fires and floods. | dominic fike

15

Celeste turned right back around, bolting for the exit of the room. She zoomed past the crowd of people, pushing people out her way if they crossed her. Immediately, Max noticed the upset look on her face, turning to Stephanie.

"Yo, Cel looks blown." Max lowly mumbled to his intoxicated girlfriend. He had given her some water to sober her up a bit, which barely did anything.

"Oh yeah, she went into the room Dom's in." Stephanie said nonchalantly, as if it wasn't both Max and Stephanie's job to keep Celeste out the room.

"Steph, She wasn't suppose to go in there!" Max exasperated, running a stressed hand through his hair. Stephanie looked at him confused, before slapping a hand over her mouth at the realization of her mistake.

Meanwhile, Celeste's first instinct was to bolt to the kitchen for another drink. She didn't know how she felt after what she saw. She didn't know if she should take offense, or assume the worst. There was so much wrong with the situation and it was stressing the teenage girl out. Whipping open the fridge door, her eyes scanned for the next beer she could grasp. After she found another Modelo, she turned around to the island in the middle of the kitchen where several hard liquors and such laid ready for her to pick her desired alcohol. She settled on a bottle of Tito's, grabbing it and water-falling it with no hesitation. As the alcohol burned her throat and nose, she quickly opened her beer as her chaser. Random voices from around her hyped her up as she did it once more, wiping the dripping vodka with a slight smile on her face as she drank from her beer once more.

Celeste finished her beer rapidly, going to grab another one in the process of walking over to the fridge once more. After grabbing her beer, she decided to head outside where all the stoners and fellow smokers would be.

Immediately after stepping out, the warm Naples air welcomed her. She strutted over to one of the available chairs by the pool, but was caught off guard by the mention of her name.

"Hey, Celeste!" A deep voice called for her, one that was familiar. She turned in the direction of the voice, being met with the sight of Julio Gutierrez.

The Gutierrez and Diaz Families both got along well, since both oldest sons of the family were best friends since grade school. Julio and Eddie were always up to some fuck shit when Celeste was growing up. Celeste considers Julio her first crush, her brothers best friend had a charm to him. As they all grew older, they started to drift apart, with Eddie and Julio beginning to do their own thing (AKA, the life.) Julio was a good kid and was able to get away from it before it got worse, but Celeste couldn't say the same for her brother.

"Oh shit! Julio!" Celeste made her way over to the grass where Julio and a couple other unfamiliar faces sat in a circle, sharing a bong. He patted the spot next to him, causing the girl to stumble down but still seat herself by crossing her legs.

"You good?" Julio asked, laughing a bit at the girls drunken state.

"Yeah. Just been drinking. I'm good tho." Celeste smiled towards him, taking a swig of her beer.

"I heard about your brother. I'm sorry, Cel. I tried my hardest to get him away from it, but it just ended up becoming worse." Julio apologized, causing Celeste to wave a frantic hand of dismissal at him.

"Don't worry about it. We all tried. It's not on you." Celeste smiled once more at Julio, beginning to dig into her pockets for the small baggie of weed she had.

"We wanna smoke the rest of this?" Celeste asked him, as Julio nodded, beginning to introduce the girl to the rest of the group as she began to grind her weed.

MEANWHILE....

"Dom! Dom!" Max's voice boomed throughout the room, but couldn't stand a chance against the booming music. As Max desperately searched for his friend, he was trying to make sure Stephanie didn't get out of his grasp in the long crowd. Finally, Max found him seated on a sofa chair in the corner, diagonal to another sofa chair that was occupied by a random girl. Dominic was leaning in to the girl, his eyes occasionally lingering to her lips. Max rushed up to Dominic, smacking him upside the head with no regard to the girl next to him.

"The fucks wrong with you? I'm 99% sure Celeste saw you with this hoe, she just bolted down the hall." Max informed the boy, watching the color drain from his face. The girl gasped at being referenced a "hoe" , beginning to get up and leave.

"Wait, what do you mean she saw me? What did she see? Man, you were suppose to be the look out!" Dominic began getting frustrated, standing up from the chair and getting in Maxs face.

"I said I would let you know if I saw her walk in. I didn't see her walk in, only leave. Start listening, dumbass." Max pointed to his ears as he snarkily replied, he knew Dominic was being more aggressive than usual due to the coke he had taken in the short amount of time.

"Where is she?" Dominic sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't know. She went down the stairs though." Max informed him, causing Dominic to make his way out the room and down the steps with Max and Stephanie trailing behind him.