Part One
"O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy,
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."
-William Shakespeare, Othello
Chapter One
michaela666 (01:34:22): Is it done?
aird92 (01:35:01): yep. success. it's all good.
michaela666 (1:35:24): And it went well? No snags? No interference from Jason?
aird92 (01:36:12): dude's damned clueless, r u kidding? went perfect.
michaela666 (01:36:54): You're sure? They shouldn't be underestimated, you know. The two of them together are quite powerful.
aird92 (01:37:17): i know this, ok? stop worrying. everything's fine.
My brain felt like it had exploded while I was sleeping and the pieces of brain matter were straining against my temples, trying to get out. My head hurt.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the bright Florida sun that was streaming through the window. Damn it, but my head hurt. Really, really bad.
Tentatively, I opened one eye. The room was blazingly bright. I closed my eye again. Maybe it was better to keep my eyes closed.
Wait.
I opened my eyes again.
Where was I?
Jason's room? Jason's bed? Why was I in Jason's bed?
How had I gotten here?
Damn it. I didn't remember going to sleep. I must have been really drunk when I went to sleep. Blackout drunk. I didn't think I'd ever been blackout drunk before. What did I remember from the night before?
A loud voice sliced into my temple. "I don't how many times I've told you that you two are not supposed to sleep in the same bed!"
That was why I had woken up. Hallam was yelling at Jason. Ugh. I pulled a pillow over my head, but I could still hear them.
"Jesus, Hallam, I carried her to her own bed, but she crawled in here with me," Jason was saying. "I couldn't get her to go back. Nothing happened. She was way too drunk."
I was? I didn't remember any of that at all.
Jason was my boyfriend. He and I lived with Hallam, who was our legal guardian. Hallam was pretty cool most of the time. He didn't have any problem with my going out and getting wasted or coming home at four in the morning. But he was insistent that Jason and I did not sleep in the same bed. He said he didn't want us to conceive our firstborn on his watch. But that was silly, because when Jason and I actually did get to have sex (which was rarely), we were careful. Really, Hallam was just a prude, and that was all there was to it.
"I don't want to hear excuses, Jason," Hallam said. "You two know the rules. You both agreed to them."
It was amazing how, in just a few short months, Hallam had begun to sound remarkably like a parent. He was only twenty-two, just five years older than Jason and me. But he sounded fifty.
"You're blatantly disobeying," Hallam went on.
"What was I supposed to do?" Jason demanded. "She could barely stand, she was so wasted."
Really? That wasn't good. Okay, okay. What had I done last night?
Um, I'd gone to a party on the beach with Jude and some of the other guys from work. I worked at a movie theater here in Bradenton, Florida. I remembered that I'd been drinking a lot of shots. I'd been talking to some guys around a bonfire. For a long time. And then . . . I'd lost Jude. I couldn't find him anywhere. And I was so drunk. . . So . . . I called Jason, because I couldn't find Jude, and I was freaked out. Being alone like that. And drunk. And then . . .
