Away From Everything We Fear

Lacey:

The party had started over an hour ago and John still hadn’t showed up. I was already nervous that I was actually going for a guy who came from a completely different world, but now I was a wreck. Thoughts kept circling around my head that he may be standing me up. Was it possible that he was feeling the same way about me, that we just weren’t each others type?

I bit my lip and denied yet another drink that was offered to me. He came up closer apparently not getting the hint. I slouched away from him. I recognizing him as a guy I had just graduated with only a month ago. I vaguely remembered him being on our varsity soccer team, Drew, I think was his name.

“Come on. It’s just one drink. Loosen up a bit; you’ve been standing here alone for almost an hour now.” He narrowed his eyes, letting them focus on me. Slowly, I swept my eyes from his hand holding the drink, to his lips placed in a small smile, and finally on his sparkling crystal blue eyes.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t my type, because believe me he was. I took in his tan muscular body and white, wide smile. He was the type a guy that would usually make my heart melt, but not today. I scanned my eyes around the large living room searching for the tall figure that was already engrained into my memory. Still no sign of him.

I sighed and looked back at Drew. “Please, Drew, just leave me alone right now.”

He let an oblivious laugh, “Aw, come on don’t, be like that Lacey.”

I cringed as the stench of booze rolled off his tongue into my nose. He pressed his nose against my cheek and let out a drunken laugh. As politely as I could I pushed his face away. He slumped to the ground with a giggle. Drew lifted up a hand to tug on my shorts. With wide eyes I looked around wondering if anyone had seen what just happened.

My eyes landed on a group of guys with John in the front. He was watching me with a bemused smirk on his face. He made his way over to me just as Drew started to move his hand even higher. Although I had wished he had come earlier, I couldn’t deny that John’s timing was perfect.

He went up to me and put one arm around my shoulder. Without even hesitating, John pushed Drew’s hand aside; his hand grazed my leg in the process. My leg burned at his touch. Drew looked up at the two of us with cloudy eyes with a defeated countenance; he stumbled onto his feet and made his way to some other girl.

John let his arm drop from around me. I hadn’t minded the way his arm had been around me protectively. I looked up at John gratefully. I had intended to say thank you but what came out was, “You came?” I couldn’t hide the excitement in my voice.

His hair was arranged in messy perfection and his green eyes were shimmering. Then my eyes went past him and landed at the four guys standing behind him awkwardly. I looked at them and then back at John with uncertainty in my eyes.



John:

I had put my arm around her to tell the guy bugging her to back off. I wanted to keep my arm around her as if to tell the world that she was mine, but I knew that was taking things too fast so I let my arm fall from around her.

“You came?” She questioned, but I could tell that she was happy I had. Her face brightened up and made her even more beautiful. It was weird to see how different she looked from this morning, but it wasn’t a bad thing. This morning she had looked amazing without make-up, and now with make-up she still looked amazing, but in a different way, sexy even.

Her eyes moved past me. I turned around and remembered that I had brought the guys with me. I motioned them forward. Jared eyed me with a ‘you did good’ look in his eyes before offering a hand for Lacey to shake.

“I’m Jared, the ginger.” He said with a grin.

Lacey’s small hand was swallowed by his as she shook his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Lacey looked at the rest of the guys and I took the opportunity to introduce them. I pointed to Kennedy next to me, “This is Kennedy, don’t worry he’s not as bad as he looks.”

Lacey let out a small giggle at Kennedy’s facial expression as he glared at me.

“And those two dorks over there are Pat and Garrett.” Pat and Gare rolled their eyes before shaking Lacey’s hand.

Garrett leaned down to talk to Lacey. “I don’t know what you see in this guy,” He said pointing to me with his thumb. “He’s an ass.”

I watched as Lacey cringed. “Don’t worry.” I immediately assured her. “We love each other like brother’s which is why we always pick on each other.”

She nodded making her light brown hair flicker in the light, “Yeah, I got that.” She looked behind her and then back at us, “So… the booze is in the kitchen and it’s kind of a just do whatever you want kind of place, you know how parties are.”

We nodded as she led us to the kitchen.

What we saw was like something we had never seen before. I looked over and actually saw Kenny’s mouth gaping over. The reason it had taken us so long to find this fucking place was because it was in the neighborhoods that we never visited. It was like a maze just to find this huge house.

And now covering every inch of the kitchen island was the biggest selection of alcohol I had ever seen in my entire life. It was like I was in the grocery store. I rushed to the shining bottles, but I knew I was only looking for one thing, a bottle of Jack Daniels.

Lacey came up to us with a small laugh escaping her lips. Her warm hand wrapped around my bicep. “Looking for this?” She said while waving a bottle of liquid gold in her hand. She smirked.

My eyes widened in surprise, “What? How did you know?”

“You look like a Jack kind of guy.” She let her hand fall from my arm leaving it feeling colder than it had been before, but I didn’t mind because she let her fingers trail down my arm to my hand where she gave it a small tug to tell me to follow her.

I looked over my shoulders at the guys. They had already popped open a beer with Pat being the exception, he had opened the refrigerator and found Kool-aid. He had already agreed to be the designated driver. “I’ll see you guys later.” I told them.

She pulled my softly on my hand once again and I let myself be dragged away.