Staying Grounded [BXB]

Backseat

CRAIG:

Ashleigh leaps nimbly out of my way as I yank open Roxy's driver-side door. AC/DC's Back In Black welcomes my return, but a firm hand on my shoulder prevents me from climbing in.

"Are you drunk?"

I immediately twist myself free and turn on Sebastian. Taking a spite-fuelled swig of my two-thirds full bottle, I then bop his nose with it and set my lips in a smirk. "Barely."

"You dumb fuck!" His face fills with disgust as he slides his critical eye past me and my rum to spy the several other bottles discarded on the backseat. These ones of Kronenbourg and all very much empty.

He doesn't get the chance to grab me again. I'm slipping into my seat before he even thinks to try.

I have only a moment to feel smug about it, though, before I realise he's taken hold of the door.

Bending down, he eyeballs me. "Get out."

"'Scuse you?"

"Get out. Of. The damn. Car!"

"Screw you!"

Next thing I know, my shirt's pulled tight around my neck. "You either hand over your keys and get in the back, or I take your keys from you and leave you here."

"Right," I scoff. "That'll happen."

"Or I could always call the police." He swipes for the bottle, and his fingers skate mine, causing an unsettling tingle in their wake before I whip my arm out to the side to hold it tauntingly beyond his reach.

Then, the passenger door's swinging wide, and Ashleigh's getting in.

"Hey! What the...?"

She rolls her eyes, no longer grinning, plucks the rum from my startled grasp and flicks off the stereo. "Let him go, Bas. That's quite enough."

"What even is this?"

"Well, it was a date. Bas and Brianna's date. They let me tag along because Deadpool is my boy. We've just got back," Ash replies to me, irrelevantly. Lifting the bottle to her nose, she takes a sniff and scrunches her face up. "Now, I guess it's an impromptu intervention. Seriously, Craig, you can't drive."

I try to turn my head from Sebastian to better see the strange girl stood with her arms crossed behind him. "Some date."

She ducks her head to look in at me, meticulously shaped brows raised high, and Sebastian fists my collar tighter until it's biting into my throat.

"Relax," I wheeze, pushing myself as far back into my chair as I can in a bid for airflow. "I'm not planning on driving anywhere. I swear."

"Really? So, what exactly were you planning? To get a taxi? Or walk and just leave this fine piece of engineering illegally parked out on the street? To sleep here in it?"

My thoughts haven't travelled that far along yet. I guess I do have to get home at some point, though.

Ashleigh tugs on his sleeve. "Lay off him a little. Come on."

Oxygen rushes my lungs as Sebastian releases me and stands. "Told you he was trouble."

"You know," I spit, glaring out at him. "I'm getting mighty sick of everyone being pissed at me!"

"Yeah? Well, that's a real shame!"

"Why are you even bothering?"

"You're lucky I am."

"Can't say I feel it." Except, even as I gripe, one lone brain cell is sparking defiantly: His interruption did save me from barreling into an encounter I do my utmost to avoid. "What's your issue with Derek?" I deflect.

"Don't have one."

"I'm drunk, not oblivious."

"So you admit it now?"

My lip twitches. "Sure. Your turn."

"Mind your own."

"Just as soon as you do."

He works his jaw then turns away, looking across to Brianna, and that's all the answer I get.

"Do you have your phone?" Brianna speaks up for the first time. Her voice is ever-so-slightly accented. Welsh, maybe. "Is there someone you can call?"

"Yeah. But nope."

I've almost relaxed, lulled to thinking myself safe, when my wrist is seized and, with a sudden wrench, I'm tumbled from Roxy to the pavement.

"Holy shit, dickface! What is wrong with you?" It's in my scramble back to my feet that I realise how drunk I actually am.

"Shut up," Sebastian growls, tackling me again to get me back on my feet. "Just shut up. A little help here, Bree?"

And a little help is precisely what the girl offers, opening Roxy's rear door and standing aside. I'm the extreme opposite of helpful. Still, Sebastian manages.

My resistance is futile. The car key is successfully extracted from my jacket pocket, and I'm bodily propelled across the backseat. A rough shove to my legs, and then I'm shut in with a shuddering slam that makes my teeth clench.

"No one but Alex gets to drive Roxy."

"But, sadly, Alex isn't here." The reply comes from the driver's seat. "And Roxy? Seriously?"

"Go to hell" is my brutal retaliation.

"Think I'm already there."

Sprawled the entire width of the car, I make no effort whatsoever to reposition myself upright, even though a bottle is gouging a trench in my ribs and my legs are bent awkwardly into the footwell. That is until the alarming sound of a liquidy 'slosh' jolts into my awareness.

"Hey!" I swerve to sit and catch Ashleigh in the act of emptying my rum out the door onto the road. "I'm not driving. I could have drunk that!"

She side-eyes me but doesn't stop. "Too late."

Despite Brianna's expectant wait by her side, standing a safe distance away from the spillage splash-back, Ashleigh does not look about to give up the passenger seat, and after shaking out the last drops, she sends this message loud and clear by buckling herself in.

An audible huff precedes Brianna's resignation to join me.

"Thanks for sticking up for me," I hear her mumble to Sebastian as the other rear door is flung wide, and I don't at all like the look I'm fired as she slides in.

"Y'missus is checking me out, Bas," I fake whisper, leaning forward. His girlfriend snorts an indelicate protest and presses herself closer to the door, as far away from me as she's able. I flash her my most charming smile. "Honestly, I don't see your relationship going much further."

"Shut up," Sebastian barks again, viciously ramming the key into the ignition.

And as Roxy's engine thrums awake, I do as I'm told.

Falling back and closing my eyes, I'm struck by the acute need to focus my complete concentration on not puking in my car.