Consequences

⟡thirteen⟡

 On Saturday night, Brinley was stressing herself out about the next evening, when Holden would meet her family. She told herself they would have dinner, and everyone would be polite and non-invasive, and she would drive him home and that would be the end of it, but something in the back of her mind told her otherwise.

Adelaide seemed to have it out for this boy, or at least his family, and Brinley didn't understand why she was so incredibly bothered by the mention of him. Harold, on the other hand, was excited to have another man around. Although he loved Carter, he couldn't do much with him or tell him a lot of the things the was thinking about, a three year old doesn't understand adult issues.

Connie was probably just as stressed as Brinley. She wanted the night to go smoothly without any mention of Holden's family or their past. And most importantly she wanted her daughter to finally have a little happiness in her life. The past couple months had been so hard on Brinley, and Connie could tell.

Brinley was picking out her outfit, holding Carter on her hip while he ran toy trucks up and down her face and through her hair, when her phone began to ring. Brinley took the trucks out of Carter's hands carefully and threw him on his bed, causing fits of laughter to erupt from Carter's tiny body. She gave him his toys back and answered her cell phone. "Hello?"

"Hey Brinley, we've got a little problem."

Brinley looked down at the caller ID, confirming the voice was who she thought it was.

"Hey Sel, what's wrong?" She thought it was girl problems, or boy drama, but as soon as she heard the bumping music blaring in the background, she knew she was wrong.

"There's no easy way to say this but your boyfriend is drunk, like, almost blackout-drunk."

"It's nine at night, there's no way." Brinley slightly chuckled to herself, imagining Holden stumbling around the house, reaching for more alcohol.

"And a tattoo artist guy is here, that friend of Matt, and he's tattooing Holden." There was worry in Selena's voice, which was odd for her.

Brinley met Selena just a few weeks ago when she transferred into Brinley's government class. Selena quickly joined Brinley, Lia, and Gina in their little friend group and she had been like the sister they were all missing. In those few weeks of hanging out as much as possible, Brinley had never seen her new strawberry-blonde-haired friend without a frown, let alone worried.

"Is he bleeding a lot, like more than usual?" Brinley quickly grabbed her keys and a hoodie.

"I don't know how much he usually bleeds!" Selena exclaimed loudly over the music that seemed to get louder every second.

"I'll be there in ten, and you better be ready to hold me back because I might kill him for being so stupid." Brinley was a bit angry to say the least.

The fact that Holden was drunk and acting like an idiot was slightly funny, but getting a tattoo while drunk was possibly the dumbest thing he could have done, besides like, heroin or some hard drug. Brinley silently thanked God that he decided to get drunk while the night was still young and she didn't have to sneak out to save him.

-

"The tattoo is done and I had him sit at the dining room table. I hope he didn't move." Selena led Brinley through the crowd. The party was smaller than Matt's first party that Brinley attended, but it was still full of stoners and drunk teenagers. Boys were all over the girls and the girls were all over the boys.

"You're literally the best. You don't even know him well and you're taking care of him." Brinley hugged Selena when they finally saw Holden sitting at the table playing with his fingers.

"Well I know you wouldn't want anything to happen to him." Selena hugged back. "Now I gotta go party have fun with him!"

Brinley rolled her eyes at Selena's wink. She watched the redhead walk away, strutting around in her heels. She shorts that showed off her slight freckles on her thighs and her blush was swept lightly on her cheeks, making the freckles stand out against the peach color.

"Hey baby." Brinley took a hold of Holden's left bicep and he flinched hard. Instantly Brinley let go of him, remembering the tattoo. "The bastard didn't even cover it?"

"Have you seen him, love? He's stoned out of his mind." Holden gave Brinley his other arm to grab, barely able to walk by himself. Brinley walked the both of them into the crowded kitchen, letting go of Holden and searching the drawers. When she finally found duct tape and saran wrap she sat Holden down on a barstool and covered his tattoo.

"Don't forget to cover the tattoos." She said to Cole, the tattoo artist.

"You like it babe?" Holden tried pointing at his tattoo, but his finger ended up pointing at the inside of his elbow.

"Quit with the cute names, I'm mad at you." Brinley tried not to look at her boyfriend as she dragged him to her car.

"Why are you mad, baby." Holden smirked.

"If I didn't like you so much I would leave you here." Brinley fastened Holden's seatbelt and then her own.

"Do you like my tattoo?" Holden asked again. Brinley looked at his bicep, but there was no new tattoo, yet something seemed different. She couldn't figure it out, and Holden could tell by her confused face. "I filled in the heart."

"Oh," Brinley looked again, wondering how she could have missed something so obvious. "Why?"

"For you." Holden leaned his head against the cold window, admiring how his breath clung to it in clouds of fog. "My real heart is full, because of you, so I figured my arm heart should be full too."

Holden chuckled to himself thinking about how he called his tattoo his arm heart.

"Really?" Brinley said as she rolled to a stop in front of Holden's house. It was a quick drive from the Wilson's house.

"Yeah." Holden closed his eyes and focused on the light hum of the car, but it suddenly stopped and he looked up to his house. "Oh, no. Please take me back to your place. I can't go home my mom would kill me."

"I can't! My mom will kill both of us. This is a bad first impression." Brinley quickly argued back.

"If your mom asks, tell her that someone slipped something in my soda. Plus, this isn't my first time meeting her."

After a few seconds Brinley started her car again, "Fine, but if you wake my brother up, I will kill you."

-

During the short ride to the motel Holden couldn't stop thinking about his conversation with Matt.

"So you told her you love her?" Matt said in disbelief.

"Yeah, man. I don't even understand it." Holden tried explaining, but when Matt said nothing, he continued, "Like she's not even that hot. I've been with hotter girls, like Bekah."

"Dude, Bekah is fucking drop-dead gorgeous."

"But there's something about Brinley." Holden took a large gulp of his beer. "She's not that kind of drop-dead gorgeous, but she still brings me to my knees when ever I see her. She's innocent and damaged and beautifully broken, and she doesn't even know it."

"Man, you're whipped."

And Holden knew he was incredibly whipped, and there was no cure for his lovesickness.