Faster Than Your Bullets

Chapter 19

Why are Peter and I skipping down the flight of stairs while holding hands again?

Oh, yeah. Because Peter is drunk and thinks breaking our necks is fun.

Don't even ask where the alcohol came from.

Scarlett Regan, despite the fact that she's just pathetically cried on my shoulder about an hour go, is a bitch.

"Andrea, Andrea, look." Peter grins goofily as he places his backside on the banister and starts sliding down the seventy-five-degree steep Handrail of Doom.

"Omigosh. Omigosh. Peter. Stop, Pete." I reach to my hair in panic, find it useless and race down the stairs after Peter with one hand reach out, groping hopelessly as it continually miss the shoulder of my best friend. Wait. I shouldn't grab him by the shoulder. The idiot would have his neck broken for real. And who would be the one to blame? Me, of course.

After five seconds that seems like a catastrophic forever, Peter reaches the end of the handrail and jumps off it with clear disappointment on his pouty face, like a child whose playground time got canceled by his mom. Then, to my absolute horror, his face lightens up almost instantly and he spreads his legs and leaps three steps at once all the way pass a petrified me to the top of the stairs. Again.

That fucker...

"Let's do it again!" He hollers and flings himself on the Highway to Hell, this time with it between his legs. This isn't going to end well. I know it. A drunk Peter can't even walk straight and tell the difference between one pole and two (which resulting in him trying to walk between them and end up smashing his face into one. There is always only one pole).

Ignoring my desperate and exasperate warnings, Peter leans backward and lets himself slip down the dirty, deadly banister while pumping his fists into the air like a victorious ancient Egyptian warrior. Except for one teeny problem that he is not a victorious warrior who can perfectly keep his balance while lying on his back on a thin, almost vertical metal plank. He is the exact opposite.

And so he falls.

I knew it.

"Holy shit, Pete!"

Peter is flat on the ground, his head on the last step, his limbs folded in awkward angles. Please, God, don't let him break any of them, I pray to the above. I crouch down to his side and place one hand under is head. He moans loudly, screwing up his face to an expression of pain. I don't even know how to differentiate a broken arm from a healthy one, let alone carrying out the first-aid. Oh, no. Oh, no. Wild fear is rising inside me, boiling and bubbling like some kind of Snow White's evil step mother's poison. Should I call for help? Fuck, where's my phone? No, no, no. Nooo. It's in my jacket. Which is in the car. Which only Peter knows the parking place. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Peter has stop groaning. He is now sniffing my hair and grinning to himself.

"Strawberry."

"Shut up, you shit-head." I snap, only making Peter's grin get wider. "Any parts of you broken?"

He shakes his head happily but then stops and put on a serious face and pokes one finger at his chest. "Does my heart count?"

"No." I roll my eyes. "Get up."

I takes Peter a while to get on his feet again, but when he finally does, he begins to dance, snapping his fingers and stomping and swinging his hips from side to side while wearing the stupidest expression on his face, which include repeated eyebrows wiggling.

Oh good Lord.

"What are you doing?"

"It's your birthday party." He points out with a teethy smile. "You ought to party."