Biker's Virgin

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

I admit, it felt pretty awkward. “I'm just coming to pick up some clothes,” I said. “As I’m sure you can imagine, Mom was pretty pissed. She’s insisting I stay at her place for the rest of the week while she, uh, while she tries to sort this situation out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” I replied. I headed to my room and packed a few things into my backpack. I left it there and went into the kitchen to grab a snack. It was weird seeing the refrigerator empty of alcohol. Usually, it was packed full of beer and the closets were full of bottles of liquor. But all of that was gone, confiscated by the local P.D. I sighed, shook my head, grabbed a snack, and then headed back into the living room and sat down with Chris.

“It was your friend, Brooke, who did this, ya know,” he said flatly. “I'm sure of it.”

“Yeah. You said th

at last night, but what makes you so sure?”

“My room is next to hers.”

“How do you know that?”

“I can sometimes hear her through the wall, talking on Skype to whoever. It's a little muffled, but I can tell it's her voice, not her roommate Leslie's.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So, if I can hear her through the wall, she can totally hear me. And you know how… noisy things can get in my room sometimes.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I know. Trust me.”

“Well, anyway. So, yeah, I'm totally sure it must have been that bitch who called the cops. It had to have been.”

Part of me wanted to punch him for calling her any kind of name—actually, a very big part of me wanted to. I wanted to defend her. It wasn't her fault Chris was a noisy, inconsiderate ass. I knew how seriously Brooke took her studies, and if it was true the wall between her room and Chris' was so thin, well… I could understand just how much she must have been putting up with since she moved into the apartment next door. I could understand why she would have felt frustrated, even angry.

But another part of me agreed with Chris. She knew how severe the consequences would be for us if the cops showed up, and she called them anyway. Couldn't she have just come over and asked Chris to turn it down like she had before?

“Yeah,” I said. “It was a shitty thing to do. But let’s not call her names, okay?”

Chris rolled his eyes. “Well, I hope you're never gonna speak to that… her again after what she's done to us,” he said sourly. “Seriously, bro. If she were a guy, I would have kicked her damn teeth in by now. She's damn lucky she's a chick or I would have gone seriously medieval on her ass.”

There wasn't much I could say in response, so I let it go.

“Wanna go out and get a beer?” Chris asked.

I couldn't help but laugh. “After all the shit that's just happened, dude?”

He flashed a cheeky grin at me. “Totally, brah.”

I shrugged. “Whatever, screw it. Let's go.”

***

“One more Jägermeister shot!” Chris slurred next to me. “C-c-come on dude, just one m-m-more!”

I raised my hand above my head and cheered. “Hell yeah! One m-more!”

The bartender brought us two shots of Jägermeister, which we knocked back immediately. I felt bile rising in the back of my throat and my vision was definitely starting to swim. One more drink would have pushed me over the edge. As it was, I'd already have to sneak in to my mom’s house and get to my room without her seeing me. If she’d known I'd gone out and gotten drunk… Well, I didn't even want to imagine what sort of consequences I'd have to deal with.

I was about to stand up to leave when I felt a hand on my shoulder—a soft, feminine hand. I turned around. “Melissa.”

“Hi, Emerson. Long time no see!”