Jeans of a Star

Dave wasn’t the type of person that you easily forgot about. I mean, his face alone was something that just stamped itself into your mind, and then he had that ever-so-charming smile that made girls like Anna Cartwright’s hearts melt. Being unforgettable was a part of who Dave was, so even after he left the kitchen to clean up the mess outside, he was still trampling the back of my mind.

One of Dave’s friends from high school, who I had only known very briefly from study hall, had managed to jump on one of the tables and break it in half, sending everyone’s drinks onto the ground. Dave definitely had enough money to pay someone to clean it up, but there he was, on his hands and knees, picking up the broken glass with Reese by his side.

Unsurprisingly, Anna was right beside him, along with her gawking friends, and a part of me briefly wondered if Dave thought it was annoying. Sure, at first it’s nice to have people granting your every wish, but I have to imagine that after a while it would get annoying. Of course, the fact that Anna was a beautiful, blonde troll probably had some effect on it though. Some good effect.

Sighing, I made my way across the lawn, straight for the spot where Charity was slobbering all over some blonde boy’s face. I didn’t know who he was or how she knew him, but there she was, elegantly sucking his face off.

As though she felt my presence above her, Charity pulled away from the boy, looking up at me with a smile.

“Something up?” she asked, as the blonde boy tugged at her hair. It was obvious he wanted to be kissing Charity again and if he wasn’t so handsome I might have pulled her away. Charity had snagged a good one, though, so I just let her be.

I shook my head, smiling back at her. “Nah, you just do your thing.”

She chuckled before turning her attention back to the blonde boy, who smiled before connecting their lips together again.

After taking a few steps away from Charity, I sighed, realizing that my only ticket to the party had completely ditched me. Without Charity by my side, I didn’t actually belong. Dave hadn’t invited me and it was only by some miracle that he had actually spoken to me at all.

I knew I should’ve just left. I should’ve called someone to come pick me up. Things would have been so much easier if I would have just left.

“Hey, El! Wanna come play?”

At the sound of my name being called, I whipped my head in the direction of the voice, finding Nick staring at me while he waved his arm. He and I had been friends once, but I hadn’t seen him in about a month. He wasn’t a totally lost soul, though, so I nodded in agreement before I realized what I was actually playing.

When I walked over to Nick, he smiled at me before taking my hand and leading me past a small group of people.

A ping pong table had been set up in the middle of the lawn which of course, only meant one thing: a round of shitty, sloshed beer pong. A chuckle fell from my lips as Nick lined me up with the table and dropped a ball in my hand.

It was only then that I noticed who our competition was. Dave and Reese stood on the opposite side of the table, ping pong balls in both of their hands.

I wasn’t great at beer pong, but I wasn’t terrible either. I was decent, but not as decent as I knew Reese was. He never seemed to lose and I wondered if Nick knew we were walking into a losing battle.

“You go first,” Dave said, nodding in my direction. “And good luck, El.”

If anything, his wish of luck only made me do worse, because him saying anything nice to me made it hard to focus. There was the fact that I was still trying to be mad at him for dropping me like a rusted penny and that a part of me still wanted to like him so badly.

Letting out a deep breath, I tossed my ball in the air, only to have it miss several of the cups by a few inches. It didn’t seem to faze Nick, though, because he shot his ball in a lazy overhand motion and it landed in one of the cups lined up at the back.

Nick jumped into the air at the swish and lifted his arm for me to give him a high five. I couldn’t help but laugh wildly at how excited he was, only to have my laugh taken away when Dave and Reese both made their shots with little to no effort. They gave one another an easy fist bump, and it was at that moment that I knew we were destined for failure.

The rest of the game, I did my best to cheer with Nick when he made his shots, only to have me miss every single one of mine. It was going to be an easy win for the boys, and everyone watching cheered every time they made a shot, as though they weren’t expecting it.

If it wasn’t for Nick seeming so confident that we could make a comeback, I would have given up about three shots in, but I kept holding on for him.

When Reese made the final shot, dunking his ball into the last cup, he and Dave jumped into the air, bumping their chests together. I couldn’t help but laugh, and Nick gave me a pat on the back, whispering to me, “Better luck next time.”

I chuckled, nodding my head at him, and moved away from the crowd as a few people lined up to play Dave and Reese next. I had no idea why, because they were just going to lose like we had.

From the back of the crowd, I watched as Dave and Reese took on their next competitors, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we would have done better if I hadn’t been so distracted by Dave’s face. Really, I could have just slapped him. Or left. One or the other.

But instead, I stayed and watched him, missing my last chance to escape the party that fate had so haphazardly tossed me into, not realizing that in a few short hours, things would change forever.