t allowed to be harmlessly flirting. Not even for the game. Zayden Sinclair and his crazy contract.
“Guys, I’m sorry to be a party pooper, but I can’t,” I said, frowning at the menu the waitress had brought me.
“Don’t be silly, Aria, of course you can,” Nick said, eyeing Brianna as though mentally weighing how difficult it would be to get her number.
“No, I can’t,” I shook my head. “Not in a dramatic, crappy mood kind of a way. Not like I don’t want to. I really, truly, legally can’t.”
Stacey squinted her eyes. “What do you mean?” When I didn’t respond for a while, she said more sternly, “Aria? What do you mean legally?”
“Can we please talk about it tomorrow? I just… I am glad to be out here with you guys and want to try and enjoy my evening. I’ll tell you all about it, I promise,” I said, looking at Stacey, then Nick coughed. “You too, Nick. Brunch tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything. For now though, three shots of tequila?”
“I’ve waited all day to hear those words,” Stacy said, dumping her head onto the table dramatically.
I ordered some nachos to go with my tequila, and when it arrived, one of the guys from the birthday crowd yelled “Woohoo!” and joined us from a distance. It was quite comical since he could barely stand, and was trying to take that final shot that would make him pass out. This was obviously not their first party. It sucked that I couldn’t play Numbers; it was bound to be super easy under the circumstances.
With every passing drink, the reasoning why I couldn’t play the game sounded more and more feeble. So some guy made me sign some dumb contract; it couldn’t be legally binding. That’s not how contracts worked. And even if it was, what’s the worst that could happen?
Jail, I heard a tiny voice in my head say. I could get sent to prison. So? The drunk Aria fought back. I’d seen “Orange is the New Black,” I could totally withstand prison. I just had to learn how to smuggle cigarettes in and…
“Aria.” Stacey was snapping her fingers in front of my face. “Are you okay? You’ve been spaced out for a while now. Do you wanna go home?”
“Go home?” I laughed loud enough for the people on the other end of the room to hear. “Go home? It’s not even…” I looked at my wrist and was extremely disappointed to see no watch there. “It’s not even time…to go home…you know, like time?”
Nick was laughing uncontrollably now, and I wondered if he was on the same level as I was. If not – if they were both not – this was going to get really embarrassing tomorrow.
“Where are our shots?” I surveyed the whole room, as though they would just materialize from a random corner.
“We haven’t ordered any,” Stacey said, and I could swear she was slurring her words too, making me feel better.
“Well, we gotta fix that,” I said, then shouted, “SHOTS!”
Everything after that point was hazy. I was running around the bar talking to anyone and everyone. There were shots and more shots, and at one point I think I did a keg stand – or maybe Stacey did one and I felt uncomfortable just watching her. I was next to the birthday girl, cheering her on…we started taking shots together…I was fiddling with my phone. It felt like I was in a horribly made movie. After one last birthday shot with Brianna, everything went completely blank.
---
I woke up feeling the weight of the whole universe in my head. Slowly opening my eyes, afraid of the light, I surveyed the room to make sure it was my own. Phew. And I was alone, fully clothed, thank God. I licked my lips, still flat on my bed, head pounding, feeling extremely dehydrated. Reaching for the glass of water next to my bed was an enormous struggle and when I finally grabbed it, it was gone in seconds. What was going on with me?
Then I remembered…last night…the bar…the shots…the birthday party. My last hazy memory was dancing with the birthday girl, after which my mind went blank. I had no idea how or when we had gotten home. I pulled out my phone to call Stacey – it felt like too much effort to go over to the other room – and then almost had a mini heart attack.
There were 13 texts from Zayden, and one from Brianna (the birthday girl?) saying “New bestieeeee!!!!”
I shuddered to think of what may have caused her to give me that coveted title. I must have done something crazy…danced on the bar counter? That wasn’t something I was completely innocent of.
No wonder Zayden’s texts sounded so concerned. Pretty much all of them were some variant of asking me if I was okay. What did I say to him? Shit.
I scrolled through my Sent box to see an embarrassing number of texts to Zayden. Not much was decipherable, but one of them said, “im non ibject.” Even I could translate that to “I’m not an object.” And another one that said “fyk ue contact.” I could only assume that meant “Fuck your contract.” Then there was “ehy camt I play mumbs lke evry1 eler huh.” “Why can’t I play Numbers like everyone else.” This made me extremely glad that nobody else outside of Nick, me, and Stacey knew what Numbers was.
To my utter and complete horror, the phone rang, and it was Zayden. I thumbed the green Answer button and weakly pressed the phone to my ear.
“Yes?” I spoke softly.
“What’s up drunky?” He said. I could feel him grinning through the phone and it made me want to throw something.
I mumbled “Go away,” but didn’t hang up the phone.
“Still unable to speak, I see. That was the theme last night.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the texts…wait…what was the theme of last night?”