Unsteady

Getting Rora to a party is like pulling teeth—but somehow, getting her out of it, is even worse. Especially tonight, because despite my efforts to keep her sober, she is bubbly drunk.

I bang on the bathroom door again, brow furrowed in concern.

“Rora?” I call again. “You okay?”

There’s a long moment of silence, and for a moment I think about trying to bust down the door. Instead, I press my ear against the door again and play with a lock of my hair from my now-unbraided ponytail, twirling it round and round, looping through my fingers in a pattern.

Finally, a loud clatter, and then, “I’m okay!” shouted a bit too loudly from inside. I hear the sink running and settle myself against the wall, closing my eyes and tipping my head back.

The party had originally been my idea, but Aurora had agreed after I took a sharpie to her College Bucket List and added attending this specific party with me. It’s partially for me, but also for her to feel something good again instead of getting lost in her head—her “I have a boyfriend now,” complaints were heard and blatantly ignored because no way in hell would I be tolerating the way I’d seen him treat her in the very few times we’d met over the summer.

Tyler is still at an intensive program for biomedical engineering. Rora wouldn’t tell me what happened, but I saw the texts over her shoulder while doing her hair in our dorm bathroom. She let him know about going with me to the party, while he requested photos of her and then ghosted her in the middle of their conversation after a flippant text that said “ok.”

She isn’t as overtly sad now, buried beneath the shots of tequila we took before dancing until all she could think of was pulling at the high hem of her patterned lilac shorts, and all I can think about is putting my skate blade through his neck next time I see him.

“That bad of a party?”

His voice feels like cool silk against my heated, flushed skin.

I open my eyes, greeted with the sight of Rhys, looking completely put together and very un-vulnerable—a first for our interactions.

Having not seen him in weeks, the urge to ask him if he’s okay, if he’s had another panic attack or if he’s ready for his first real practice back—still marked in blue sharpie on my own calendar—is overwhelming.

My eyes eat him up. His long, lean body is fitted into dark jeans and a crisp black tee that molds lightly to his biceps as he leans against the wall across from me. I notice the clear quality of his eyes and a light flush to his cheeks; he isn’t drunk, but he’s had something to drink. Which is somehow more confusing because I hadn’t noticed him anywhere in this house.

“Why do you say that?” I ask, pressing my hands down the skirt of my dress, pulling at the hem slightly. I hate the wave of self-consciousness that buzzes through me as he takes me in, his eyes quick in their scan of my very short gray silk dress and white platform Converse that have double insoles for my aching feet.

I might look slightly overdressed in a sea of denim and leather, but I look a thousand times hotter than I actually feel, not to mention that the dress makes it much easier to get in and out of this party with what I came for—a quick distraction.

Which my traitorous mind is now thinking should be the hotshot who has appeared at my side like a wish granted.

“Because, it’s almost one in the morning and you don’t even look buzzed.”

“How do I look then, hotshot?” I ask, smirking despite my earlier self-promises to forget about the boy with the blues.

“Like you’re in pain,” he snaps out, more fire in him now that he’s had in our previous interactions. The snippiness of his statements and the gleam in his eyes, only make me suddenly warmer, flushing red across my pale skin.

Like you’re in pain.

Jesus Christ.

Is that how it goes then? All the depth of truth I’ve seen from his eyes and his obvious panic is only reflected back at me—where I saw through him so easily, he can now see through me, like some twisted, broken mirror.

“Way to ruin a party mood,” I manage to grit out beneath a sudden suffocating wave of nausea before turning to knock at the door again, praying for an escape from the torment of his warm chocolate eyes.

“You weren’t in a party mood.”

“No?” I snap, eyes squinting towards him over my shoulder, tossing my ponytail with the swiftness of my movement. “Why do you think—”

The door bursts open, a tipsy Rora stumbles out, giggling and hiccupping like a drunken little fairy. She spots us both, her eyes going wide as she finishes fixing the strapless striped top to her matching shorts set, before pulling at her tall pale cream boots that give her an extra few inches over me she doesn’t truly need.

Grabbing me around the shoulders, she leans in and offers her hand to Rhys who takes it gently.

“I’m Rora.” She smirks, continuing to side-eye me and wiggle her eyebrows.

“Rhys,” he offers. His smile towards her is dazzling, and I see tipsy, overly romantic Rora looking a little star struck.

“Rora.” I smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. “Can you give us a minute? I’ll come down and meet you, and we can go.”

“I thought you and Sean—”

My hand slaps over her freshly re-glossed lips, before pulling it swiftly away and wiping the sticky residue on my bare legs. Rora frowns dramatically at me, her cheeks burning as she takes in my face while I dutifully ignore the heat of Rhys’ gaze on my skin.

“Tell Sean I changed my mind. Since your English class buddy is hanging around, maybe you can talk to him.”

Rora’s face only flushes further as she giggles and backs up to hold onto the wall—but it isn’t a wall she’s grabbed, it’s a boy. One I also recognize.

