AN; So the party chapter has come, and it'll be in two parts. I'm writing the next part now so that should be up within a day or two! Please enjoy everybody!
Alicia parked halfway down the street from Andrew's house and she could already hear the loud music and shouting that was associated with parties. She still couldn't settle her stomach, even though Claudia tried by giving her some dry toast and reassurances that she wouldn't bail on Alicia this time. And though that wasn't the reason, Alicia wouldn't tell Claudia that. It'd give her too much satisfaction to know why Alicia was feeling so nervous.
They walked down the street at a normal pace and got to the gate of Andrew's house. Alicia pulled on Claudia's arm and turned her around so Alicia could see her face.
"Under no circumstances are you to let me stand around alone looking like someone who doesn't know how to have a good time at a reckless pool party. Got it?" She was deadly serious with her friend. It would be the worst thing for her to be seen that way, especially at this party in particular.
"I swear on my life. You will not be left alone." Claudia pulled Alicia in for a hug then grabbed her hand and they walked through the yard to get to the backyard gate. At this point Alicia could barely hear herself think the music was so loud. She had no idea what the song was and she wasn't all that into it but she could see how people might like it to be played at wild parties. The friends went through the gate and started to observe the chaos that had already begun. They certainly weren't the first to arrive but they wouldn't the last. The two girls walked around the pool a bit and stood close to the make-shift lifeguard chair. No one was sitting in it currently and Alicia wondered why these boys would build it if no one would use it.
Claudia pulled her out of her thoughts as she pressed her mouth to Alicia's ear.
"I'm going to get a drink. Do you want one?" She yelled into her ear, and yet Alicia barely heard her. She just shook her head, she wasn't one to drink alcohol. "I'll be right back!" Claudia let go of her hand and made her way through the people standing around the pool to get to the keg.
Alicia continued to look around at who was at the party. There were definitely kids who weren't even seniors in attendance and she told herself to let it go, it was normal. She remembered Owen's words that everybody went. She just didn't know how serious he had been. She scanned the yard and then spotted somebody pushing their way out from the dance floor crowd. Dance floor was putting in generously; it was just an area in front of the DJ booth where everybody danced. If you could call it that. She'd call it flailing.
The boy was dressed in bright red pool shorts and a red and white striped shirt. He must act as the lifeguard, she thought. She couldn't quite recognize him because of how dark it was. She watched him cross the yard, chatting and giving fist bumps along the way and then climbed the very dodgy looking lifeguard's chair and just sat there, twirling the piece of string he had that held a whistle at the end. There were only a few people in the pool, and she could tell why. She was very cold, so she was glad she didn't wear any less clothes. Soon Claudia returned holding a cup that didn't smell all that appealing.
"What's in the cup?" She tried to yell into Claudia's ear.
"Something with tequila!" She yelled back. As far as she knew tequila was fairly strong stuff and she almost vowed right then and there to never drink it but Claudia held it out to her.
"Just try it!" Her friend yelled into her ear.
"I have to drive us home!"
"One sip is fine at the beginning." Alicia seriously considered that. It was true that one sip at the beginning of the night would in no way affect her driving ability. So she looked at Claudia then slowly reached her hand up to the cup. She'd have to try it to know for sure she would never drink it again. She grabbed the cup and looked to her friend who had the widest smile on her face. She turned her face away from Alicia and let out a loud 'Wooo!'. She got a few yells back and then Alicia reached the cup up to her lips. She knew it was the beginning of a rather crazy night. She took a quick sip and tasted the tequila straight away, and surprisingly, it wasn't horrible. Strong, but not horrendous. She was about to take another sip but the loud noise of the lifeguard's whistle distracted her. She turned around and looked at the guy who was pointing across the pool and blowing the whistle again. She looked in the direction he was pointing and noticed that some of the people had formed a small pathway. The next thing she saw was another boy running through the people and jumping high into the air before pulling his knees up to his chest and plunging into the pool, causing a huge splash. There were a lot of screams and yells of excitement over the guy who had just cannonballed into the pool.
