Day 107
Eve
On today’s agenda: getting drunk.
It’s the easiest task on the list, which hasn’t grown longer since we first drafted it, but I know we’ll be adding more experiences as we go, so I’m not worried. Adam isn’t, either. He seems excited as he drives us to the biggest liquor store we could find.
“Day drinking?” I comment with amusement when he starts pulling out bottles from the shelves.
“Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter what time of day it happens.”
“True.” I rummage in the back room for some snacks. “Hey, they froze some blocks of cheese!”
“Is it edible?” He sounds ecstatic. “Can we defrost it?”
“We should at least try.” I emerge from the back with my findings and place them on the counter. “What are you serving?”
“Whatever you want.” He grins and gestures to the bottles he has lined up. “Take your pick.”
I settle for some vodka, mixing it with cranberry juice. Adam shakes his head incredulously. “You have all this opulence, and you choose vodka,” he emphasizes, almost as if to confirm my mistake.
“The night is still young,” I point out dryly and gesture to the bright sun outside. “I can switch it up later. Hangover will be a bitch, but since I’ll be suffering anyway…”
“At least you chose the expensive one.” He fixes himself some whiskey, and I roll my eyes. “What?”
“Nothing. You’re just… such a cliché.” I shake my head with affection. “Of course you’d drink whiskey.”
“I can also switch it up later, thank you very much, but now I think I might stick to it out of principle.” He narrows his icy eyes at me over the rim of his glass.
“So while the cheese defrosts…” I play with the straw in my drink. “Are we just going to… drink?”
“We can make it interesting.” He swirls the amber liquid. “How about a drinking game?”
“What kind?”
“Let’s call it truth or drink.” He’s leaning on the other side of the counter, in front of me, but despite the wood separating us, it feels like he’s right inside my personal space. “Simple rules. It’s pretty self-explanatory.”
I jerk up my chin. “Hit me. I’m sure you have questions lined up.”
“Not really, but…” He backtracks. “Nothing is off the table. You don’t want to answer, you just drink instead.”
“Yeah, that part was pretty obvious.” I roll my eyes.
“Tough crowd today.” He sighs, but we’re both trying to hide our smiles. Despite his proclamation that we can ask anything we want, I don’t think he’ll breach anything serious. It feels like we’re both inching closer to playful banter than trauma bonding at the moment.
He proves me right about two seconds later. “Weirdest place you’ve had sex in?”
“Hmm.” I narrow my eyes. “Sex as in, penis in vagina? Because I did get fingered on the back seat of a bus.” His mouth drops open. “Yes, it was full of people. College field trip,” I supply before he has a chance to ask.
“Who knew you’re an exhibitionist,” he mutters under his breath.
“I’m not really. Just needed an orgasm, and he was… around.” I take a sip anyway, even if the rules don’t actually demand it. “My turn.” I mull over the options in my head. “Have you ever had a serious relationship?”
“Not really. A few recurring hookups, at best.” He doesn’t seem too shaken up about it. “Hmm,” he mumbles as he looks at me. “Maybe… describe how you like having sex with a movie title.”
“Probably equal parts Scream and Fast and Furious,” I say after a short contemplation and he chuckles. “What’s your body count?”
There’s hesitation on his face the moment the words leave my mouth.
“You can drink,” I remind him.
“No, it’s just,” he clears his throat. “Do you consider fooling around…?”
“Let’s just include oral and penetrative sex,” I suggest as if it’s a business negotiation and not an openly sexual conversation between two people who are trying not to hook up again.
“Hang on, I have to count.” I watch with a raised brow as he squints in concentration. “Nineteen,” he says at last, with that same hesitation, as if it’ll scare me.
“That’s it?” I tilt my head. “I thought you’d be a bigger slut than that.”
The corner of his mouth tugs up. “So I take it that yours is higher, then?”
“Is that your question?”
“No,” he says after a moment’s pause. “It’s not.”
“I’m an open book,” I taunt, taking a generous sip from my drink. “Just ask.”
“If our sex was a porn video,” he starts, a grin slowly creeping on his face. “What would you title it?”
“The sex we’ve already had, or…” I only realize I made a mistake when he looks at me questioningly. “You know, next time?”
