“I’m going to get you an Uber. Make sure Jessa is waiting for you so that she can sneak you to her bedroom without her parents seeing. You need to drink tons of water. Dale, go get her some water.” Dale scoffed at me, but he left the room. I prayed to the flying spaghetti monster that he actually remembered to go to the kitchen, get the water, and bring it back.

I got the notification that Chantell’s driver was here. I helped her to her feet and started walking her down to the front. Oakley moved like he was going to try to help. “You’ve done enough,” I snapped at him. “Wait here for me to come back. Don’t move, we’re not done.”

We ran into Dale on the staircase. I grabbed the bottle of water he was holding and handed it to Chantell as I clumsily guided her back through the crowded party, past the formerly puking sorority girls who were now the passed out sorority girls, and into the car. It looked like she had sobered up quite a bit, and she thanked me profusely for helping her. I wrestled with my inner self trying to decide if I should try to manipulate a drunk high school junior into keeping quiet. But ultimately, I figured that she had more to lose by talking about her drunken night at a frat house than we did if it came out. So I shut the door and wished her good luck. Now to deal with Oakley.

I stormed upstairs and found him sitting on the bed where Chantell was just crying. “So what have we learned from this?” I sang in a sickly sweet tone while sitting next to him.

“Check the ID of every girl you want to bone?” he asked.

“Or you could just not fuck random strangers at parties. This could have been bad, Oakley. Forget your career, a pretty boy like you would not do well in jail.”

He scrubbed his hands down his face with a sigh. “Fuck,” he cursed. “Thank you. That could have really been bad.”

Fuck, indeed.

“No shit, Sherlock. I know we’re in this awkward stage of hating each other and not really wanting to work together, but I think tonight taught us a valuable lesson.” He turned to look at me, his expression full of annoyance. Tough shit, asshole. I didn’t want to be here any more than he did.

“And what is that?”

“You’re a fucking hot mess. And you need me,” I said matter-of-factly.

He rolled his eyes. Hard. “Fine. You did come in handy tonight. And it’s actually kind of nice that you organized my calendar. Even though the alarms piss me the fuck off, I haven’t been late to class in a while. Though the meditation and breathing exercises are a bit much,” he replied begrudgingly.

“Practicing mindfulness is good for your mental health,” I preached.