Chapter 4 #3
I turn to lock the door shut behind us, thinking I can trust Colten to keep himself steady, at least for a second.
Colten nearly faceplants into the bathroom counter.
I lurch forward and end up with one arm wrapped around his waist again and the other grabbing the edge of the sink before we both go down like a pair of extremely uncoordinated dominoes.
Colten squints at himself in the mirror like it personally offended him. “I’m fine.”
“You nearly brained yourself on the toilet,” I inform him, which causes him to scoff in disbelief.
Rolling my eyes, I make sure he’s steady against the counter before plucking the cup from his hand and dumping the rest of it into the sink. Somehow, it didn’t spill out during the whole near-brain injury.
I rinse the cup, fill it with water, and hand it back to him. “Here, drink this.”
He stares at the cup, then at me, before deliberately looking away, his chin up in clear refusal.
My eye twitches. “What did you eat today?”
“Nothing.”
I close my eyes, sighing.
“I was busy,” he says stubbornly. “I was going to eat dinner after our physical therapy session, which you decided wasn’t worth your time. Apparently, parties and girls are more important to you.”
Ah. There’s the stab of guilt returning.
“And since I suddenly had free time, I decided I’d party too,” he finishes.
He says the word party like it’s something he’s forcing himself to do. I sigh again, rubbing a hand down my face before shoving the water back toward him.
“Drink,” I repeat.
He crosses his arms like a sulking five-year-old. “No.”
My patience snaps like a cheap shoelace.
“Colten, you hate hangovers,” I say, voice tightening. “And if you drank all that on an empty stomach, you’re going to pass out in like—”
I glance at him, wobbling slightly.
“—ten minutes.”
“I won’t,” he insists, glaring.
“You always do,” I remind him. I forgot how stubborn drunk Colten could be.
He lifts his chin even more, unfazed. “You drink it. I’m not drinking it.”
That’s when I lose my last thread of patience. “That’s it!”
It’s not my proudest moment, but I grab his jaw and try to force his mouth open. His eyes go wide, immediately resisting and clawing at my arm.
I tilt the cup, and he jerks away, which turns the whole situation into a very uncoordinated wrestling match.
Colten might be drunk, but he is still incredibly strong and extremely determined not to drink water.
“Drink it!” I bring the cup up to his face, but he’s pulling back my arm, the cup tilting dangerously as I try to get the rim to his lips.
“I refuse!” He holds his head up high, stretching his neck as if the water will burn him, his legs getting involved and clumsily trying to wrap around me.
It’s like trying to give a toddler a bath, but the toddler is a 180lb fully grown man. And can also do drunk judo.
During our impromptu wrestling match, water sloshes everywhere. It goes over the counter, over the floor, a bit over Colten—nowhere near his mouth, of course—but mostly over me.
The cold water I got to help sober him up soaks straight through my shirt, clinging to my skin as the cup drops onto the ground, empty.
For a moment, we both freeze before Colten looks down at my wet shirt plastered against my chest and gives me the widest, smuggest, and most asshole-ish grin.
Something inside my brain quietly explodes, just a little.
I crowd forward, boxing him against the counter, my arms land on either side of him as water drips down my shirt and seeps into my pants.
Colten’s grin fades slightly as our chests press together, my soaked shirt now making his own shirt wet.
His eyes are wide as he looks up at me. I ignore the weird tight feeling in my chest and focus on being mad, because I am! I’m very mad!
“Why have you been such a dick to me all week?” I demand, unable to hold back any longer.
His expression shuts down, and he looks away, his mouth a thin line. My eye twitches.
“You’ve been avoiding me, like I have the plague or something,” I continue, watching every minute expression on Colten’s face.
“Is that why you forgot our session?” he shoots back, glaring at me. “To get back at me for not paying attention to you 24/7?”
I groan. “No, I actually forgot! And I apologized! Don’t change the subject, you asshole.”
“I’ve been busy,” he lies, like an absolute lying liar.
“Bullcrap,” I say, fed up with this. “I know your finals are done, and it’s not like you’re going out to parties. You’re just hiding in your room!”
His gaze flashes. “Or maybe I’m trying to solve the unknown magic you got us caught up in?”
