"Five bucks says free drinks will be ours if we play our cards right,” she said conspiratorially.
"Liz, we're surrounded by kegs of beer and we were handed a plastic cup when we walked in. I'm pretty sure that equals free booze," I told her, holding up my red Solo cup in front of her as a reminder.
"Oh shut it. You're ruining the moment. If we were at a bar right now, they'd totally be buying us drinks."
"If we were legal."
"Details," she scoffed with a wave of her ominous vagina hand.
She fluffed up her hair, and then pulled the front of her shirt down lower so she showed enough cleavage to blind a man.
"Liz, if you sneeze there's going to be a nip slip. Put those things away before you poke an eye out."
"They're coming over!" she squealed, batting my hands away as I tried to pull her shirt back up to cover the twins.
“Jesus, is there a homing beacon on those things?” I muttered. I shook my head in amazement at the power that was her boobs. "Your tits are like Bounty. The quicker dick picker upper," I muttered as I finally turned around to get a look at who was coming over. I’m pretty sure to an outsider I looked like Elmer Fudd when he saw Bugs Bunny dressed up like a girl and his eyes popped out of his head and his heart stretched out the front of his shirt. If the music weren’t so loud you would be able to hear “ARRROOOOOOGA!”
“Hello there ladies.”
Liz not so subtly elbowed me when the one that looked like a linebacker spoke. I briefly raised my eyebrows at the shirt he wore that strained against the muscles of his chest and read “I’m not a gynecologist but I’ll take a look.” My attention immediately focused on the guy standing next to him with his hands in his pockets. The long-sleeved t-shirt he wore with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows hugged his body nicely and I could see the subtle outline of muscles in his chest and arms. They were nothing compared to Hooked on Steroids standing next to him, but they were perfect to me. I wanted him to turn around so I could see how great his ass looked in the well-worn jeans he had on. Unlike a lot of the college guys around here who were going through some sort of weird Justin Bieber-hair phase, this guy kept his light brown hair cut short, with just enough length on top for some messy spikes. He wasn’t too tall, wasn’t too short, he was just right. And just… beautiful. I wanted to punch my own face for calling a guy beautiful but it was true. He was so pretty I wanted to frame him and put him on my nightstand in a totally non-creepy, non-Hannibal Lector skin-suit-wearing kind of way. He looked bored and like he’d rather be anywhere but at this party. Before I could introduce myself and tell him he was my soul mate, someone bumped into me roughly from behind and I stumbled forward, smacking gracefully into his chest and spilling my beer all over the floor at our feet.
Holy hell he smelled good. Like boy and cinnamon and a tiny hint of cologne that made me want to rub my nose in his shirt and take a deep breath. Okay, so that might have thrown me back into creepy territory. I didn’t want him to start calling me the shirt sniffer. That’s a nickname that just doesn’t go away. Like vagina hand.
His hands flew out of his pockets and grabbed onto my arms to steady me while I was busy trying not to motorboat his tee shirt and flee the scene in mortification. I heard the sound of cackling laughter behind me and turned to see that one of the Heathers was responsible for my graceful entrance into this guy’s life. It turns out slamming into someone is hilarious and her equally offensive twin joined in on the finger pointing and laughing.
What is this, a bad teen movie from the nineties? Did they expect me to cry and go running out of the room while dramatic music played over my exit?
"Jesus, what's your damage Heather?" a masculine voice said irritably.
Their laughter immediately stopped and they looked behind me in confusion. I whipped my head around and stared at the guy in awe, noticing that I still had my hands pressed against his chest and that I could feel the heat from his skin through his thin t-shirt.
"Did you just quote 'Heathers'?" I whispered. “That is my favorite movie ever.”
He looked down at me and smiled, the piercing blue of his eyes boring a hole right through me.
"I had a huge crush on Winona Ryder before the whole shoplifting thing," he said with a shrug, his hands still wrapped around my upper arms.
"My name isn't Heather," a whiny voice protested behind me.
"Wow, Winona Ryder," I stated with a nod of my head.
Jesus, I had absolutely no game. Being in close proximity to a guy this hot turned my brain to mush. I just wanted to hear him speak again. His voice made me want to take my pants off.
"I kind of have a thing for quirky, intelligent, dark-haired chicks," he said with a smile.
"Why did he call me Heather? He knows my name is Niki," came the shrill voice from behind me again.
I'm a quirky, intelligent, dark haired chick! Me, me, me, pick me! And who the hell keeps whining and ruining my perfect moment? I will cut a bitch.
"Um, hellloooo!"
The man of my dreams broke eye contact with me to look over my shoulder. "Niki, your voice is making my ears bleed and killing my buzz."
I heard her huff and storm off. At least I think that's what she did. I was still staring at this guy and wondering how soon was too soon to drag him into a spare bedroom. He looked back at me and removed one of his hands from my arms to brush my bangs out of my eyes with his fingers. The simplicity of the action and the ease in which he performed it made it feel as though he’d done it a thousand times before. I wanted to slyly give Liz a big cheesy grin and a thumb’s up but she was busy talking to this guy’s friend a few feet away.
“You want to go refill your drink, maybe play a game of beer pong or something?”
I want to reach in my pants, pull out my virginity, wrap it up and put a bow on it. Or maybe stick it in a gift bag from Target and give it to him like a present with a nice card that says “Thank you for being you! Just a little virginity to show you my gratitude!”
“Sure,” I replied with a shrug, totally playing it cool. It’s probably best to play a little hard to get. You don’t want to look too eager.
***
"Oh God, don't stop," I panted as he kissed a trail down my neck and fumbled clumsily with the button of my jeans. After five rounds of beer pong and hours of talking, laughing and standing so close to him that it soon became impossible to refrain from touching him, I forgot the meaning of "hard to get". With a boldness I could only achieve through copious amounts of alcohol, I wrapped a hand behind his neck after losing the last round, pulled him to me, and kissed him with everything I had in me in front of all the people still left at the party that hadn't yet passed out in a pile of their own vomit. I grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hallway and shoved him into the first room we came to. I hoped Liz would have been close by to give me some sort of encouragement or last minute pointers about what I was about to do, but she disappeared after I announced to the room that she would be giving free PAP tests at the end of the night with her lesbian approved hand.
As soon as we got into the dark room we attacked each other. Sloppy, drunken kisses, hands groping all over the place, slamming into random furniture as we stumbled and laughed our way to the bed. I tripped over something on the floor that may or may not have been a person and fell backwards, luckily onto the bed, dragging the guy right along with me. He landed roughly on top of me and it felt like the wind was knocked out of me.
"Shit, sssorry. You'kay?" He slurred as he pushed himself up on his arms, taking some of his weight off of me.