Being home right now is some kind of miracle. The day just seemed to drag on and on and now my only plan is to collapse onto the couch and sleep there until Nate creeps through the door and carries me off to bed.
Hmmm, yeah, that sounds perfect.
Within seconds of my head hitting the cushion, I’m drifting off to sleep.
I startle awake as a fist pounds into the door. I blink back a few times into the dark room. What the hell is going on?
“Open the door already,” Jackson’s demanding voice comes shouting through the hard wooden door.
“Alright, alright,” Brooke groans from somewhere in the house. I sit up on the couch and look over the top of the of it, watching Brooke come up the hallway. I must have really been out. I didn’t even realize she’d come home. “Oh, look,” Brooke cheers as she sees my head poking over the top of the couch. “You’re awake.”
“Hey,” Jackson demands. “What’s going on in there?”
Brooke ignores him and makes her way around to the couch and drops down beside me. “How was your sleep?”
“Good, I think,” I tell her as Jackson continues knocking on the door. “I was so tired, I just kind of crashed. It feels like I only just walked through the door.”
“Hey,” I hear Jackson whining. I look back over Brooke’s shoulder to see Jackson standing at the window, watching us on the couch. “Let me in.”
Brooke laughs as she takes him in, finally takes pity on the poor guy and gets up. She slinks over to the door and pulls it open.
Jackson barges his way through the door with a wide smile as he bounces on his toes. “You guys up for a party?”
“Hell yeah,” Brooke cheers.
“What?” I grunt. “It’s Tuesday night.”
“It’s college,” Jackson cheers. “Every night is party night. Now, are you in? Or are you going to be a basic bitch and stay home, studying?”
“I’m in,” Brooke squeals, racing down to her room to start getting ready.
“What kind of party?” I question, leaning back against the couch.
“I don’t know. A house party. The football team is putting it on.”
“Oh, geez,” I laugh. “That couldn’t be good.”
“Come on,” Jackson says. “You haven’t had any fun since you started college. You’ve been working your ass off with your face constantly in your textbooks. It’s time to let loose and enjoy the other part of college life. Get a few drinks inside you.”
I let out a groan as I watch the smile slowly creep over his face. “Fine,” I groan, pulling myself off the couch. I mean, Brooke is going to need someone to watch her while she annihilates herself, and no doubt if it’s a football party, Lukas is going to be there and though she doesn’t know it, she’s going to need me to keep her away from him. It’s going to be one hell of a big challenge.
“Yes,” Jackson hollers through the house before he breaks into some ridiculous dance.
I trudge down the hall, still trying to wake myself up with Jackson following behind me. Brooke has already got music blasting from her room and Jackson stops on the way to poke his head in. She squeals out and Jackson hastily pulls his head back out.
“Shit,” he laughs as he makes his way down to my room. “Brooke has a nice ass.”
“Uh huh,” I agree, pulling open my closet. I find my favorite pair of ripped jeans and a white crop before closing the door on Jackson’s face. I quickly change before opening it up again and allowing Jackson into my room as I fix my hair and pull on my combat boots.
Jackson lays back on my bed and looks around my room as he chats away about how he’s missing seeing Elle every day, but she’s not far and still talks to her every day. I roll my eyes, still a little too tired to truly be taking in a word he says.
Brooke appears in my doorway and practically hauls me out of my room. We walk up the hall, turning off lights and closing up the house as we go. Brooke allows me about two seconds to grab my phone off the edge of the couch before pulling me straight out the door and over to Jackson’s Charger.
We pull up at the party ten minutes later to find the street packed with bodies. There are red cups already littering the front yard and are seen halfway up the street. “Holy shit,” Brooke gasps as we take it all in. “This is huge.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve been to hundreds of parties over the past few years, most of them being over the past little while and none of them compares to this, not even Nate or Jesse’s parties. I mean, this is wild. There are bodies everywhere. Music is turned up. There’s a fight spilling on to the street.