Six ~ Intoxication

Armed with a bottle of Pinot Grigio, I headed to the beach. Only the sound of rolling waves cut through the deadly silence. The lights from the house didn't reach this far, and after a few metres of stumbling through the sand, I turned on my phone's torch.

I wasn't stupid enough to go near the water, no matter how much I'd drank, so I plopped myself down on the beach at the foot of the lifeguard's chair, leaning against its wooden legs for support. Sighing, I unscrewed the lid from the bottle and then took two large gulps.

My head spun as I tilted it back to rest against the chair, closing my eyes as I did so, while my left hand continued to grip the wine, unwilling to risk it toppling over and spilling onto the sand.

I didn't normally get wasted—and never alone—but the more I drank, the more I wanted to escape reality. My mind swam with troublesome thoughts involving Alastair, Daisy, and my family, not to mention feeling utterly trapped out here with just one friend. A small twisted smile made its way to my lips as I imagined my mum's reaction to seeing me swigging wine from the bottle.

Come to think of it, Mum would be horrified at a lot of the stuff I got up to behind her back. My friends and I presented ourselves as the perfect, classy socialites in public, but once we headed for an after party, it was another story.

We'd go from drinking out of hand-blown cocktail glasses to drinking straight from the bottle, passing it around as we all got drunker and drunker. We'd go from little interaction with boys to inviting the whole male friendship group round.

On one occasion earlier this year, we'd left a swanky bar in Chelsea and headed to Hattie's place. Her parents had been attending a black-tie event elsewhere, so we'd had the house to ourselves. Straight away, we'd invited the boys, and they'd turned up with bottles of wine and champagne.

The girls watched in amusement as the guys had a few drinking competitions to get to our level of intoxication. I was proud to see Alastair down his bottle of wine quicker than the others—and without throwing up. It was one of the things I loved and admired most about him; like me, he could have fun, but he never embarrassed himself in the process.

As the night went on, inhibitions lowered, and the usual scandalous activities unfolded. It started with harmless kissing as various friends paired up, and soon couples disappeared into spare rooms to take their flirtations to a more intimate level.

I perched on Alastair's knee as we laughed and kissed in the living room. Every so often, his hands would start to wander. It began innocently enough, with just a caress of my back beneath my silk top, but then developed into a hand sliding over my stomach or up my skirt.

"Behave." I smiled against his mouth.

He nibbled my lip as he smiled back. "Oh, Rosa, believe me, I am behaving."

Across the room, Daisy was making out furiously with Oliver, their hands having already ventured under clothes. She'd always been the wild one, though. When I'd found out about her night with Alastair, that had been my first thought: had she offered him something I hadn't? Although mine and Alastair's sex life was pretty good, I'd assumed Daisy's carefree attitude had appealed to him—the perfect lady in public but the ultimate animal in bed.

"Do you guys wanna get a room?" I called across to them.

Daisy detached her mouth from Oliver's and tilted her head to shoot me a coy smile. "Would you like us to, Rose?"

"I know you've not got much dignity left, Daisy, but try to cling onto that last ounce, for your own sake," Alastair said.

I ran my hand through his hair, partly as an act of possession but mostly from relief that he'd not suggested a group session of some sort. Since they'd slept together, Alastair had acted cool towards Daisy. He'd insisted he regretted it, and it was almost like he was trying to prove that.

"No problem." Daisy smiled. "I wouldn't want to show Rose something she's not ready for, after all."

It was those little jibes, delivered sweetly but with a malicious intention, that Daisy knew would get to me. By sleeping with Alastair, she thought she'd won some kind of competition between us. In a way, she had.

As though to get the last word, Daisy unzipped her dress and stepped out of it to reveal a raunchy set of black underwear. No doubt another way of reminding me what Alastair had seen. Dress in hand, she left the room with Oliver, and Alastair wasted no time in pushing me down onto the empty sofa and climbing on top.

"Finally alone." He smiled against my mouth.

