masculine thing took hold of me. Possession. As Bill Compton from True Blood always snarled in his fiercest Southern drawl, Kate was mine. Why was this loser even speaking to my Kate?
Tilting back, Rocking Chair snickered and said, “I don’t recognize you with your clothes on.”
I’d never seen Kate unsure before. Now she seemed flustered, even nervous. Her hand rose to adjust her hair, her glasses, and she looked down at the basement floor.
Rocking Chair only got louder. He called out, “Hey, I went to school with this girl in Larchmont.” He pointed to Kate. “This girl was the biggest slut. Katie Gallatin was the biggest—”
“Hey!” I stepped in front of the shrunken, uncertain Kate. I almost tripped on the first basement step, but didn’t. I was a big strong man. I was protecting the girl I loved—or, the girl I liked a hell of a lot. I was freakin’ Edward Cullen staring down a werewolf.
Rocking Chair simply stepped to the side and kept speaking to Kate.
“Go get another drink, Katie,” he told her. “Pass out and get the cops called to this party.”
“Hey!” I said louder. Maybe my first “hey” hadn’t been loud enough.
The nervous, buzzy feeling through my body wasn’t quite the same powerful rush I had felt with Chris Perez. There, I’d been alone, no one except Chris Cho to see me make a fool of myself. Here I was surrounded by cool juniors and seniors from another school.
But I had to defend Kate. I didn’t have to kick this guy’s ass, just keep him separated from my girlfriend. I mean, the girl who is my friend. And who kissed me in the hallway, but may or may not have been romantically interested in me. But probably was.
So when Rocking Chair rocked a little too far forward, I extended a hand between us. He barely registered my movement. In fact, the kid was pretty out of it. He was looking like one of those after-school specials where your brain turns into scrambled eggs because you accepted a joint from a sketchy tempter at a chain-link fence. His eyelids were slipping lower, lower. He was about to pass out—
He punched me in the nose. Caught totally off guard, I was knocked off the first step. I fell to my hands and knees on the basement floor.
“Fuck you, Swanstein!” someone in the basement cried out. “You sucker punched that kid!”
“You’re a douche bag, Swanstein!” someone else said. I heard the beer pong ball bounce away, abandoned, heard some heels shuffle over in the sawdust. I heard two different girls ask if I was all right; neither was Kate.
I could hear things going on, but I couldn’t see. Everything went black and numb for those two seconds after the punch. Then the full impact of pain thrust through my face like the blade of a sword, from my nose deep into my skull. The sword of pain stayed plunged in my face; it took up residence there and throbbed. Jesus. Christ. In my head, those words repeated in time to the throbbing. Jee. Zus. Christ. Fuck that stoner! When I was able to get up from my knees, I swore, I would Chris Perez him and more. I would go straight for the blood supply and I wouldn’t let go. I would…
My fury forced my eyes open. This was a moment where I expected to turn into the Hulk. Seriously, rip the seams of my polo shirt and let that little…
Oh, God. Oh my God. Blood. When I raised my chest and looked down, it was spilled over my shirt, arms, and hands, like someone had thrown a bucket of paint at me. There were black fisted clots in it, there were dark swirls pooling at the insides of my bent elbows as I raised my hands from the ground and drew them in toward my body. God. God. And I felt wet and cool at my nose—which meant the blood was still flowing. I raised my hands to my face and the blood flowed through my fingers. It was a volcano, erupting again and again, unforgiving.
I gave my intestines a mental pep talk: stay cool, guys. Keep it tight. No need to puke here in front of everyone, really, it’s all right. I closed my eyes until I felt I could stand, trying to ignore how wet and sticky and covered I was.
When I stood up, Kate was gone.
I looked around, confused, scanning the whispering girls and the senior