Aurora's Love

Chapter 10

"Sophie, there you are," Zola exclaimed with relief when we found her in the crowd of girls again. 

She was practically hugging the cooler full of seltzers and anyone could tell that she had a little too much to drink. I was tipsy, Zola maybe had one glass, but Sophie was hammered. We both helped pick her up and Zola took Sophie's arm and wrapped it around her neck, classic too-drunk-to-walk straight style. We walked up to the boardwalk as fast as we could while lugging Sophie around. We had to walk down the boardwalk a little to get to the shuttle stop on 27th street. I was determined to get Sophie away from this place before the cops came. As I said, anyone - including a cop - could figure out that Sophie was drunk just by looking at her. An old couple walked by us with judgemental looks on their face and I mouthed stomach bug to shut them up.

Once we got on the shuttle, I felt better and it seemed to be just in time because cop cars rolled past us a few seconds later. Our stop was coming up, so I stood up and held onto the railing. The doors opened and we started walking off the bus, Sophie having a difficult time. At the last step, she tripped and landed in, you guessed it, Tyler's arms.

"Woah, there," he said as he caught her and helped her up.

"Tyler? What are you doing here?" I asked. I tried to ignore the inquisitive 'Tyleerrrr' that came out of Zola's mouth right then.

"Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing to Sophie. I knew what he was asking right away.

"Be my guest," I answered and he pulled Sophie over his shoulder. It was a 50/50 shot if she would throw up from that or not and I guess he got lucky. We all started walking back to my house and Tyler answered my question.

"I was just at the drugstore and was going to take the shuttle home." I probably should have guessed that because of the plastic bag in his hand, but I wasn't being very observant. I giggled unnecessarily at that, probably because, as I mentioned earlier, I was a little tipsy.

"You've been drinking," he said, more as a statement than a question.

"Yeah, not the most responsible, these two," replied Zola.

"Says the one whose lips are red from all of the making out she did tonight," I said.

"Hey, I wasn't the only one making out with guys tonight," she said. This warranted a giggle from me which made it obvious that I was the one making out. 

I regretted that almost instantaneously. 

Tyler looked my way as soon as he deciphered this and then looked straight forward as quick as possible. Both Zola and I got quiet, realizing what we had done.  I was quiet and weirdly ashamed, and Zola was holding back a laugh and kept nudging me as if to say see he likes you.

We finally arrived back at my place and I went to open the door. My drunken state came out a little again while I kept shushing and giggling immediately after. The shushing made sense because I didn't want my parents to wake up and find us drunk and with a boy, but the giggling was definitely the alcohol. I slid open the glass doors and waved everyone inside. Once the door was safely shut I whispered for Tyler to lay Sophie, who had fallen asleep, down in my bed. Zola and I closed the curtains while he did that so we could turn on the light without waking anyone in the main house. Tyler and I sat down at the counter while Zola poured us some water and stood across from us.

"What were you doing at the drugstore in the middle of the night anyway?" I interrogated Tyler.

"I just needed some things and this was when I had free time," he explained and took a swig of his water.

"What did you need?" I asked again.

"Just stuff," he replied, sort of reserved.

"Lemme see," I said and reached for the bag that he sat on the counter. I become nosey when I'm drunk. I grabbed the bag and held it to the other side of me so when he reached he couldn't get it.

"Hey!" he said. I giggled and opened the bag to pull out... condoms. I pulled condoms out of the bag. Of course, my drunken self didn't understand the severity of this at the moment.

"Ooooo, Jimmyyysss," I sang in reference to our earlier conversation. Tyler's face turned beet red and Zola's mouth swung open. Only after a few seconds did Tyler come back to reality and pull it out of my hand.

"Alright, I'm going to head out," he said as I continued to giggle. Tyler walked out of the door and Zola started cracking up.

"Ohhh, you are so going to regret this in the morning," she muttered under her breath as she walked me to the pull-out couch to go to bed.