The tall, lean and muscular body comes to a halt, letting Aurora completely mold to him as she stumbles and holds onto him. He settles his hands on her hips to catch her stumbling, his boyish face glinting with stars in his eyes like a perfect prize just fell into his lap—and, in all fairness, it kind of did.

“Sorry,” Rora breathes out, her face tilting up towards him. Her curls cascade down her back, the flower clips I spent an hour meticulously putting in sliding down the strands, barely keeping them half up now.

The man holding her bursts another wide smile, his famous one that every girl at this party—hell, nearly every girl on campus—has succumbed to before. It’s not hard to guess why—a tall, muscular hockey god himself, yes—but Matt Fredderic looks like pure gold. A handsome face, somehow angular and soft at the same time, with carved smile lines like a supermodel version of a young Heath Ledger.

It definitely doesn’t help that he’s dressed like he walked off some Greek style vacation ad, the white linen short sleeve button-up offsetting his golden skin and unbuttoned loosely at the top, a chain and medallion of gold glinting in the dim hall light.

“You’re good, princess.” His mouth curves, hands touching the ends of her curls that draw all the way down her back. “Need some help?”

“Nope,” I snap out, grabbing Rora’s hand and yanking her away from trouble with a capital T. I know for a fact that if she were sober, her entire body would’ve jerked away from this man the second she accidentally brushed him. “No funny business, sleeping beauty—now, go. I’ll come find you.”

Rora grumbles at the nickname, but releases where she’s still holding the playboy behind her on his wrist and slinks down the stairs, albeit unsteadily. Matt watches her with that same little glimmer in his eyes.

“Absolutely not,” both Rhys and I say quickly and at exactly the same time.

“I didn’t do anything!” he barks, hands raising high in surrender. “I was only up here looking for your dumbass.” He points an accusatory finger at Rhys. “Text Reiner back, he doesn’t believe me that I don’t have you drunk off your ass.”

“I’ll tell him we’ll be home soon.”

“Why?” I ask, regretting the word vomit immediately as Rhys looks up, a little shell-shocked and a little confused, but the corners of his mouth lift slightly. Freddy is smirking, walking backwards and making himself scarce. “I mean—”

“Want me to stay?” he asks, the smile aching to burst forward is barely held back. He stays where he is, like I might scare off if he gets too close.

“I’d like to see your stamina when you’re not fresh off an adrenaline high crash.”

He lets out a quick laugh, so unbidden that he looks nearly shocked by it, before shaking his head and closing his eyes, stalking towards me.

Before he gets to me, a different body cuts him off, pressing me into the wall and grinding down—ignorant of present company and oblivious to my disinterest.

Sean—last name redacted since I can’t seem to remember it—seemed like a good idea when he joined me on the dance floor earlier in the evening, considering he’d been a regular hook up of mine during the absolute downfall of my life last semester. It seemed even more like a good idea when he’d started drawing circles and massaging my calves while chatting away about nothing I cared to hear. His hands are strong, rough enough that they might leave a mark, so I’d subtly hinted at him earlier.

But it seems after seeing only Rora come back down, he took that as an invite.

“Are you trying to eat me?” I snap, shoving him off in spite of the embarrassment of this happening while Rhys can see.

I hate that prick of self-consciousness as much as I hate the immediate, obvious flush to my cheeks. It’s not the hooking up I’m embarrassed of—I’ve always been unashamed of my sexuality; my choices to do what I want with who I want. Hook-ups only, that’s my MO and I refuse to apologize for it; if men don’t have to, why should I?

I enjoy myself, and get what I need—most of the time.

So, why does Rhys being here make my stomach hurt?

“That’s the plan, babe.” He smirks, crowding into me again. “Ready now?”

My face only flushes further as I shove him off, again. “Not interested, actually. Get. Off.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.” He laughs, backing off barely an inch, but enough to notice someone lurking behind him. Spinning on his feet, he braces back against the wall, angling to my shoulder like he might slip around me at any moment, nodding his head towards Rhys with a quick smile. “Oh shit. Koteskiy, hey.”

The drawn out hey does nothing to erase the tightness around Rhys’ eyes. Still, he plasters a smile across his mouth and drops his chin in a quick, cool acknowledgement, before his eyes are back on me. It’s hard to wrestle with the want in my chest, making my heart thrum with the effort not to sprint towards him and use him like a personal shield from the ghost of my lowest moments.

“Gonna make it to Frozen Four this year?”

“That’s the plan,” Rhys replies, hands shoved into pockets, quirking an eyebrow at my tense stance. “Okay, Gray?”

His question to me isn’t any softer, but something about it is different… familiar. Genuine, but quiet, like the soft sadness etched permanently into his eyes that no one besides me seems able to see.

“Gray?” Sean mocks, laughing, his arm dropping onto my shoulder like a heavy weight. I wonder if I stopped trying to stay upright, would I sink into the floor? “Oh, am I interrupting something?”

“Yes,” Koteskiy says, at the same time I blurt, “No.”

Rhys’ gaze turns darker, a feat I didn’t think possible, before I shrug Sean off and slink away from them both.

Sean guffaws loudly, the sound grating to my ears. “Koteskiy, huh? Upping the competition this year, Sadie?” He bumps me with his hip, green eyes on fire as he takes me in again.

