Logan

"Okay so, I don't think I am drunk," Hunter says, gripping onto the cupboard door for dear life.

"You look like you're about to puke your guts out all over my shoes so back up a little," Even Ellie's soberer than he is and that's saying something considering she's been giving me drunk, heart eyes while simultaneously looking at me like I am going to eat her alive continuously for the last two minutes it took us to get here.

There's no way she's going to give me that look when she is sober. Her type is more coiffed up, gelled hair vanilla men I guess, and as much as I don't want it to affect me, there's a slight tug in my chest every time I look at her.

"Man, have some faith in me," Hunter grins abashedly, "You should've drunk more too, we don't have a game tomorrow."

I raise my eyebrows in answer.

"We don't right?" Panic ensues in his eyes, "you're fucking with me."

"Stay guard and I don't drink," I shut the cupboard door on his panicked face.

The cupboard looks the size of a janitor's closet and by the looks of the brooms and tissue rolls stacked up above me, it probably is. The music outside of us is muffled and Ellie and I are enveloped by our hushed, irregular breaths. I swallow a gulp and finally look at her.

Her headband glimmers in the dark, her hair falling in thick, dark waves around her bare shoulders; She smells of jasmine and vanilla today, a sweet scent that's fucking with my senses. She's wearing a light yellow dress that's flowing around her thighs and her shoulders are bare, and in the light stream of light creeping through the holes and cracks of the cupboard door, with her cheeks flushed and her lips pink, she looks like an angel

"Why don't you drink?"

"What?" I take a moment to process what she just asked me.

Ellie looks up at me, head tilted and a curious gleam in her eyes, "You said you don't drink, why?"

The air around us is filled with static, and there's a buzz in the back of my neck. I rub it off but there's nothing there, "I don't like it. I have seen what it does to people, and I don't want to have any part in that."

I have seen what it did to my mom and I have no desire to be her son in that area and walk down the same path. I stay away from anything remotely addictive: drugs, smoking, alcohol, but apparently, I didn't escape the five feet five inches of glittery eyeliner hell because I am stuck here.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and check my phone. It's only been a minute; I have six more left. There's no way I am going to survive this.

"I don't drink either," She moves a step forward. We're cramped up in a closet, if she moves any further, she's going to be pressing up with me and while there's nothing more I'd want in the world, I know that's not mine to have. Bitter jealousy fills my nerves at that thought.

"You're drunk now," I whisper.

"Because you're around."

My lungs are trapped in my throat and I wonder if she can hear my heart beating erratically. Her eyes are glazed over, staring at my lips and it takes everything in me to not rip apart everything and kiss the living daylights out of her.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you," she licks her lower lip, "Like you want to...know me."

I do want to know her. I want to know every nook and cranny in her. I want to know the dimples in her back and the mole behind her ear and I want to know if she cracks her knuckles when she's stressed or if she jerks her knee or her other ticks. I want to know how she picks out her different colored eyeliners and the number of bracelets she has. I want to know the way she tastes and if her hair feels as soft as it looks and I want to know if the jasmine scent around us is her shampoo or her perfume. I want to know her in and out.

"Don't do that," my voice cracks at the last word. I am going to lose my mind in this dingy closet that smells of Ellie and lemon cleaning supplies. Is this who I have become? My emotions are bleeding from my voice now.

"Do what?" Ellies slides a hand up my arm, leaving a wake of shivers in her path. Live wires zap through my veins and all I hear is her labored breathing and the electricity zinging through the air.

"Don't do anything you will regret when you're sober," I grit out.

"I am sober."

"No Ellie, you're not."

Shakily, I cup her face with my hands; she melts into my touch, her skin velvet soft. I tangle my fingers in her hair and they feel buttery soft, like satin on my palm. The rest of the party rages on beside us but I can't hear a thing. I am afraid if I breathe too hard I am going to shatter this moment, us, into a million pieces. It's worse than dealing with fragile china.

"Logan?"

"Hmm?" I swallow my hammering heart.

"Kiss me."

My blood roars in my ears and everything comes to a standstill. Our mouths are so close that if she looks up once, our lips will touch. I can practically taste her strawberry pink lip gloss.

"What?"

"Kiss me." She presses her lips to the corner of my mouth and I almost slam her against the wall and kiss her so hard we both see stars for the rest of our lives. But I don't do that. Instead, I revolt against every insane thought and do the opposite.

I whisper in her, "I promise I am going to kiss you so hard you'll dream about it for the rest of your life and I promise the next sentence out of your mouth will be that nobody kisses you as I do, but I am not going to kiss you, not now, not today. Not when you're not mine to have."

She jerks in my hold but I keep a strong grip on her waist and on the back of her neck, "I am not going to kiss you now. I am going to kiss you when you're completely sober with no drop of alcohol in your system so you remember, so you remember that nobody can do what we do together."

She looks at me with her mouth hanging open and the slow embers of fury in her eyes, but I am not going to give in. I am not doing this when we are both drunk and I am definitely not doing it in a closet as a part of some stupid game with her boyfriend in the same house. She needs to want it sober, and she needs to remember every second of it.

I check my phone and it's well past our due seven minutes, "looks like our time's up princess, see you later."

                          ★-★

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