"Where the HELL have you been!" Ron shouted, jumping up from his chair.
"My God, we were about to send out a search party!" Leo added, looking distraught.
Jenny was passed out, laying across a few lounge chairs. Amanda was leaning her head back, holding ice over her forehead. She barely noticed their entrance.
"We…we didn't think you'd be back until much later," Abbey explained, stuttering- something she rarely did.
"Much later! What's later than 3am!" Ron countered.
"It's not her fault, Ron," Jed managed to say.
"Jed…" Abbey tried to stop him from taking the blame.
"Dude," Ron said to Jed. "You're pretty much the WORST babysitter EVER!"
Still drunk apparently.
"Ron, it's not his fault either," Abbey insisted.
"THEN WHO THE HELL'S FAULT IS IT!"
They were all taken aback by the increased volume of his voice. Jenny immediately woke, and Amanda removed the ice from her head to look up.
"You know what? I don't care. I don't care! Let's go, Abbey."
He took her by the arm and started to drag her off to their room, as Jed watched helplessly. Still being pulled by Ron, Abbey turned her head to glance at Jed. And she gave him a look of pain, remorse, curiousity, and understanding all wrapped into one emotional combination- a look which made it perfectly, painstakingly clear to Jed what his next move had to be.
A few minutes later, everyone had retired to their respective rooms. In the first room, Jenny was already fast asleep. Leo lay beside her, wide awake. He wasn't sure if it was because his mind was racing from the events of the day, not to mention the abnormal behavior of his two best friends. Or if his insomnia was simply due to the amount of alcohol he'd consumed. Either way, he longed for sleep and he certainly wasn't getting any.
Abbey sat in front of the small vanity, brushing her hair, her mind somewhere else. Ron was pacing anxiously around the room, feeling a mixture of anger, confusion, and even a little helplessness. Finally, he decided to convert his angry energy into something constructive. He walked over to one of the beds and started to push it toward the other one. He and Abbey had planned earlier to do this, and he was even more determined now than before. When the beds proved too heavy to move himself, he decided to call for back-up.
"Hey, Abbey, help me push the beds together."
She didn't reply, she just continued brushing her hair.
"Abbey."
"What."
"Come on, help me push these beds together," he said.
"No."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because you look like an asshole hunched over the bed pushing it like that. I can see the vein in your forehead protruding."
"What the hell kind of reason is that?"
"You're an asshole, you look like an asshole. Why would I want to diminish any of that?" She replied, nonchalantly.
"Now see here, Abbey…" He stood and pointed a finger at her.
"Don't you point your finger at me, Ron. Your behavior tonight was unacceptable and quite frankly, brutish. And you think I want to sleep any closer to you that I'm already forced to? Forget it."
"You're the one who was out all night with another guy!" Ron accused.
"Only because you made me!"
"Come on, Abbey, that was your plan all along and you know it."
"Do I look like a Cassius to you? I'm not a conspirator. I didn't plan anything. We didn't plan anything. You wanted to go off barhopping and I didn't. You left me tonight, Ron. Not the other way around," Abbey replied.
"Well, you didn't have to stay out until three in the goddamn morning, Abigail."
"And you didn't have to get drunk off your ass and leave me all alone with a stranger."
She immediately regretted refering to Jed Bartlet as a stranger. She didn't think of him that way. But maybe if Ron did, it would alleviate some of this anger and tension.
"You could have come right back to the yaht, Abbey. God only knows what the two of you were doing all night."
"Oh? And what do you think we were doing?"
There was no right answer to this question and Ron knew it. She had backed him into a corner.
"I…I…how should I know what the hell you were doing? I wasn't with you, remember?"
"I asked you what you thought," Abbey replied, calmly, knowing she'd won. "Or don't you think anymore?"
"Jesus, Abbey, you are so goddamn difficult sometimes, you know that?"
"I do know that. And it seems to me that you can't handle it."
"I'm going to sleep, Abbey."
"Fine! Change the subject, back down, you always do."
"Abbey…"
"It's ok. It just means I win. And you know how I love to win."
"Abbey…"
"Goodnight, Ron!" She said, a mock-cheeriness in her voice, as she flung the door open and left the room.
Abbey slept on a long lounge chair that night, feeling the need to breathe in the fresh, sea air. She needed tranquility, and she found it there.
Amanda sat on her bed, the top bunk, awake. She figured it was just because of all the alcohol she'd consumed that night.
"Jed?" She called tentatively into the night, not knowing if her cousin was still awake or not.
"Hmm?"
"You're awake."
"I am," he replied.
"Why?"
"I might ask you the same thing."
"I'm drunk. What's your excuse?" Amanda asked.
"Thinking."
"Ah. What about?"
"Stuff."
"Abbey stuff?"
"Amanda."
"Sorry."
"You might not have been completely off there though," he said.
"What!" She asked, excitedly.
Jed smiled. He couldn't see her, as he was on the bottom bunk, but he knew an expression of shock and excitement had appeared on her face.
"Goodnight, Amanda"
"Jed!"
"Sleep tight."
"You can't leave me hanging like that, Jed!"
"Why not? You're on the top bunk. There's room."
"Come on!"
"Don't let the bedbugs bite."
"Jed!"
He didn't respond.
"Dammit," she muttered under her breath, then succumbed to the sleep she so sought after.
But he knew. And he was ready.