I kissed him, relaxing now it was just the two of us. When Alastair's hand teased its way up my skirt again, I sighed—a sound he mistook for hesitation.

"Rosa," he whispered, leaning back to look at me. "I promise nobody will see."

"It's not that."

"Is it Daisy, then? Ignore her childish games. I want to make love to you and prove you're the only girl for me."

"Don't say stuff you don't mean..."

My guard crept down, vulnerability peeking over the edge, but it didn't matter. Alastair had seen my vulnerable side plenty of times recently.

"I mean it," he said. "It was a mistake. I was a dick. Let's forget her and concentrate on us, yeah?"

I nodded. Even though I made a habit of not bringing it up, my insecurities remained, and I'd never be totally comfortable at the idea of Alastair and Daisy hanging out.

That thought consumed my mind as I continued to consume the wine on the beach. Alastair insisted it only happened once, but how would I know? I was out here, thousands of miles away, and he was in London with Daisy. Tears sprung to my eyes as I tried to block out the painful possibility, and I turned to the bottle to numb the ache.

~~~

Halfway through the wine, enjoying the peacefulness of the beach, I heard someone approaching. I rushed to turn off the light on my phone, not wanting to be discovered.

"What are you doing?"

A torch shining into my face blinded me, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I twisted my head away. While I might have been drunk, I knew who was on the other end of it.

"What are you doing?" I scrambled to my feet, grabbing the chair for support while my other hand clutched the wine bottle. "It's gone midnight and you're still on this beach. Who's swimming at this time of night? Do you never sleep or something? Is this your life?"

He regarded me, not reacting to my outburst. I waited for him to snap back, but as the seconds ticked by, he just continued to look me up and down, his brow furrowed.

"Are you drunk?" he asked, eventually.

I scowled at him. If I didn't say anything, he wouldn't be able to tell. Even if my vision blurred and the beach swayed, he couldn't see what I saw.

"Are you even old enough to drink?"

"I'm eighteen. You've made all these assumptions, but you know absolutely nothing about me."

"And you know nothing about me, either, so don't sit there on your high horse with your bottle of Chardonnay and claim that I'm the one being unfair and judgemental when you have no clue of the stuff I've been through, either, all right?"

"It's Pinot Grigio," I said through gritted teeth.

Brent's blinked, his brow creasing, before he shook his head to himself. "Pinot fucking whatever," he said, snatching it from me.

His strength, coupled with my drunken unsteadiness and general surprise, meant that the bottle left my hand easily. He strode towards the edge of the water.

"Hey!" I followed him. Sand was difficult to walk through at the best of times, but much harder in the dark when drunk. "What are you doing?"

"I think you've had enough," he said, and I watched in horror as he tipped the bottle, the wine trickling into the ocean.

"That's good quality wine! And aren't you, like, polluting the ocean? You're a lifeguard, so surely you're meant to be pro-ecology and all that."

"I doubt one bottle of good quality wine is going to hurt."

Furious that he'd ruined my fun, I glared at him until he began to head back up the beach. I scurried to follow, tripping and falling hard on my knees. Luckily the sand made for a soft landing, and the level of alcohol in my bloodstream protected me from worrying about my dignity taking a hit.

Brent reached down and grabbed my upper arm, lifting me to my feet with minimal effort and not letting go until I'd found my balance again.

"Rosalie, you're wasted. I don't want to rescue you for a second time."

"I wouldn't go near the water. I'm not an idiot."

Brent's eyes narrowed. "You joke about me not having a life, but this is my life. And yes, I do normally sit in that chair for the entire day without a single person coming onto the beach, but then you turned up and now my job isn't only a daytime thing; it's a night-time thing in case any drunken, stupid girls wander into the water."

We faced off against each other, neither of us backing down. My evening with Mia had been fun before he'd ruined it. It felt like I'd spent the last couple of weeks switching between loneliness from lack of company and suffocation from an overprotective lifeguard breathing down my neck.

"I'll walk you home," Brent said, his clenched jaw softening.

