Blackout ✓

32 | first time

October

The First Time

HALSTON DURING EARLY FALL WAS still temperate at nighttimes. Still warm enough to walk home.

Hand-in-hand—purely for balance reasons—Jamie and I snuck out of the party hosted by the football team, both of us giggling like drunken idiots in the street. Which we totally were.

On a usual day, his long strides would indubitably outpace me, but I kept up in the brisk midnight air by walking double time. My burst of energy was mostly thanks to the vodka Red Bulls that one of the offensive tackles had mixed for me, back at the party. The concoction made me wired and buzzing, and the world spun around my feet.

"I can't believe we're doing this," I giggled, almost tugging Jamie along the sidewalk by his hand. I walked so fast when I was drunk that even Jamie was falling behind.

Ever since Jamie and I made out playing Drunk Jenga with the eighth floor, he'd been giving off major signals. I'd hooked up with enough men to spot someone attracted to me. It was obvious when he not-so-subtly elbowed his way into the conversation between me and the offensive tackle—whose name I now could not even remember—by challenging me to a vodka Red Bull-drinking competition.

For a fairer contest, I argued we should measure the drinks by alcohol percentage per body weight—not sheer volume—screaming about the relationship between blood alcohol concentration and metabolism, and therefore the need to correct for our different sizes—

But the next thing I knew, Jamie had steered me from the living room and cornered me by the staircase.

"Stop screaming at me," he'd said heatedly, one arm holding my forearm. Which Drunk Viv took to mean, kiss me—which seems like a leap, but seriously, his expression was pure lust—so I did.

So, yes. Here we were.

It took a few more moments of dragging Jamie along the pathway to realise he was dawdling for a reason. I dropped his hand and whirled around to face him, hands on my hips.

"What are you thinking?"

"Do you really want this?" Jamie mumbled, his cheeks stained with red blotches and hair messy. He had no business being that hot. "We can walk home and then—"

"—spend the night together," I interjected, swaying slightly on my feet, "is the correct answer to the rest of that sentence. Agree?"

Jamie's lips parted. His eyes swept up and down my body—most of which was dwarfed in my favourite denim jacket, with the vodka pockets. I watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

"Agree."

Jamie looped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his body. I had to tiptoe to reach his lips, wrapping both arms tightly around his neck. Our kiss was hungry and graceless, teeth bumping, tongues searching for entertainment in each other.

He tasted like sugar and lemon, reminders of the revelry we'd abandoned. The scent of clementines cradled me, faint underneath the intoxicating mixture of alcohol and sweat. I wanted to get closer to Jamie to chase it.

When I tightened my grip around his shoulders, his weight shifted toward me, and our combined lack of coordination sent us swaying dangerously on the concrete. With a hand on Jamie's chest, I pushed him away.

If we could get back to the dormitory—I was still acclimating to the sheer bliss of not having a roommate this semester—we could kiss for as long as we liked. And do other graphic things...