Adam’s mouth opens and then shuts like a fish out of water. His silence just makes me feel all the more stupid for my slip up.
“Come on, we both know it’ll happen again.” I can’t stop myself from letting out. “At some point. Just not… right now.”
I shouldn’t have said that.
I’m not usually one to regret my words, but fuck, the look on his face right now…
Why does it feel like this sentence I just let out is more intimate than everything else we talked about so far?
“We forgot,” I mumble, then let out a hiccup. “About the cheese.”
“The cheese!” Adam gasps. He tries to push to his feet on the other side of the counter, but there’s a stumble on his part, and then a loud bang. I let out a snort of laughter. “Stupid chair,” he mutters.
“The cheese is fine,” I drawl. “Probably.”
“Well, like they say, the early mouse gets the cheese.” He pauses in front of the thawing blocks. “Right? They say that.”
“I don’t know, I’m not a doctor,” I protest while chasing my straw with my lips.
We’re about… three hours into the alcohol fest. I think. I don’t know if either one of us planned on getting this wasted, but ever since I said those stupid words, it’s felt like we’re in a contest of who can ignore it best.
I drink whenever I remember it.
Like right now.
“One more,” I groan and miss the shot glass when I attempt to pour the—is it gin?
“Maybe we should slow down,” he suggests from below me.
My head lolls to the side. “Why are you on the floor?”
“It was swaying, so I sat down on it,” he reports and I giggle. I don’t think I’ve giggled since high school. “Come eat some cheese.”
I trip as I make my way to him, the alcohol shooting straight into my brain as I rise. My ankles struggle with their footing, balance lost, and when I manage to land on the ground, it’s right on top of him.
“Sorry.” I snicker at his pained groan. My fingers intertwine behind his neck as I settle on his lap. “Did you know you’re pretty?”
“That’s drunk talk,” he protests, offering me the block of cheese. I take an unceremonious bite, my teeth grazing his fingers, and moan out loud at the taste.
“You are,” I say around the mouthful. “You have this…” I poke his cheek with my finger. “Bone structure.”
“Thanks, Miss Nurse. You too, have bones,” he retorts with a grin. “I can’t believe you’re drunker than me.”
“You’re the one who sat on the floor.”
“And you’re the one who fell on it,” he counters.
“I’m right where I want to be.” I tighten my arms around his shoulders.
Adam looks down at me. Our faces are close like this, and despite all the different types of alcohol I drank, I can only smell whiskey.
One of his hands holds onto my waist. The other still holds the wedge of cheese next to our mouths, but despite the rarity of finding it—we should be treating it like a pot of gold, my addled brain tries to remind me—there’s something else I crave to put my lips on.
“We shouldn’t,” he warns. His voice is low, his chest rising and falling against mine.
“I know,” I whisper before I kiss him.
It’s sloppy and messy and I’m sure I’ll regret it the moment I’m sober, but that’ll be later, and I’m here now, in his lap, inhaling his warm scent of whiskey and remnants of his morning coffee.
I think I’m moaning when his hands grip me.
One is at my waist, the other on my cheek, angling my face up to him.
I know we can’t fuck, not here, not like this. But maybe I don’t even want to.
The feeling of his bulge against my ass quickly corrects me. Okay, I definitely want to—the memory of him inside me makes me whimper into his mouth—but it’s kissing him that truly has my attention right now. His mouth is so soft. His teeth sink so painfully, so blissfully into my bottom lip.
“I don’t want to stop,” I whine when he pulls back, in a way I never would if I was sober.
“We have to.” His forehead rests against mine, his breath mingling with my own. “We made a promise. Remember?”
I do remember, and it’s making me pouty.
He softly kisses that pout, a brief, sweeping press of his lips. “I wish I was drunker,” he admits as he breathes me in, groaning, his nose nuzzling my hair. “I wish I could forget about it and just—” He stops himself when I grind on top of his lap. “Eve,” he grunts.
“I know, I know, just…” I sigh and press my lips to his throat. “One more minute.”
He gives me much longer than that. Sitting there, on the floor in his arms, shouldn’t feel this good. But it does. I feel safe and warm, and no regrets rush to me as I rest my head against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart.