Before the Summer's Out...

As the evening progressed, Heather and her girlfriends consumed a lot of alcohol. Jeff, Matt, their hott Asian dates and a few of Heather's friends crammed into the hot tub, giggling and splashing water everywhere. Heather mostly sat with the girls that weren't in the hot tub, slugging back coolers and tequila shots.

I wasn't watching her, though. I was watching Joseph and Enid. He only had a cooler or two, and stuck with Enid. I don't know who that ass wipe thinks he is, or what Enid sees in him. I mean, he was just mimicking the way I acted at parties with Enid. I watched him and Enid talk and lean by the hot tub, putting their hands in the water.

I glanced at Heather a few times, wondering if she was watching to save Enid from being Joe's rebound. Mostly, though, when I looked at Heather, she was just talking to her friends. Once or twice I saw her looking at Joseph and Enid. And, it confused me, because she said she broke up with Joe and was over him. But when I looked at her looking at them, her beautiful face was practically livid, like a pissed off jungle cat.

Around ten o'clock, everyone (except me, Joe, and Enid) was totally drunk and the hot tub was half empty: half of the water had been splashed out and had slicked over the wooden deck. I was standing on one side of the hot tub, watching Joe and Enid talking animatedly.

Heather suddenly came stumbling over to me and threw her arm around my neck. I caught and steadied her. I've had lots of practice with that.

"Hey Benj!" She sang melodically. Er, I was wrong about her soprano voice sounding good on stage. She couldn't sing at all. It was kind of funny.

"Hey Heather," I chuckled at her. She grinned at me. The smile was still beautiful.

"How's it going??" She said, touching my chest with her almost empty cooler.

"Oh, you know," I said, glancing at Enid and Joseph, and then looking back at her. "Pretty good," I said.

"Only pretty good?? C'mon, babe, it's a party! Get good, good," Heather said, putting her cooler down on the edge of the hot tub.

"I'm good, good," I said to appease her, giving her a smile. She grinned at me and reached up with the hand that wasn't around my shoulders to fix my collar. Or mess it up, I don't know.

"Good. You are sooo sweet Benj," Heather said. "Remember when you said that thing about the, the puppy dog tails??" She asked me.

"Oh yeah. The sugar and puppy dog tails thing," I said, embarrassed all over again. Heather burst out laughing.

"Yeah, that was, like, sooo lame, my dear," Heather laughed at me. I chuckled a little, feeling very awkward. Yeah, that was really lame.

"But that's ok. It's all part of that, that dork charm of yours," Heather said, grinning at me. Did she just call me a dork? I'm not denying that I am a dork, but you know.

"Uh, yeah, well," I mumbled through my awkward smile.

"Mm you are so cute. And you like me a lot don't you??" Heather asked me. Curse alcohol!

"Uh..." I said, unsure of what to say. I mean, should I spill the beans to her? Were there even any beans to spill?

I mean, wait. I still am totally crazy about Heather. That's... that hasn't, um, changed.

"You do like me. Admit it," Heather demanded, grinning at me and lowering those long dark eyelashes. Regardless of how I might or might not feel about her, Heather is still gorgeous.

"I do. I admit it," I decided to say. Why not? Heather broke into a big, beautiful grin. So there, I'd made the lady happy.

"I know you do. Of course you do. I mean, not of course you do. You don't, like, have to like me. But, you know, what's really not to like? I mean, I don't think I'm that gossipy or egotistic. I mean, maybe a little," Heather babbled on. What was she talking about? I watched her look away from me over at the yard and then over at Enid and Joe and then at the people in the hot tub.

"I mean, what does it even mean to be like 'oh, you know, the things I care about aren't the things that you care about'. I mean, don't, like, seventeen year old people care about the same things? Like, what the fuck?" Heather sighed drunkenly and then looked at me. She was thoroughly wasted because words were coming out of her mouth and none of them made sense.

"Mhm. Yeah, totally," I decided to agree with here, frowning to emphasize how seriously I took her. Not.

"Yeah. See you... you get me. You don't pretend to be on some smarter level than me. I mean, like, Joe's not even... whatever," Heather said, rolling her blue eyes. She looked at me and grinned.

"Oh Benj," She sighed at me. Wow, that was a sexual 'oh Benj'. And, uh, it wasn't at all prompted by anything I'd done.

Something out of the corner of my eye made me look over at Joseph and Enid. A violent surge of jealousy ripped through me as I watched Joseph tuck a lock of Enid's shiny, pale, blonde hair behind her ear. That was all he did, but it made me stare at them, glaring.

But then, Heather's hand that was on my chest slid up to my shoulder. I looked at her, since I guessed she'd been trying to get my attention. I saw she was moving closer to me. Her face was closer to me that it had ever been before. Her eyelids were partway closed.

This was it! Holy, holy crap. I'm going to kiss Heather Amestead. This was really going to happen! My dream of my epic romance was going to come true!