With a sad smile, I reach forward and gently smooth his sandy blond hair back from his face. Leaning in, I press a chaste kiss to his forehead before standing and walking toward the door, which is when my eyes find Harley’s watching me with a slight furrow in his brow, one that quickly disappears as he squares his broad shoulders. “I’m gonna go down and have a drink out on the deck,” he says quietly, rubbing at a spot on the back of his neck. “Are you going to bed, or …?”

“I’ll join you.” I shrug. “I could use a drink after this experience,” I say with a chuckle, pointing back at an obliviously sleeping Nash.

Harley nods, managing a tight smile before turning and leading the way out of the room. I follow closely as we make our way downstairs to the kitchen where the counter is still laden with liquor bottles from earlier. I kick off my sandals and sit on a stool at the island, watching as Harley begins making something for us to drink. I smile to myself as he pours a mixture of different liquors into a metal shaker, shaking it like a professional bartender. He flashes me another tight-lipped smile before pouring the concoction into two Solo cups, sliding one across to me as he raises his in the air in silent cheers.

“What’s this?” I ask, lifting the cup to my nose and taking a sniff. I pull back in horror, wincing as the scent alone feels as if it burns the small hairs in my nostrils.

“It’s kind of like a Long Island Iced Tea.” Harley chuckles to himself, taking a sip from his cup. “Without the rum. Because I know you can’t drink rum after that one time at Kevin’s graduation party.”

Wait. What? I gape at him, sufficiently surprised by the mention of that night. A night I tried so hard to forget all about. A night so long ago. A night I can’t believe Harley, of all people, remembers.

I was in a complete panic. On the verge of tears. My heart was racing, my head spinning. I didn’t know what to do. I’d been drinking the punch all night and, somehow, I was drunk as hell. Had someone spiked my drink? Was someone trying to date-rape me? My heart thundered painfully as I began imagining the most horrible scenarios playing out in my hazy mind.

At some point during the night I’d lost Nash. He said he was going to help John Portman fix the dead battery in his truck, but that was at least forty minutes ago. I went in search of him, but somehow, I ended up outside in the backyard with no recollection of how I’d gotten there. I was so drunk and so sick, and so embarrassed to be in such a state. I was Alice Murphy, and Alice Murphy didn’t get drunk at parties like everyone else. Alice Murphy was a good girl. A nice girl. A sweet girl. Being obliterated was not how I wanted my classmates to remember me.