“I’m trying to loosen up a little. If you want a beer, go ahead and have one.”
He waits, anticipating the “but” which he knows is coming.
“I won’t kiss you with beer breath, but you can still have one.”
“I’d rather have the kiss.” He says it next to my ear, his lips brushing my skin while his hand rests on my lower back. He’s barely touching me and it still makes me want to take him into one of the bedrooms so we can be alone. Even after all these months, he still affects me this way. It’s crazy.
“Okay, I’m ready.” Carson’s back with a plastic cup filled to the top with light-colored beer. The smell is so disgusting. I back away but the stench of it still lingers in the air.
My alcoholic mother didn’t drink beer that much. She usually stuck to hard liquor. But when we were really low on money, she had to settle for cheap beer. She’d buy that before she’d buy food. To this day, when I smell beer, it brings back memories of being hungry. School lunch would be my only meal of the day and those meals weren’t very filling.
I’d never tell Garret that story. If I did, he’d never drink beer again and I don’t want him to do that for me. I know he likes it and he should be able to have one now and then. Plus I hate it when he feels sorry for me.
Garret leads Carson over to a group of guys from his floor, including Dawson, who comes over and hangs his arm off Garret’s shoulder. He’s even drunker than when we saw him a few minutes ago.
“Kensington!” Dawson likes yelling Garret’s last name. He does it when I see him at the dorms, too.
“Finally decide to come out of your room, Kensington?” Some guy I only know as Shafer yells it from a few feet over. I think Shafer is his last name, but I’ve never heard him called anything else.
Garret ignores him. “I wanted you guys to meet Carson. He just started at Moorhurst.”
Shafer stumbles over to Carson, holding a shot glass in the air like he’s trying not to spill even though the glass is empty. “Carson. That’s a stupid name. What’s your last name?”
Carson swigs his beer before answering. “Fisher.”
“Fisher, huh? I can work with that.” Shafer smacks him on the back and some of Carson’s beer splatters out. “Okay. Everyone listen. This is our new friend, Fish.” Shafer turns to him. “Got a girlfriend, Fish?”
Carson shakes his head, then drinks again.
“Fish needs to get laid tonight,” Shafer announces. He turns to Garret. “Kensington, you’ve slept with half the girls here. Pick one for our buddy, Fish.”
“Good luck with the friend thing,” Garret says to Carson. He grips my hand and drags me away from them. “You see why we don’t go to these?”
“What was he talking about? Why would he say that about you?”
“Just ignore him. He’s totally wasted.”
“Kensington, get your ass back here,” Dawson calls after us.
I turn back to find Carson following us. “Wait up. You can’t leave me with those assholes.”
Garret turns around, annoyed. “Most of the guys here are assholes, especially when they’re drunk.”
“Decker’s not,” I say, “but I haven’t seen him yet.”
“Who’s this?” I hear a girl’s voice behind Carson and see that it belongs to Sierra, my least favorite person after Ava. They’re best friends, so it makes sense that I don’t like her.
Sierra curls her hands around Carson’s massive bicep. “Hi. I’m Sierra. I’m a friend of Garret’s.” She looks at me as she says it.
“I’m Carson,” he says, not bothering to remove her hands from his arm. “I just started at Moorhurst.”
“He’s from Illinois,” I say, waiting for the confused look to appear on her face. It does and I almost start laughing, but Garret squeezes my hand signaling me to be nice. Forget that. I hate Sierra. “Illinois is in the middle. It’s next to Iowa.”
Garret squeezes my hand again. I don’t know why he insists I act nice to her. He doesn’t like her either.
“I know where Illinois is, Jade.” From her expression I know it’s a lie.
She smiles at Carson. “Are you on the football team? Because you look like a linebacker with these big muscles.”