"I literally live at the top of those steps. I won't get lost."

"Do you realise how drunk you are?" he asked me in disbelief.

"Yes, because you're doing a fantastic job of telling me."

"I'm walking you back. At least then I can sleep sound tonight knowing you're not causing havoc somewhere." He pulled at my arm to guide me towards the steps, releasing me once I'd fallen into step with him.

Everything still spun, but Brent's attitude had enhanced my self-awareness again. How was I going to climb up those lethal things when I could barely walk in a straight line?

Sensing my reluctance, Brent climbed the first few steps before turning and holding out his hand. I stood rooted to the bottom, staring at him and trying to make sense of the situation.

"Come on," he said. "When you inevitably pass out tonight, I'd rather it's from alcohol not concussion."

I scowled but reached out, swallowing back a yelp of surprise when his long fingers wrapped around my hand and tugged me upwards without warning. His impressive power ignited flutters in my stomach; he probably could have lifted me up the whole flight of steps with only his left arm. Instead, though, he allowed me to use his strength to steady myself as I navigated each stone slab.

Once at the top, he released me and coldness swept over my hand, despite the warm air. We walked the rest of the path in silence, neither of us making a quip at one another, and then he waited as I fumbled around to unlock the door.

"Thanks for walking me back," I said, turning to him.

Surprise flitted across his face. "No problem," he said, his voice quiet.

My next words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. Maybe because I'd spent most of the evening tormented by thoughts of Alastair and Daisy. Maybe I wanted to feel less lonely. Maybe it was purely the wine.

"Do you want to come in?"

Silence hung in the air between us as I watched Brent trying to suss me out, his eyes flickering down the length of my body.

"I saw your light at the beach and thought I'd check it out. There's no need to be polite, Rosalie."

I didn't know if he was pretending to misinterpret my invitation, but I had another shot just in case. Taking a step closer so that our hips touched, I traced the area of his naked chest that his unbuttoned shirt revealed, my finger gliding across the smooth skin.

"I'm not being polite, Brent. I'm inviting you in."

This time, there was no mistaking what I'd meant. The tip of Brent's tongue swept along his bottom lip as his eyes fixed on me without blinking. So close to him, I could see the faint scattering of freckles upon his tanned cheeks, the sun-kissed strands of lighter hair among his dark waves, and the hard line of his jaw extending down towards his dampened mouth.

Slowly, Brent's hand joined mine against his chest, our fingers intertwining. Then he eased them away from his skin and back down to my side.

"Rosalie... You're so drunk. I can't take you seriously, nor take advantage of you."

I knew he meant well, and I should have appreciated the rare display of respect, but the rejection still pummelled those butterflies out of my stomach.

"Okay," I said, taking a step towards the house to put distance between us once more. "Well, thanks again."

"You won't remember any of this in the morning," he said as I went to shut the door after myself.

I shot him a small smile. "I hope not."

After he'd left, I poured a large glass of water and sat at the dining room table as I sipped at it. Guilt bubbled in my gut. Even though Alastair had cheated on me, that didn't give me any right to do the same. And with Brent? What had I been thinking? I shuddered in shame, wondering if this offered yet another reason to avoid the beach.

For the first time in over two weeks, we'd been civil with each other.

And then I'd ruined it.

As I climbed into bed later on, all too aware of the empty space beside me, Brent's parting words played on my mind.

You won't remember any of this in the morning.

I'd assumed it was a kind statement, aimed at easing my embarrassment. But perhaps he was giving me, or both of us, a way out. A way to ignore what had happened. What I'd implied. With things already tetchy between us, I doubted he wanted my drunken actions to make them even worse.

As I drifted off to sleep, I prayed that I really wouldn't remember any of this in the morning.

Unfortunately, I'd never been one to suffer amnesia at the hands of alcohol.

~~~

Thank you for reading :) xx

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