"Who was that?" Claudia yelled into her ear before taking the cup back from Alicia's grip.
"An idiot." Alicia murmured to herself. Then she just shrugged her shoulders as a response to Claudia and turned away from the pool. "I'm getting water or something." She yelled to her friend, realizing that she would not have a voice in the morning. Claudia nodded and Alicia started to make her way through the crowd of people. She got a few interesting looks on her way to the house. Obviously people were surprised to see her at a school related party. She couldn't care less though. If they wanted to be shocked, then she'd let them be just that. She was almost at the back door of the house when she heard someone call out her name.
"Alicia, hey!" She spun around and managed to see through the darkness that it was Will Gardner. He was soaking wet and was rubbing a towel against his hair trying to dry it. He smiled at her and that was when she lost feeling in her legs. She stumbled a little bit, which she thought must have looked ridiculous because she was just standing there. She felt her cheeks burn red as Will reach out to her to make sure she didn't fall flat on her face.
"Woah, are you okay?" He chuckled lightly. Probably not at her clumsiness, hopefully actually.
"Yeah, fine! I'm clumsy." She smiled at him, trying to be nice and not seem like the lunatic who randomly falls over like an old woman.
"I was just getting a drink, want to come?" He smiled at her again as he pulled the towel over his shoulders and held onto each end with his hands.
"Sure." He started walked in the same direction she was originally going and couldn't help but notice his chest. She wasn't one to really find anyone so darn attractive, but it was hard when there was a very cute, very nice guy who had his shirt off and was dripping with water. She followed him into the house which was a lot less rowdy than outdoors. There were some people standing here and there with some friends, just talking. Probably because it was a lot easier to hear people. She followed Will to the kitchen. They bench tops were covered in bottles of alcohol and a lot of cups. Will took two cups and filled them with some lemonade. He then reached for a bottle of something clear.
"Oh none for me. I'm driving later." He smiled and nodded, continuing to pour some of the liquid into only one cup. "So, cannonballs?"
"I just thought I'd get things going out there. Plus I've already had a few." He let out a hearty laugh and Alicia smiled awkwardly. He probably shouldn't be doing ridiculous stunts into a swimming pool if he had already been drinking.
"I'm glad to see you here." He told her after taking a gulp of the drink and handing out the other cup to her. "Some of the guys said you'd never in a million years come." Oh great, he was talking about her around the guys. That made her a lot more nervous than she already was.
"You talk about me?" She asked confused. Normal girls would probably put a flirty hint on that but she couldn't possibly find any reason as to why Will would talk about her.
He looked down at his feet and slowly pulled his head up, meeting her gaze. "Yeah. Well, I mean, I was just mentioning that I would have liked to see you come and they told me that." She nodded slowly, swallowing his words, and still confused. "Why would they think you wouldn't be here?"
"Oh, I'm just not a party type person." She answered candidly.
"But you're here tonight…"
"I, well, my friend needed to have a designated driver and she convinced me to do it." Not the entire truth but it'd do. Alicia couldn't tell him that he was a major factor into deciding to attend tonight.
"Okay. That's nice of you." He didn't sound impressed or convinced by her answer, and that worried her.
"Yep." She had nothing else to say. She could not for the life of her find another topic to talk about because all she could notice was the small drops of water dripping from his hair and falling onto his chest. She hadn't noticed it before but since they weren't talking now, it was all she saw.
"Want to go for a swim?" His charismatic and charming voice pulled her attention away from his perfectly sculpted body.
"I'm sorry?"
"I just asked if you want to go swimming." He smiled and she would have probably said yes, but she didn't have any bathers.
"I'm not dressed for it. I didn't bring anything."
