Glide

Chapter thirteen

"It's so loud in here."

"What?" Holly yells over the music.

"Exactly," I yell back. "It's hard to hear each other."

"Oh." Holly grins, swinging her head so her strawberry blond hair flies around her face. "Then just dance."

I try to do as she says. We just finished our project earlier today, and Holly insisted we go out to celebrate. It's a bar right off campus, which means it's flooded with college students, and since it's Saturday, they're letting loose.

Everywhere I look, people are grinding, kissing, or throwing back shots. I feel... old. Jeez, I'm a twenty-three-year-old college student, and I might already have outgrown this scene.

Holly has not. She's swaying her hips, running her hands up and down her body, tangling in her hair, as she bellows the lyrics to the song - it's some pop song I haven't heard.

I move a bit from foot to foot, attempting to look like I'm enjoying myself. Maybe I can trick my body into thinking we're having a good time. Immediately, I bump into someone and get a snooty look in return as I turn my head to apologize.

Okay, then.

"I think I'm done with dancing," I yell in Holly's ear, making my way towards the back of the bar.

Holly follows, throwing herself onto the other side of the booth, easily flagging down a waiter. "That was fun," she says, the big grin stretching her lips supporting that statement.

I force myself to copy her expression. "Yeah."

The waiter returns with a row of shots for us, and I already dread the hangover that will inevitably follow. There was a time, right around when Sophie moved out here when I went out every couple of weekends, maybe, and my tolerance for alcohol was higher, and my recuperation time was shorter.

Now, I get tipsy on two drinks, and I have a headache for forty-eight hours.

Holly lines up the shots, nudging one my way. With a sigh, I throw it back. It's sickly sweet and clings in my throat uncomfortably. "Yikes," I mutter, making a face.

Holly laughs. "You've never been here?"

I glance around the bar again, though I'm sure Sophie never dragged me here. She wouldn't come within a mile of U-M during her first year living in Ann Arbor. "No. I don't go out a lot."

"Oh, come on," Holly says, shaking her head. "You went to a bar last weekend."

David's sisters had brought us to a smaller bar not far from the restaurant and ordered me mocktails while they told me all the embarrassing stories of their brother they could dish up.

He'd acted all annoyed but kept rolling his eyes with a smile. Then he'd driven me home, leaned his head against mine outside my apartment door for so long, I thought he might actually kiss me, and then he'd sworn and walked away.