Beautifully Broken (Addicted To You, Book Two) by Covington, Lucy
JUSTIN
I asked myself how I ended up at that party a dozen different times. I was on a date with Lindsay and everything was going perfectly, and then somehow…it just got messed up.
But it really wasn’t much of a surprise that it got messed up, was it? I thought as I downed the last of another beer. There was nothing at the bottom of my red plastic cup but a little bit of foam.
Begsy and Quinn came over, laughing, handed me another one. “Courtesy of Big Timmy,” Quinn said.
“I think I’ve had enough already,” I told him.
“Come on, you’ve got to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
Quinn and Begsy exchanged glances. “Everyone’s heard that you’re being offered a three-fight deal with the UFF,” Begsy told me.
“I have to win my next fight,” I replied.
“Who’s going to beat you? Uriah’s on our team, and he’s probably the only guy who—” Quinn stopped short, as if realizing for the first time what he was about to say.
“Uriah’s the only guy who what?” I asked, feeling the blood rush to my face.
“Has a chance—even a shot—at…you know…”
“No, I don’t know.” I downed about half of my new beer. I looked around the party and saw Uriah laughing with Big Timmy and some other people I didn’t recognize.
He was smiling and cackling the way he always did at the gym. Just looking at Uriah made me kind of sick. He laughed again, so loudly that it cut through the music and everything. He was so smug. He always had to be the loudest guy, the one who got all of the attention. Maybe we were on the same team, but I wouldn’t have minded putting everyone’s questions to rest and fighting him right there and then.
But that was probably just because I was in a bad mood. I should have been with Lindsay right now. I should have—
“So what’s the deal with that girl you were with tonight?” Begsy asked, as if reading my mind.
“Nothing,” I replied. “There’s no deal.” The acrid smell of weed reached my nostrils, as Timmy and his friends lit up a joint and began passing it around the room.
I tried to picture Lindsay standing there with me, and couldn’t do it. She didn’t belong here, standing around with a bunch of townies, smoking weed and drinking cheap beer.
“Pass me that joint,” I yelled out. The girl who had the joint took a long drag, staring at me as she did so. She was tall, almost as tall as me, with long blond hair and a tattoo on her shoulder that was visible beneath her tank top. She exhaled an enormous plume of smoke.
“You want some?” she asked.
“Yeah.” I held out my hand, but she didn’t pass it over.
Instead, she walked towards me, taking another hit as she came my way. A second later, she was right in my face, her eyes locked on mine. Then she leaned in and kissed me, as everyone in the party shouted and hollered at us.
I kissed her back, because—why not? She was cute, I was getting drunk, and in some way it was the final statement on where I belonged. I was supposed to be with this kind of girl, not Lindsay.
As we kissed, the blond girl exhaled all of the pot smoke into my mouth and I inhaled it deeply. I hadn’t smoked weed in months. I’d sworn it off.
The UFF and other fighting organizations did random drug testing and I’d decided that I didn’t want to risk having anything come back on a test. Not only that, but I knew from past experience that once I started smoking and drinking heavily, I tended to get myself in trouble.
But tonight I didn’t care about any of that shit. Tonight I just wanted to have fun and try to forget about Lindsay, put her out of my head entirely, once and for all.
My eyes watered and I coughed a few times as everyone clapped at our little display.
“I’m Jennifer,” the blond girl said. Her voice was a little husky, raspy, the telltale sign of a heavy smoker.
“I’m JB,” I replied. “Nice to meet you.”
She handed me the joint now and I took another couple of hits before passing it off to Begsy, who shook his head at me and moved away to socialize with other people.
Jennifer ran her fingers through her hair and looked me over. “Do you always look this pissed off when you’re at a party with a girl who just kissed you?”
“Do you always shotgun weed with strange dudes at parties?” I replied.
“Sometimes. If he’s really sexy.”
I smiled and drank some of my beer. “You want something to drink?”
“I’d love something harder than beer.”
“Big Timmy has harder stuff,” I assured her, grabbing her hand. “Come on, let’s get you sorted out.”
***
I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed. Everything was a blur, a haze of booze and pot. My head was cloudy with it all, my mind a mishmash of nonsense, and everything was slow—as if my very thoughts themselves were drunk and high on an individual level.