"You don't have to wear bathers. I don't think anyone would care." Of course not. Girls running around and swimming in their underwear? No one here would mind that at all, especially the boys…
"I just don't feel like it." She smiled at him to reassure him and he got the message.
"Okay. I'm gonna go back out and jump back into the pool. Maybe do a flip this time." He chuckled to himself and she joined in too, which only surprised her. "I'll see you later then, yeah?"
"Sure." And with that he had left the building. She stopped herself from thinking about what she was going to do and took a moment to look around the kitchen and spotted the phone on the wall beside the fridge. She dialed her house number and reached her mother.
"Don't tell me you're ready to come home."
"No, I was just wondering if you could come pick me and Claudia up later, say around midnight?"
"I thought you were driving back."
"I will not be sober, mom. I won't be able to drive, so just come to thirty three George street at midnight please, and thank you." She hung up the phone and took her cup over the bottle Will had put down earlier. She opened it hesitantly and poured some of the liquid into her cup. She wasn't entirely sure how much to put it so she just poured for a few seconds. She put the bottle back down and picked up her cup. She raised it to her lips and almost felt sick immediately from the smell permeating her nostrils. She took a sip of it and coughed away the first, strong taste of the alcohol. But just like the tequila she had before, it wasn't actually that horrible, just strong. So she poured some more soft drink into the cup and had another taste. It wasn't so strong and this time she gulped half of it down.
For once in her life she would forget about all the repercussions from drinking and just try to have some fun. It wasn't like her, but she thought that maybe she shouldn't be so… herself all the time.
She went back outside, back to the blaring and idiotic music, and spotted Claudia at the opposite end of the pool that the DJ was.
"So my mom is going to pick us up later." She told her friend. Claudia looked up to her confused.
"Why?"
"I'm drinking." She stated simply and took a sip from her cup, wincing slightly from the harsh taste again. It would be a while before she got used to that. Claudia grabbed Alicia's hand that held the cup and raised it up to her nose.
"You are drinking! Oh my god!" She yelled to Alicia.
"Yep!" She turned to her friend who was looking like a proud mother for some reason. "What?" She asked.
"I'm just so proud of you."
"I don't think you should be proud that I'm drinking, but thanks anyway." They laughed together and looked forward to the pool, and once again the crowd had parted to form a walkway like it had before Alicia went into the house.
"Someone is going to jump in again, I think." Claudia said, and Alicia nodded in agreement. She had an inkling about who that might be. They watched for another minute before someone emerged from the darkness of the human walls. It was definitely Will. People started cheering and Alicia though that was ridiculous too, but hey, people were drinking and they'd do anything while inebriated. And she had started to feel a bit woozy herself from the alcohol he'd consumed. She was not a drinker so it hit her fast.
She focused on Will, watching him as he looked around the crowd of people doing the same as her. People started chanting his name and then he looked right at her. He took a few steps back, getting ready for a run up and smiled charmingly. He then saluted her, which she laughed at while looking directly at him, and he took a few large bounds before jumping into the air and doing a successful flip into the pool. Everybody else started clapping and yelling, and some even jumped into the pool after Will.
Maybe it was the effect of the booze (or maybe she would just blame it on that) but that was the moment she knew she started to feel a little something for Will. Something that wasn't just the possibility for some sort of friendship between them, something that would develop into something a lot more if she wasn't careful. She thought it was crazy. She had met him less than a week ago and already she felt attracted to him. All he had done was smile at her in a way that would melt her brain every time and cause her to stop making any intelligible thoughts, and make a fool (a charming fool) of himself which she usually hated about someone. She never liked show offs, and yet here was one she was starting to like.
She couldn't, and wouldn't, process her feelings at that moment. She had decided to have fun and that wasn't fun. So she took another sip of her drink, and turned back to Claudia. Her friend asked her to go dance and even though she wasn't coordinated enough for normal dancing, party dancing fortunately didn't take much skill so she accepted and they maneuvered their way through the crowd.