Gonna Get 'Cha!

Chapter Seventeen: "Hangover? I Hardly Know You"

With only the fluorescent streetlights stretched out along the sidewalk, I was strolling on and about with the group in tail, searching for any indication of where Logan might be. The group might, Brook's shriek through the midnight air, while I was muttering inaudibly under my breath with my phone held up before my face, the video call alongside Celia's name on display. The throbbing over my head hardened as it felt like the knots that were supposed to be tied up together—pressing harder in my skull which made me stalk away from the group and stride further to a nearby alley.

"Who's last to be seen with Logan, anyway? How'd get so stupid, like leaving and going like that?" Nellie punched the air, groaning frustratedly, then her phone chime off as her eyes were set on the device.

Jake's giggle followed next, coming up behind the rest of us. Nellie turned around, shooting him a dirty look that could only mean one thing—doom was coming early. "What? Our picture turned out great. Look." He showed off his screen and Nellie scooted right over, leaning over his shoulder.

Logan's hand patted me on the back, scooting me over so he'd have the space in the middle of the tight-spaced photobooth, the group stumbled on each other's feet and thought taking a funny picture while being tipsy was the routine. "Kiss me too, please!" Logan pouted, looking over our lipstick-stained cheeks that we gave each other oh-so-lovingly that I was yet to brush off the leftover saliva that Brook etched across my face.

"Not a problem!" With Nellie's tone slurred and followed by a string of giggle, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around Logan's neck while pressing a kiss on Logan's cheek. Flamed by the whole ordeal, Nellie's laugh pierced through my ear a little too loudly as we were standing next to each other, I tensed over Nellie being the one to give a kiss to Logan—the cup of drink was brought to my lips—feeling their closeness build up a shred of jealousy within that had nothing to do with romance. At all.

"Shit, I think we messed up the picture." Logan groaned, reaching out his index finger to motion over the screen and delete the picture we'd just taken. "You know what, let's just keep it that way, I'm running out of poses already."

"Yeah, I'm cramping up here." Brook complained as she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, fixing up her lipstick over the screen that'd been smudged by the sweat trailing down her round-shaped face.

The highlight of our partying days with the group flashed in mind. Celia still wasn't picking up my calls. Nellie and Jake were giggling over while buried deep in Jake's phone. Her constant "we looked so cute though" and some other sentences that sounded exactly like that were pale in comparison to the thoughts swimming around in my head. Even Brook's perfectly in tune singing followed by her uncoordinated dancing on the street, was only a stop in my highly functioning brain.

But I managed to finally say something when I narrowed my eyes over a tattoo parlor shop masking as a barbershop in the day that I'd drive past sometimes. "What if Logan's all fine and well back in the motel?"

Brook nudged me on the shoulder, the sweet vanilla perfume linger in the air around us. "Doesn't explain the disappearing act he pulled on us. We made a pact. Whenever we'd go out partying, neither are us allowed to leave the other without so much of a peep. It's our rule." She elaborated.

Nellie chimed in. "Yeah, it's what helps us keep track of where everyone is. It's parties. Things happen at parties." She backed Brook up, catching up with the two of us, now filing herself into the scene.

"I, um," I tried to add something to their take, but my head was acting up again, whatever I'd eaten earlier now coming back up to my throat, choking me that the moment I peered over a bench nearby, I made my way over and sat down. "Beats me. The last time I saw him was when we all started getting drinks, then he said about going somewhere, and I said sure. That was the last I saw him, I didn't really know where he went. I think he said something about meeting up with someone." By now, Brook and Nellie already seated themselves on either side of me on the bench, Nellie's shocked expression was revealed in a devastating gasp that my phone almost slipped out of my hand.