It’s my fault that he feels this way, because what he’s saying isn’t wrong—it’s completely true. Last semester, I spent an exorbitant amount of time playing with his drunk frat buddies just to get some kind of fire beneath him, so he would pull me upstairs and wreck me instead of trying to romance me. If Sean sees Rhys Koteskiy as some sort of game between us, it’s only because I put that thought there.

I should be nicer about it, but I find myself somehow angrier—at myself, at Sean. Even at Rhys for whatever painful dance we are doing with each other.

“That’s not what this is,” I finally concede, hating that a part of me still wants to grab Sean by the hand and lead him into the now-vacant bathroom, let him slip into my body while I close my eyes and only think of Rhys. His deep brown eyes gazing up at me perched on his lap and the sound of his heavy breaths against my skin…

It would be so much easier to leave after that, to pull down my dress and get the hell out of this suffocating house.

But, I can’t.

“Listen—”

Whatever Sean is going to say is cut off sharply, as Rhys grabs a hold of his shoulder and stops him as he attempts to crowd me again.

“Having trouble hearing?” he says, shoving Sean back hard enough that he trips, despite the fact that Rhys has barely moved. “She’s told you to get off of her repeatedly.” His voice is calm even as the storms gather in his eyes.

“You don’t know Sadie, it’s all fucking games to her man.”

Every bit of confidence I walked in here with tonight is gone, shredded. I wait for Rhys to pull away, but he only looks at me. Like he wants me to refute the claims, instead of standing here, avoiding his gaze, completely shrunken in on myself.

Normally, I would. I’d love to bite Sean’s head off. But I feel so full of everything, I need a release…

“Fine,” Rhy offers, stepping closer to me. His stance is all power, towering over Sean’s too-relaxed form and semi-shielding mine. His hand settles on my waist, slipping around to press against the low of my middle back. “Then she can play them with me. Get the fuck out of here.”

The warmth building in my chest spreads throughout my body, head to toe, my pulse racing. The weighted heat of his palm is searing through the thin silk of my dress.

I want to kiss him, like some school girl who’s had her virtue protected, like he’s some knight in shining armor.

“It’s my house.”

Warm brown eyes go nearly black, fists clenching, and by Sean’s unintentional step backwards, I realize maybe this erratic behavior isn’t normal for the hockey star. I reach for Rhys’ hand quickly, wrapping a hand around his wrist.

“We’re leaving,” I say, with more confidence than I feel, snapping my entire body forward hard enough that it jolts Rhys into me. His hands mold to my middle, keeping me upright and making me hyper aware of how large his palms compare to my waist.

I stop short as Sean shoves past both of us and stomps down the stairs, his angry mumbles barely audible above music so loud the walls shake.

Rhys’ breath flutters against my hair in the opening of the stairwell where I’ve abruptly stopped. “Some kind of warning would be nice next time, babe. Unless you want to sideline me for my last season.”

His use of that little sneered name works like a drug, relaxing every tense muscle through my neck, back and arms. It’s almost ridiculous how much I can tell he’s trying to calm me, when I barely acknowledge my anxiety about it all in the first place.

I snort without meaning to, tilting my head up at him while I snip, “A fall down the stairs would end your entire season? I thought you hockey boys are indestructible.”

It takes only a moment to realize I’ve said something wrong, crossed some unspoken boundary with my words. His face tightens, eyes filling again with that deep well of pain I’ve seen in them, more often than not, before he adjusts his mask and grants me a small, quick smile.

“I need to find my friend.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say.

He nods towards the stairs leading to the thumping party. “Me too.”

But neither of us move.

Something is making me hesitate, keeping my body pressed to his as “The Hills” by the Weeknd starts to blare from downstairs. I should go downstairs, find Rora, go back home and finish myself off. I should…

Spinning, I grab Rhys’ wrist in my hand and pull him again, straight into the still vacant bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it behind me. There isn’t much light, just a dusty red glow from the painted bulbs someone had installed for the party. The walls shake with the bass from below, the song bleeding loudly through the cracks around the door as I grab onto the black fabric of his shirt.

“Sadie, I—”

“Yes or no, hotshot.” It’s more of a statement than a question, but my entire brain feels like it’s hanging by a thread, barely sane through the overwhelming thoughts that could’ve been drowned out by someone else’s touch by now.

Rhys looks nearly in pain, his brown eyes dilated, red light flickering over his chiseled handsome face where his sharp jaw stays tight. I watch the thick column of his throat work, only getting hotter with the image of him as he makes his decision.

“I’m only doing this if we talk after.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Sadie.” He tries again, grasping my hair in his hand and holding me still while angling his mouth to my ear. “I don’t do this… party bathroom hookups? That’s not…”

The rejection stings, and I jerk out of his hold, ignoring the slight pain of my scalp as I wrench my head from his grasp. “But locker rooms are perfectly fine? As long as it’s to soothe your shit, not mine, yeah?”

It doesn’t register what I’ve said, what I’ve revealed, until I’m reaching for the doorknob, desperate to escape.