Double Crossed(Jardougall)

9. Party

When I wake up Tay is curved around me, her arm thrown tightly around my waist. Her lips are smoothly tracing along the skin on my shoulder, repeating the same line over and over. I push back against her, meshing our bodies closer together. She reaches her hand up, brushing the hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. She kisses my shoulder once more, leaning her forehead on my back.

“Are you awake?” She whispers. Half of me wants to stay quiet, to pretend to sleep and continue this soft moment. Instead I turn over, facing her. She continues to pet my hair, smiling softly.

“What are you going to do today?” I ask her, while she closes her eyes.

“Well,” she breathes out, opening her eyes and gazing at me, “Today is Kellin’s party. Remember?” The thought of going to an actual party almost makes me want to smile but then my eyes trail down her neck and that thing makes my stomach churn. Now that I’m getting a good look at it though, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a hickey.It’s dark but definitely not the same purple color that love bites consist of. It’s less spotty than one usually is, it looks more like an actual bruise than anything.

“Oh yeah,” I whisper back while she continues with her lazy hand movements, “I probably should have remembered that on my own”

“And what about Michael?” she asks, frowning now.

“What about him?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at her. I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but it does feel like he’s something of a little brother to me. Like I have to protect him, even if that means standing up to my fiance.

“Are you going to take him home?”

“Yeah?” I reply, though it sounds more like a question, even to me. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with him. He seemed fine last night, but that was when he was with me. If he has another episode I want to be there for him, and if that means bringing him to some stupid party than so be it.

“Are you sure he’s good for you?” she asks, restarting her hand movements while I raise my eyebrows at her.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I just...I just don’t want him to be a bad influence on you,” she whispers like she’s afraid of my reaction.

“I’m not a child,” I mutter, frustrated because sometimes she makes me feel like a little girl clinging to her mother’s leg.

“I know that! I just...” she trails off but I don’t need her to finish to understand what she means. She thinks I can’t handle myself, that she’ll need to come in and take care of me eventually.

“Yeah, I know,” I don’t mean for it to come out snappy but I don’t try to take it back once it does. She just frowns at me though and doesn’t try to stop me when I get up from the bed. I shuffle into the closet, gathering my hair in a messy ponytail on the way there. I can feel her eyes watching me, like claws running down my back. But I don’t bother turning around, just continue on with what I need to do.

“What are you wearing tonight?” I ask looking at my side of the closet. We probably could share clothes if we wanted to, we’re about the same size, but our style sense is so different that it’s much easier to keep our clothes separated.

“Uh I was going to wear that one black dress, you know the one with the low cut back?” she calls from our bed, while my eyes trace over her clothes to find the one she means. I grab one of her dresses and hold it out.

“This one?”

“Yeah,” It’s a short, skin tight black dress with basically no back and long sleeves. While Tay will probably look sexy in it, you could never convince me to wear something like that in a million years. Sighing, I look for something I can wear that will look good with that. I pull out a pair of tight black jeans, a nice black shirt and a black leather jacket. That’s good enough, right?