I scan my surroundings, and everything tilts sideways. Everything’s blurry, and I fight through the cobwebs in my brain, trying to remember what happened tonight. The fight with Brogan. Then Mia. There was a party at a house off-campus, and I told Mason I’d swing by before returning Coach’s car. Then Trish grabbed me. She promised she could make me forget Mia, and that sounded so damn good. After that . . . shots. Too many shots. And then . . .?
“Get out of the car and come inside.”
I blink at the steering wheel under my hands, and my stomach pitches. Why am I in the car? “How did I get here?”
“You drove.” He mutters a string of curses after that, curses that feel directed at me and that I probably deserve, and I follow him into the house, fear tapping at my conscience and doing its part to sober me incrementally.
I sink onto the couch, my head spinning as I wait for a lecture. I hear water running in the kitchen. The squeak of the pipes as he turns off the tap, and then he shoves a glass of water into my hand.
“Drink.”
Sitting up, I bring the glass to my lips and take a drink. My stomach rolls when the water hits it, and I put the glass down and close my eyes. I just want to sleep.
Coach shakes his head and presses the glass back into my hand. “Drink the damn water first.”
I drain the glass against the protests of my stomach, and I swear I’m in that horrible drunken limbo where I’m still not sober but the hangover has already started, that half-conscious land of nausea and sleep as Coach leads me up the stairs, down a hall, and to a bed. The world goes black.
* * *
Five a.m.
I wake with a start. I’m gonna hurl.
I roll over, trying to bury the pain in my head into the pillow, and realize I’m sharing a bed with Coach’s daughter. Trish. She must have come in here and climbed in beside me after I passed out.
She’s asleep and huddled under the covers. She draws up a knee, and her toes skim my calf.
More memories from last night flash through my mind—Trish laughing with me. Dancing. Licking tequila off her cleavage. The images are bright and loud against my headache, and I just want them to go away.
“Dad’s here.” Her whisper, hot and suggestive against my ear. “I promised him I’d be home for the ball drop, but I’ll be in my bed after that. I’d rather not be alone.”
I hear something and realize it was my phone that woke me. I pull it from my jeans and blink at the screen.
Mia Mendez.
Beside me, Trish mumbles something in her sleep. Mia’s calling me, and Trish is curled against my side.
I decline the call with a swipe of my finger and silence the phone before closing my eyes and letting sleep pull me under again.
* * *
Six a.m.
Trish clings to me in her sleep, her hand wrapped around my arm.
I hear people talking downstairs, then the sound of footsteps up the stairs and coming down the hall.
The bedroom door opens slowly, and Chris walks through, wincing when his eyes land on me. “I thought you might be here.” His eyes flick to Trish and back to me, and he shakes his head.
“How’d you know?”
“Pictures on Facebook of you two all over each other.”
Facebook. Which means everyone’s going to know I spent my night with Trish. Mia’s going to know.
I expect a lecture, or at the very least that look of disappointment Chris has mastered so well. He finds my shoes on the floor and tosses them onto my chest.
“Come on. We’ve gotta go.”
I sit up and wince when the movement sends pain jackhammering through my head. “Where?”
“To the hospital.” His eyes scan my face, and even hungover and miserable, I recognize the grief in his eyes. “There was an accident.”
My gut lurches. “Mia?”
“Brogan.” He swallows and shifts his eyes to the wall. “It’s not good.”
I hop out of bed and slide on my shoes. This doesn’t feel real and I’m not sure it is, but I follow Chris wordlessly to the door.
Trish rolls over in bed. “Arrow? Where are you going?”
“He’ll call you,” Chris says. “Come on.”
My feet aren’t steady under me. My brain is a bunch of floating pieces in my skull. With every step down the stairs, I almost anticipate the floor falling out from under me.