I swallow hard, but he’s not done and says, “But if I were out getting drunk and wasting time like you, that would be better?”
Why did I think talking this out was a good idea? I should’ve just let him keep avoiding me. Ignorance is bliss. Silence is peace.
This—this is whatever the opposite of peace is.
Then Colten asks quietly, “Are you even planning on going pro anymore?”
That hits me like a punch.
“What?”
“You’ve been slacking,” he says, watching me with a frown.
“I have not!” Okay, maybe a little, but I was injured! I really don’t want to reinjure myself.
“You skipped PT.”
“One time!”
He stares at me. “Patrick.”
I drag both hands through my hair, exasperated.
“No one can plan on going pro,” I snap. “It’s a crapshoot. I mean, look at last year. I got injured, and everything almost went to hell. If that happens again, I’m done.”
Colten’s gaze sharpens. The alcohol haze in his eyes clears just enough for his intensity to burn through.
“I’d bet my future on it,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“I would bet my own future on you making it,” he says firmly, before adding, “I already have, since I’m going to be your personal PT. You’re stuck with me, farmboy.”
The words land somewhere deep in my chest, and all the anger drains out of me like someone pulled a plug.
Still, it leaves behind heavier feelings, a painful swirl of frustration, hurt, and confusion weighing me down. Feelings that have gotten heavier every day he’s created distance between us.
“Then why are you avoiding me?” I ask, my voice cracking a little. “I could help you with the magic thing. What did I do wrong?”
Some of the sharpness in Colten’s eyes fades, replaced with something like…uncertainty, as he watches me.
“Tell me what I need to fix,” I say, dragging in a shaky breath. The words feel raw coming out, painful and jagged, but I can’t stop. “I don’t want to lose my best friend. I miss you.”
The bathroom is very quiet. Colten blinks up at me, his pupils huge. “You…miss me?”
The way he looks at me has a warmth to it that makes my stomach swoop.
Even though I’m over nine inches taller than him and basically blocking him into the counter, suddenly I feel…smaller.
Which is ridiculous, and yet.
Colten’s hands come up against my chest, and I brace for him to shove me away.
He doesn’t.
Instead, his fingers curl into my wet shirt.
“Patrick,” he says, a slight rasp to his voice that wasn’t there a moment ago.
My heart immediately starts beating way too fast as his eyes slowly move over my face.
Then he pulls hard, dragging me closer.
My breath stutters out as I’m practically bent over him, our faces inches apart.
We’re both breathing hard, which is strange, since we’re just standing there. It’s getting hard to think with Colten’s face so close and the heat of his body pressed against mine.
The drink must’ve finally hit me, because I feel dizzy, almost drunk as the smell of Colten’s fancy bergamot shampoo surrounds me.
Colten’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes dark. I’m close enough to realize he’s wearing some mascara as well, his lashes thicker than usual as they frame his eyes. They look more black than green, right now.
I catch a glimpse of his tongue flicking out over his lips, as if to chase the taste of alcohol.
It makes my brain short-circuit a little, but then he does it again, and I suddenly become extremely aware of how close his mouth is.
Heat spreads across my neck.
I look up from his lips, and Colten is already staring straight at me, the intensity of his dark eyes making my skin prickle.
One of his hands moves up from my chest to the back of my neck, his fingers tightening in the hair at the nape of my neck.
It feels like I’m on the edge of a cliff, high enough that I can’t see the bottom, with the wind pushing me towards the unknown darkness below.
My pulse roars in my ears as he closes his eyes, face tilting toward me.
Is this—? It can’t be, right?
My eyes catch a glimpse of us behind the mirror, and that’s when I see it.
The glow is back, soft light spilling over Colten’s exposed skin.
I didn’t notice it before because we were so close, but it’s impossible not to see the light outlining his shape in the mirror.
I’m so startled by the sudden glow that I almost don’t catch him in time when his knees buckle, his body dead weight as he slides down the counter.
“Whoa—Colten!” I grab him under the arms before he can hit the floor. His head lolls against my shoulder, completely unconscious.
“…I told you so,” I whisper, the earlier dizziness beginning to ease up.
As I attempt to better hold my drunk friend, I catch another glimpse of us in the mirror and freeze.
I couldn’t see it earlier given how close we were…but I’m glowing again, too.