I know it belongs to Tiffani is because I remember tearing it off her a month ago.
It’s tight and it’s short. I try not to look, even though I want to.
But that would be weird. Stepsister , I think. It’s still an alien concept to me.
“Dean and Jake are already there,” I add quickly, trying to focus on something else.
“Do I look good?” Tiffani asks, not exactly answering my question. She twirls around in a circle, showing herself off, but she looks exactly the same as she always does. Way too overdressed in too few clothes, on the brink of suffocation, and slightly tacky.
“Baby, you look fine,” I tell her. Again, it’s what she wants to hear.
I finish off the beer in my hand and set it on her dresser, then move closer to her.
I’m aware that Eden is watching, so I grab Tiffani’s waist. “Real hot.” And then I kiss her, right there and then, because if there’s anything Tiffani loves more than herself, it’s having me kiss her while we have an audience.
But I’m not doing it for her. No, I’m doing it to show Eden more of me. More of Tyler Bruce.
I want her to believe that I’m an asshole. A jerk. A moron.