"Hey guys," Bradin gave a head nod in our direction as he picked his way through the litter on the floor, "It's pretty nasty in here, isn't it? I didn't think it'd get this out of hand." He looked suspiciously between the two of us with our mouths wide open and bent over a crumpled beer can like it was the single most interesting thing in the world.
"Brae!" Callie stood up, regaining her composure a lot faster than I had, seeing as I had someone's designer outfit on, and it sure as hell wasn't mine, or anything I could afford for that matter. I left my mouth still hanging as Callie ran over and embraced Bradin as best she could in her nauseous state, he hastily pushed her to the side before she could kiss his cheek and glared at me.
"Something… something is wrong. I can tell, look at her face." He turned to Callie, pointing at me, "Fill me in on whatever it is. It isn't about last night and the bathroom incident, right? We were just drunk, Daveigh, that's it. Honestly, I wouldn't do anything to put yours and Callie's relationship in jeopardy."
Callie let her eyes expand in disgust, "Brae, I thought that we –"
He hushed her quiet by putting his hand over her mouth and placing one finger to his lips, "No, Cal, not now. Look at Dave, she's practically going to keel over and die." He walked closer to me, kicking a can out of the way and then it began to register. His eyes first ran over the top half of the dress and then the bottom portion, they landed on the beer stain that ran the length of the dress.
"Brae, I, I can't explain." I started before he could even begin to scream, "I don't know how or when it happened. I'm, I, I'm so sorry." I stumbled on my words as I took cautious steps towards him, "I found it right before I found you guys, but I told myself not to wear it and then I got those pills. The ones that… I don't even remember who gave them to me, but they definitely weren't Advil." I'd began to ramble again as Callie looked at me with warning eyes, telling me in her own way to just shut up and let Bradin deal with it.
"Someone gave you pills!" Bradin shouted inadvertently.
I bit my lip and nodded my head as little as I could, "I didn't know what they were. Honest to God, by that time I was so trashed that I doubt I even really cared."
Bradin paced for a moment before muttering, "Fuck. Fuck. There were pills at my house. Listen, Daveigh, don't worry about it. It's my Aunts designer line, and all the clothing that my Aunt needs are at her show, and if this dress is all that important to her I'll tell her I lent it to someone. It's not that bad, honest." He sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. I could tell it was a lot more than he was making it out to be, but by the look on my face we all knew that one wrong word would send me into a fit of tears.
"But, it is a big deal, what if your Aunt needs that the moment she gets home?" Callie groped for Bradin's hand to hold in hers. Her face fell as he successfully pulled it away from her.
"Well, Cal, I guess that's something that Dave and I are going to have to deal with. I doubt it'd happen anyway, what would she need it for? Honestly. I can't seem to think of any upcoming events that she'd designed this for." His cheeks puffed out as he let out another heavy sigh, "I'll just call Jay in here and we'll get this cleaned up and then make breakfast. Sit down and talk about this whole thing, alright?"
I nodded my head in agreement; there wasn't much else that I could do, for Christ stakes. I just met this boy yesterday and I'd already fucked up his Aunts designer dress with a beer stain, slept at his house and left him with the dilemma of who was passing out pills at his party. I could kick myself right now, I've probably completely fucked up Callie's chances with him. And hell, if I can't have her at least he can.
I stood in the corner of the room while Bradin went to get Jay, the Australian that we'd met the night before, and Callie placed herself on the couch. Groaning she looked at me, "I already felt disgusting from this hangover and now I have to deal with the fact that my boyfriend hates my best friend."
My face fell as I thought about what she'd just said. He hates me? It didn't seem like that. Maybe she knew something I didn't know. But all that I could manage to get out of my mouth were the two words that I wanted to utter last in the world, "Your boyfriend?"
She nodded her head. "You saw us last night, Dave, don't play dumb. Of course he's my boyfriend." She let out a single ha, before resting her arm over her eyes to shade them from the piercing sunlight flowing through the large glass doors that Jay and Brae were now entering through.
"Daveigh, right?" Jay nodded his head in my direction with a smirk on his face, "I think Ava will like what you've done with her new collection. What are we going to call that? Beer Stained Party Line? It has a ring to it."
I let out a measly laugh while Bradin rolled his eyes at Jay, "Don't listen to him, he's just joking with you. I'm telling you, it's not that big of a deal."
I shrugged as the three of us turned our attention to the noise coming from the couch, a slow in and out breathing from Callie with her arm draped across her eyes in a deep sleep.
"She says you're her boyfriend." I whispered to Brae as we began picking up cans in places that I never thought things could be placed, for the second time in the time span of a half an hour he rolled his eyes, followed by, "Not likely."
It took the longest hour I'd ever spent in my life between the three of us to tidy the house up as best we could, and even then it seemed as if a tornado had blown through the Westerly property.
"Hey, it's the best we can do for now." Jay glanced around the room, his eyebrows raised, "Ava doesn't come home until tomorrow, so I think we'll have it pretty much ready by then mates. But I've got to head out and hit the waves before I go into withdrawl." He winked at Bradin and looked once more around the vicinity.
Bradin bit his lip, following Jay's eyes around the room, chairs were still in need of repairing and somehow someone had managed to get wads of toilet paper stuck to the ceiling of the kitchen. Now it was my time to sigh, "Listen," I said as silently as I possibly could over the sleeping body of Callie, "I'll sleep here tonight. We'll clean all night, it'll be fine. It's the least I can give to you for letting me off with the whole dress ordeal, let's just not tell her." I nudged my shoulder in the direction of Callie, "She'd flip out."
"Alright." Bradin nodded slowly, then looked at me with a relieved face, "That'd be pretty awesome of you." With that he turned to Callie and jostled her lightly, "Cal? Hey, Cal. We're going to make some pancakes, you in?"
She muttered for a moment or two before rolling over and answering, "I can't eat anything, I'm too sick. Tooooo sick, Brae."
"Your always too sick, Callie." I shook my head laughing as we walked over to the kitchen to cook up some breakfast.
