Page 19 of Bad Reputation
“Yep,” I say, then hiccup again. “I’m great.”
“Okay. Don’t move. I’ll be right there.”
I grin as the phone line goes dead. Jameson is coming here, right now. He’s going to pick me up!
I’m absurdly happy about that. I sit and wait, happily drunk.
“Hey there,” a strange guy says. He’s only a few feet away, wearing all black. “What are you doing over here by yourself?”
I squint at him. I’m pretty sure that he is way too old to be at this party.
“Who are you?” I ask. “You don’t look like you should be here.”
He chuckles, coming closer. “Don’t worry about that part. What’s your name?”
I frown at him. “I don’t like you. Go away.”
He squats down next to me. From this distance, I can smell the sour beer on his breath, taste the heavy cologne he has doused himself with.
He reaches out his hand, as if to stroke my face. Wincing, I manage to crab walk backwards, avoiding his touch. His smile only grows wider.
“You’re being very naughty,” he says, tsking. “Someone ought to teach you some manners. Maybe that someone should be me.”
“Get away from me,” I say, shaken by his words. I try to stand up, failing the first time. “I don’t want you to talk to me.”
“You’re pretty drunk. Let me help you home,” he says. “We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
Out of nowhere, Jameson appears in the yard. He takes one look at the situation — me standing shakily, the guy approaching me with a grin — and rushes in between us.
“Get the fuck away from her,” Jameson growls. Next to Jameson, the other guy seems tiny and unthreatening.
“Whoa,” the guy says, putting up his hands. “I didn’t realize she was spoken for.”
That seems to set Jameson off. He lunges forward, grabbing the guy by the shirt.
“You don’t treat people like that,” Jameson grits out, shaking the other guy. “If someone says to leave them alone, you do it.”
“Alright!” the guy says, his voice going up a few scales. “Let me go, man.”
Jameson pushes the guy away. “You need to leave. I don’t want to see you around here again. Comprende?”
“Fuck off,” the other guy says, but he’s already moving away, across the yard.
I am standing there, shaken and grateful. Jameson looks at me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Mmmhm.” I want to throw myself on him and thank him. I want to kiss him, or maybe tell him that I love him. But suddenly, I feel a little sick.
I look at him, my eyes watering, my mouth filling with that kind of spit that tells you you are definitely going to throw up.
“Let’s get you to the car, okay?” Jameson comes closer, but I throw a warning arm up…
And then vomit on his Converse. He jumps back. “Fuck.”
I want to apologize, but apparently I’m not done. I run over to the bushes and wretch a few times, throwing up bright purple liquid. That is definitely alarming.
I am beyond ashamed. Not only am I vomiting, but I’m doing it in front of the one guy that I’ve been dreaming about since I was fifteen years old. That thought is never far from the surface, tangled up with everything else that is going on in my brain.