I was out of the bed in a second, rushing out of the house barefoot and in pajama pants with cats all over them. My mind was going a mile a minute trying to figure out why Nessa was at my house in the middle of the night.

She had a curfew and parents who didn't play if she missed it. Panic surged through me as the most disastrous scenarios played out in my head.

Nessa was standing outside of her car, leaning against it and staring at her phone. She stood straight when she saw me. "Where does Nate live?"

I stopped so fast in my tracks I was surprised I didn't leave skid marks on the driveway. "What? Why are you trying to get to his house at one a.m.?"

She opened the back door of the car, revealing the soles of someone's Converse. I stepped closer to get a look at the person, gasped and jumped back at the sight of Nate's lifeless body.

"Oh my god, is he dead?" I quickly covered my mouth when I realized how loud I was on my eerily quiet street.

"No, he's not dead!" Nessa hissed. "And if he was, why would I try to take him home?"

"I don't know how murderers think!"

If anyone knew the mind of a killer it was Vanessa. She always tried to get me to watch those crime shows or documentaries. Her obsession with teeth and gruesome murders screamed future serial killer.

"He's passed out drunk," she explained, staring down at him with a frown.

Things weren't making sense to me. How did my best friend end up with a wasted Nathaniel in her backseat at one in the morning?

"We were at a party," she said after I asked.

Party? She went to a party without me? A lightning strike of jealousy jolted me.

Like she could read my mind she quickly added: "Daisy invited me after I dropped you off and you didn't reply to my texts so I figured you didn't want to come."

The tension melted out of me. I was so deep into creating that Instagram for Cake Me Up—following other baking accounts and trying to find pictures I'd taken of the shop that I could post to build up the accounts content—I'd ignored all other notifications.

"Anyways," she continued, glancing at Nate when he let out a little snore. "Nate was knocking them back pretty hard. When the party started to die down I offered to take him home since he could barely walk straight. I didn't count on him passing out and not being able to tell me where he lived."

I crossed my arms, still not understanding why he was in her car. "His friends couldn't have taken him home?"

She threw her hands up, over answering my questions. "I was trying to be nice, okay? I didn't think this through. Don't you know where he stays?"

"Why would I know?" I didn't care enough to find out anything about him.

Nessa's frown deepened as she looked from Nate to me. "I was supposed to be home an hour ago," she told me. "And I can't take him with me. My parents will send me to a convent."

My eyes widened. "You want to leave him here?"

"Your dad's a lot more chill than mine!"

If I wasn't so freaked out I'd laugh. My dad was the most wound-up person I knew. He already wanted me to stop hanging around Cake Me Up because Nate was in a fight. He'd lock me in my room for the rest of summer if I brought him in the house drunk.

Nessa's phone rang and rang and rang while she stared at the screen in horror. "It's my mom," she told me, walking around to the side of the car. "I need to go before she calls the police or something."

She opened the driver's side passenger door, slipped her arms under Nate's arms and tried to drag him out of her backseat.

I really hoped none of my neighbors were watching because it definitely looked like she was handling a dead body.

Nessa's phone started to ring again, her panicked eyes meeting mine. "Please," she begged.

"You owe me," I mumbled as I walked around the car to help her with the dead weight that was Nathaniel.

He was a lot heavier than he looked and after a few good shakes and one (tiny) slap courtesy of Nessa, he was at least awake enough to walk with our help.

He mumbled something about an "ugly Greek dude" as he dragged his feet. His breath stank of alcohol and he was sticky with sweat. I was going to smell like drunken idiot.

When we got to the bottom of the driveway he became heavier. Nessa had let go, walking back to her car, phone still ringing. "I'm so sorry, Charm. I love you," she shouted, ducking into her car and drove off.

With that, she left me standing in the driveway with a drunk guy whining about his ex's new boyfriend.

My dad was usually a deep sleeper. Once his rainforest sounds started, he was out like rock. I prayed that held true as I dragged a stumbling Nate through my front door. He mumbled something that sounded like "I miss her". He was still going on about his ex and he was kind of being loud about it.

There was no way we'd make it up the stairs without waking my dad and I couldn't leave him out in the open in the living room.

