The Thrashers(70)

“Yeah,” Zack said and pointed to the attached bathroom. “Towels should be in there.”

She slipped out of bed, feeling cotton-mouthed and groggy. Avoiding her reflection in the bathroom, she grabbed a T-monogrammed towel from the stack and started the water. Out the curtained window, she caught a view of the backyard. Julian was already up, doing laps. She stared down at the pool, wishing she hadn’t called him. She could have kept this to herself, woken up in a strange bedroom with a killer hangover, and gone home—her friends none the wiser. She tore her eyes away and got under the spray.

Only Lucy was in the bedroom when Jodi came out of the shower, flipping through her phone until the bathroom door cracked open.

“Hey.”

Jodi grimaced. “You drove back? Was there ice on the roads?”

“Not too bad.” She shrugged it off and stood, sliding her hands into her back pockets. “Zack and Paige ran to get McDonald’s.”

Their chosen hangover food. Which is what Jodi had. A hangover.

Strange. Almost like a rite of passage.

“How are you feeling?” Lucy asked.

“Like death. You didn’t have to drive back. The cavalry had already arrived.” She dragged her wet hair up into a ponytail, meeting Lucy’s eyes in the mirror.

She pressed her lips together. “Julian said you were alone in a bathroom, barely coherent.”

Jodi bristled at the accusation, but Lucy’s eyes were sad. The meaning of it swept over Jodi in a horrified rush. Freshman year, before she’d known Lucy well—the wrong party, the wrong drink.

Lucy met her eyes. “I wish someone had driven two hours for me.”

She moved quickly through the door to the bathroom. It clicked closed. Jodi felt the echo of it for what felt like forever.

The enormous stupidity of what she’d done flooded her, and she sat in the chair Lucy had slept in to gather her thoughts. Oliver and Nikita had taken care of her a bit, but not really. She didn’t have anyone at that party looking out for her. Not once had she considered that she needed to pour her own drinks or only drink from closed containers. She’d been surrounded by strangers when she drank for the first time, not knowing how she’d react to it. She assumed that the way she felt last night had been “drunk” and not “drugged,” but how would she have known the difference?

Jodi grabbed her phone and left the bedroom before Lucy reemerged. She took the curving stairs down to the living room and texted Rosa, verifying Zack’s story. Rosa responded right away with a million questions Jodi tried to keep up with. Still staring down at her phone, she reached into the fridge for a bottle of water—

“Do the Pellegrino.”

She spun. Julian was sliding the glass door closed behind him, towel tossed over a shoulder and swim trunks still dripping on the mat.

“Better to settle your stomach,” he said and disappeared into the bathroom off the kitchen.

Jodi took the Pellegrino, twisted the cap, and sat at the kitchen table sipping the fizzing water until the front door opened. The idea of McDonald’s made her stomach roil, but as soon as Paige dropped the bags in front of her, the smell alone could have solved all the world’s problems.

She ate a hash brown slowly as Paige slathered a couple of hotcakes with butter and syrup.

“How’s your stomach?” Zack asked.

Jodi nodded and declined Paige’s offer for half her plate. “It’s fine. How was Napa?”

“Good.” Zack pulled out the chair across from her. “Julian’s cousins had a party that was pretty nice.”

Jodi sipped her Pellegrino, wondering how drunk Julian had still been when he was driving twice the speed limit to get them back to Sacramento.

Lucy emerged and grabbed a breakfast sandwich, slipping onto a stool at the kitchen island. When Julian joined them, fully dressed and hair half-dry, he declined the junk food, grabbing a banana instead. Once he had pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter, Paige turned to her.

“So babe, what’s with the change of heart? I mean, you know me—I love drinking at parties. So there’s no judgment from me, but why?”

Jodi paused in peeling melted cheese off the sandwich wrapper. She thought of Oliver and his friends, calling her their lapdog. Zack not inviting her over for Christmas like he usually did. The way no one had spoken to her for almost a week.

And the clear image of them playing Ride or Die with Emily. As if she’d been there herself. Only … she hadn’t. She’d been purposefully excluded.

She cleared her throat. “No reason, really. I guess I shouldn’t have gone overboard the first time though.” She caught Julian’s heavy gaze and looked away with a shrug.

“Hey, I’d love to get drunk with you sometime,” Lucy said, almost too casually. “If it’s something you wanna do again, we can do something low-key. Just the five of us.”

Zack nodded. “Totally. If you felt like you had to be the sober one for our sakes, or something, I’m sorry. If I’d known you were interested in getting buzzed, I would—”

“So this is like an intervention,” Jodi snapped. “I finally do something normal kids do, and you all need to have an AA meeting about it.” She crumpled the wax paper and crossed her arms.

Zack’s eyes were wide, dumbstruck. Paige cracked a knuckle and said, “You did something uncharacteristic, and we’re concerned. That’s all.”