Tessa had had enough that when her friend put her name down on the karaoke list, she didn't fight or argue. She got up and sang. It wasn't a hard song, it was one that her aunt had sung back in the little apartment in New York when Tessa had been young. She hadn't needed to read the words. She had just sang and the bright blue drink with the cherry in it made sure that she didn't worry about whether or not it was good.
She'd come to this party because she'd been invited by a friend who thought she needed to get away from studying. She did but this was not how she wanted to do it. It was a house party, loud and raucous and uncomfortably warm. Now she was drunk and singing on stage. When it was finished the self consciousness rushed back in and she hurried back to the anonymity of the crowd.
"I didn't know you could sing," a boy said as she stepped down and she grimaced at him. She wiped it off her face fast but for a moment she actually grimaced. He didn't notice or assumed it was for some other reason. He was very good at assuming that every "no" she gave him was actually for another reason. Her friend who had put her name in the song book called him, Friendzone when he wasn't around.
"Andrew," she said as a greeting. She wore boots with low heels and they suddenly didn't feel as stable as they had when she had put them on. She had a sudden terrified vision of falling over and Andrew catching her and thinking himself some sort of knight in shining armour.
"I didn't know you could sing," another voice said and it was mocking and accented and Tessa's idiot heart stuttered. If Andrew was Friendzone, this voice belonged to Jackass. He was a fiercely smart British exchange student and he was beautiful with black hair and impossibly blue eyes. But he was still best described as Jackass.
"Excuse me, I need to go sit down," she wavered and tried to step through them. Andrew reached out to take her arm and guide her and she recoiled from his hand. Jackass, the one from her Brit Lit class who said brilliant things and then leered at girls as they went by, that Jackass, hit him. A flat palm in his chest, a shove really, but it send Andrew reeling. Tessa turned to watch and her balance went. The same hand that had shoved Andrew, caught her arm and pulled her upright. She hadn't realized she was tipping.
"I don't feel well," she admitted.
"There's a very good chance that has something to do with the fact that you seem to have gotten drugged. Or you really can't handle your booze. Where did your friends go?" he asked.
She blinked at him, frowned, and he swam in and out of focus. He was holding her upright. She couldn't have done it on her own. A piece of her mind processed what he'd said and panicked. She didn't have any idea where her friends had gone. He pushed her down into a sofa and she leaned forward to put her head on her knees.
"So now you're picking up the falling down drunk girls, a wonderful new hobby, William," a soft but surprisingly angry voice said from her side and there was a hand on her shoulder that was gently comforting.
"Someone gave her something," the asshole who must be called William said.
"Not better, actually much much worse," the other one said and he was tapping on her shoulder trying to get her attention and she couldn't rouse herself enough to look at him.
"I am not going to leave her on the dance floor when she can't stand up and she couldn't tell me where her friends are," William said sounding defensive. "Jesus Jem, I'm a flirt not a monster. Now tell me what to do with the half-unconscious girl because I have no idea in all of hell. I don't know her name. She likes Dickens and has an impressive memory for poetry but I don't know her name or her friends or where she lives."
"You know what writers she likes but you don't know her name?" the angry voice was less angry now that he seemed sure his friend had good intentions.
"She's in a few of my English classes," William said and Tessa finally pushed herself up to look at him. He still wouldn't focus. A smear of dark hair and a flash of blue eyes. She was going to say something about being remembered but the words wouldn't come. When she sank back, she did it into his shoulder rather than folding up onto her lap again. He shifted as though uncomfortable but she couldn't find the energy to move again.
"Do you have a crush on this girl?" Jem asked.
"No, I do not have crushes on girls. Girls have crushes on me, it works better that way," Will said.
"You are full of it. You like her and now she's always going to remember you as the guy who probably drugged her," Jem was laughing now and rather than be annoyed that he was laughing over her while she fell unconscious he made her feel just a little safer. If that angry protective note was gone from his voice, she mustn't need protecting. It was irrational but she hung onto it.
"I did not drug her," Will said.
"I know that, you know that but the rest of the student body believes that you are an asshole Casanova with an arrogance problem. They'd believe you drug a girl. They are wrong on that but they aren't wrong on the arrogance thing, just for the record," Will sighed but Jem was still talking, "Your reputation could do with some improving."
"I like my shitty reputation," Will said. He crossed his arms, she felt them move, and Jem laughed again. It was the last thing she heard before she fell completely unconscious against Will's shoulder.
It was after 4 in the morning when the party had settled to scattered knots of the still awake that Tessa started to wake up. Her head hurt and her stomach churned and she was lying on something warm. She blinked her eyes open to see knees in jeans. She'd fallen asleep on someone's lap. There was a hand in her hair and her knees were draped over someone else.
"I thought this only happened in bad movies," she muttered and pushed herself upright. Her memory was a black hole which was terrifying. She'd never been that kind of drunk before in her life.
She looked around. Her knees were draped over a linguistics major she had only ever seen from a distance. He had been notable from a distance. He was unsettlingly beautiful up close and he had a book open on her knee. He was reading. At 4am. At a frat party. With a girl passed out on his lap. He was reading and the book wasn't in English.
"How are you?" he asked with a flash of genuine concern.
"Fine," she said because she couldn't look at someone like that and tell him the truth of how hard she was trying not to vomit on his shoes. He helped her up so that she sat in the space in the middle of the couch. She looked at the person whose lap her head had been resting on.
"I am so sorry I passed out on you the two of you," she said looking at the sleeping face of the guy from her lit class who knew more of the canon than she did and had a horrible attitude. He was beautiful in a completely different way than his friend. He was the kind of handsome that stopped a room, Adonis in the dark. She wanted to slap herself for that thought. Asleep, he was distinctly less intimidating but still beautiful.
"Will did haul you off the dance floor when you passed out. It's his fault," the beautiful boy shook ink black hair out of his eyes and leaned forward to shove Will in the face until he woke up scowling. His eyes met Tessa's and the scowl vanished into alarm before smoothing out into a charming smile that seemed much less real after she'd had a glimpse of the two other reactions.
"I'm going to get you a glass of water," Will said and then he was gone. She blinked at the spot he had vacated. He'd gone from asleep to moving like a lightening bolt in a split second.
"He will kill me for saying this but he likes you," the boy she was left with said, leaning forward as though telling a secret.
"That guy doesn't like people, he likes boobs," Tessa said.
"Will recognized you from a distance, went over to watch you sing, knows every class he ever had with you and has all your favourite authors memorized. I think he likes you. He's also never spoken to you which might seem like evidence to the contrary but trust me, it's a sign he likes you. He had a bit of a panic attack when you passed out and I think if he ever finds out who brought you to this party and then left you half-conscious and alone, he's going to hurt them. I'm probably going to have to stop another fight even if they deserve it. He is not nearly as much of an asshole as he pretends to be," he said.
Tessa stared at him and then suddenly she was making apologies and checking her pocket for her keys and then she was leaving. She was leaving because no one had ever told her that someone had been watching her and memorizing her favourite authors and getting into fights on her behalf. She was leaving because she was sick to her stomach and her hair was a mess and she was suddenly staggered by the weight of the what-ifs from the party.
She left before he got back with her water. She left before she told him her name.