Nate was getting heavier, leaning into me even more. He was falling back asleep. A quick elbow to the ribs jolted him awake. "Ow," he groaned, rubbing the area.

I shushed him as I tried to think of a plan, leaning him against the wall to give myself a break from his weight. I was ready to take my chances with him in the living room, then I remembered the laundry room. My dad rarely ever went in there as I usually did the laundry. It was possibly the safest place in the house to hide a drunken teenage boy.

"Stay," I told him, propping him up on the wall he had started to slide down.

"Bossy," he said all groggy.

I rushed around the house grabbing covers and pillows, making Nate a small pallet on the tiled laundry room floor.

Once he was on what had to be the most uncomfortable bed in history, in the small space between the washer and dry and the all, he was fast asleep, still mumbling about Greek guys and dodge ball. I closed the laundry room door and hoped I wouldn't get caught.

There was no way I'd be sleeping. So, I planted myself on the couch with some reality tv, setting an alarm just in case I did fall asleep.

♡ ♡ ♡

My alarm gave me a heart attack. I quickly shut it off before it woke my dad.

The sun had just started to rise, lines of golden light peaking between the curtains and across the floor. For a nanosecond, I forgot there was boy passed out in my laundry room.

Nate was still asleep on the floor. Curled into a ball and snoring. He looked like a little kid wrapped in pink polka dot sheets. His chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. I almost didn't want to wake him.

But my dad would be awake in an hour and Nate had to be gone before then.

I nudged his black Converse with my bare toe. "Nate?" I whispered. Nothing. I kicked him again, that time a little harder. "Wake up!"

When that still didn't work, I shook him with my foot. Shaking his leg until his giant hand clamped around my ankle.

"Stop." His voice was deep, commanding, despite having just woken up. And I listened. I stopped kicking. Blinking. Breathing.

He started snoring again.

Sighing, I dropped to my knees beside him and shook his shoulder. "You have to leave before my dad sees you."

He groaned, rolling over onto his back, rubbing his eyes. He blinked even slower and more annoying as he looked up at me. "Heeey" he said, actually sounding like he'd just woken up that time. He lazily lifted his arm, pointing at me. "Puff puff pass."

I froze. Those words unlocked some long-forgotten memory of an annoying nine-year-old boy who tugged at my afro-puffs and would always target me during dodge ball.

Dodge ball.

He wasn't only mumbling about his girlfriend last night. He was also talking about me.

The Nathaniel on my laundry room floor was the same Nathaniel who annoyed me in third grade. He had the whole class saying puff puff pass whenever they saw me and I had to I beg my mom to do something different with my hair.

How did I not notice it was the same Nate? Maybe because, at nine, that Nate was short and wore glasses and had long hair he always wore in a thick braid.

"I miss them," he said with his eyes shut.

He missed them? Missed what? My afro-puffs? Was that what he was saying last night? He missed them or her?

 He started snoring again.

I shook my head, clearing away the thoughts. It didn't matter what he said in his drunken state. What mattered was getting him out of my laundry room.

I pulled him up into a sitting position, hoping it'd wake him faster. He groaned in protest, but didn't lay back down.

It took a good fifteen minutes, a bathroom break, and lots of shushing to get him out to the porch. He propped himself up against the pillar still half-asleep-half-drunk.

The sun must've worked at waking him up. When he started asking a question after question I kind of regretted waking him.

"How did I get here?"

"Who's Nessa?"

"Where's my phone?"

I didn't have answer for that last question, but I promised him that I'd ask Nessa about it.

He rubbed his face for the hundredth time, probably trying to wake himself up, then stood from the pillar. "I should go home," he said, taking one step and almost falling on his face.

I wanted to wave bye and attempt to get a few more hours of sleep before I had to be at my dad's office. If he collapsed in the middle of the street, oh well. But I could only fantasize about being that cruel.

"I'll walk with you," I offered.

//

Hi! Hello!

Writing drunk people is so much fun!

Soooo...Charm & Nate knew each other once upon a time!

Will that change things between them?

Find out on the next episode of Half Baked Hearts 💞