CASUAL AFFAIR; brendon urie

Chapter Thirteen

"I love you, babydoll." Jessa's arms clung around my neck, and her heels dragged.

"So you've said. Nine times." I hauled her up, half helping her walk, half dragging her down the path to the car. We weren't the last, but the party had certainly slowed down in the past hour alone. Now that the main show was over.

"I'm drunk." Jessa giggled.

"So I can see."

"Jack was awesome."

"I'm sure he was."

"I met Patrick Stump! He was so ... cuddly."

"I'm sure you did, and I'm sure he was."

Jessa thumped her hand pathetically against my chest. "Oh, babydoll, are you even listening?"

No. "Of course I am."

Jessa's head lolled, and her feet stumbled again. I nearly tripped and went down, but I managed to steady myself. For someone with barely anything on her bones, Jessa was certainly a dead weight. And here I was, dragging her wasted ass back to my car, and back home. Just like I knew I would be.

"You," Jessa opened her eyes and booped my nose. "Smell like sex."

Drunk Jessa is an incoherent Jessa. "Must have been the atmosphere." I hitched her up a bit, nearly to the car now. "You smell just like it, too."

"I only..." Jessa paused, miming the act she'd done to him, before shaking her head. "We ... nearly. But we didn't. We talked. It was weird."

Now that I didn't doubt ... Not the act she'd mimed. That was sort of inevitable. But Jessa talking to a guy rather than sleeping with him? Trippy.

"I think I love him though. I think I love Jack. He was a sweetie. Tonight, he was a sweetie." She smiled, giggling again. "I got his number, look!" she showed me the side of her arm proudly, where numbers were printed in a fine, careful script. "I wasn't even that drunk when we started talking. But we talked for at least, I don't know, an hour. And he was sweet."

"Uh-huh."

"It was weird. I was gonna sleep with Jack. But all I thought of was..." She giggled "Well, I don't know! But not sex!" she wrinkled her nose. "Weird."

We were finally at the car, and I carefully propped Jessa up against the side, where she slumped a little, still giggling and frowning to herself. She burped – oh, God, don't vomit! – before hiccupping. She seemed to find this a hoot, because she clapped both hands to her mouth and burst into laughter.

"See what I did there, babydoll?" she asked me, as I threw the door open, and gently guided her to the backseat.

"I saw."

Before she flopped flat however, she gave me the strangest, most lucid look, and threw her arms around my shoulders, hugging me tightly. Her hair was in my mouth, and I could smell her mint shampoo. Along with eau du vodka, of course. "I love you, babydoll." She murmured into my shoulder.

I swallowed, suddenly touched, despite her inebriated state, and hugged her bony shoulders back. "I love you, too, J." I said.

And the, with another hiccup, the moment was over and Jessa flopped backwards, curling into a ball, and settling herself on the upholstery. "Close the door, it's cold." She whined.

I slammed the car door shut with probably more force than necessary, and rolled my eyes again at Jessa's prone, sprawled figure. If she puked on my back seat interior, if was handing her a mop and bucket at the crack of dawn, and wouldn't let her leave until it was clean enough for the President to sit on.