“Really?” My forehead furrows. “Why? I mean, I know Derrick can be a little bossy sometimes, but he’s devoted to Evie. Always has been.”
Cameron’s brows shoot up his forehead. “Um, yeah…that’s one way of looking at it.”
“What’s the other way of looking at it?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“He’s a control freak,” Cameron says. “Who bosses Evie around like she’s still five years old. It’s disrespectful. She’s a grown woman with a good head on her shoulders.” He winces and lifts a hand in the air. “Usually. Tonight was just a bad night. Vince really did a number on her.”
“She was into him, huh?” I ask, vaguely disgusted by the thought. That guy was so cheesy. Evie deserves so much better than a douchebag with a cartoon beard.
“No, not really,” Cameron says, moving into the kitchen and opening one of the cabinets to fetch a glass. “I mean, yeah, she liked him, but they weren’t to the ‘I love you’ stage or anything. It’s more what he said to her on his way out the door, if you know what I mean. It fucked with her head.”
I’m about to ask what he said when Harlow calls from the bathroom, “Cam, where’s that water? Our drunk pumpkin is coming around in the cold shower and would like a drink, pretty please.”
“Just a second,” Cam calls out, filling the glass and moving around me to head toward the bathroom.
I’m left alone in their kitchen, staring at pictures of the four friends throughout the years stuck to the fridge with donut-shaped magnets, feeling like an interloper.
I should leave—the rest of them clearly have Evie well in hand—but for some reason I linger, studying each photo, marveling at how little Evie has changed since the shot of her and Harlow on the boardwalk when they were kids. She still has the same halo of blonde curls, the same bright, but slightly anxious light in her eyes, even the same paint-splattered overalls, though the ones in the photo are obviously a much smaller size.
I’ve always assumed that was just Evie being Evie—she found her signature style at a young age and stuck to it, nothing wrong with that. But what Cameron said, combined with Evie’s words at the beer garden, about having to choose between being a “good girl” or a “hot girl,” make me question that assumption.
Memories of Derrick giving Evie shit for wearing lip gloss in seventh grade and telling her to go change when she tried to get into the car wearing a short skirt one morning not long after drift through my head, making my stomach tighten.
Maybe Derrick has been overstepping with Evie. And maybe that’s been happening for longer than I realized…
I reach for my cell to send Derrick a text asking if we can get together for a talk—I’ve found it’s better to confront problems with friends right away than to let them fester—but when I pull out my phone, I’m confronted with several missed texts from Whitney.
I can’t believe you’re leaving with a girl who just puked all over the place in public.
That’s it, Ian.
I can’t do this with you anymore.
If you decide you’re ready to grow up, let me know. Maybe I’ll still be single by then, but maybe I won’t. You aren’t the only one who can find someone else to go home with, but my new guy won’t be a kid who can’t handle his liquor.
Have a nice life!
Fuck. Well, looks like I don’t have to worry about making up with my girlfriend. I don’t have one anymore.
Chapter 5
Evie
For the first thirty minutes after arriving home, I’m too out of it to worry about anything but staying upright in the shower, eating the crackers and water Harlow shoves through the shower curtain for me to munch as I’m standing under the spray, and brushing my teeth for at least five glorious minutes.
But once the crackers are digesting, I’m dressed in a pair of flannel pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt, and feeling more peaceful in my body, the implications of what happened tonight start to hit—hard.
I sink into the couch in the living room, clutching one of our throw pillows as I squeak, “Tell me I didn’t shout at Vince about my dark sexy urges. Please. Tell me that was a hallucination.”
“Not a hallucination,” Jess says from the plush chair across from me, her expression sober in the soft glow from her laptop. “And already going viral. I ran a search of the top social media applications. #DrunkGirlUrges is already trending on several.”
I cover my face with my hands and let out a long groan.
“I guess that means you don’t want to see it?” Jess asks, nodding toward her screen. “You look cute for a drunk girl. Until the vomiting starts. The vomit shot is already a meme, by the way.”