Sweet Like Sugar

His house is like something out of magazine and I don’t want to touch anything, though everyone else didn’t seem to be as cautious as me. It was hard to believe anyone could actually even live here. There was no sign of paper clutter, or clothes on the ground, or any of the other messes that you’d find in my home almost immediately. Everything seemed to sparkle and instead of embarrassing family portraits, the walls were decorated with fabulous paintings. It was amazing. Huge. At the edge of town on top of a small hill, Finn must live in heaven here. And speaking of Finn, he was still missing in action.

The party is pretty amazing as well. I was expecting something small that involved just the soccer team and maybe a few extra girls to spice things up, but I had been here for almost hour now and I hadn’t seen anyone that I was familiar with enough to talk to. People flooded the place, most of them strangers to me. I came with Peeps but we had gotten separated somehow about twenty minutes ago. She was around somewhere but the house was so huge I felt I’d get lost if I tried to actually search. So, I made myself comfortable in a small chair that worked better as a piece of art, in a safe spot close to bottom of the stairs. I was actually surprised by how many older kids were here. It was almost as bad as the parties at the lake when it came to how much underage drinking was going on. But thankfully they just ignored me and focused on the drunken wobbles they called dancing.

A huge chandelier hang on the high ceiling close to the entrance and when I looked at it hard enough I could see it slightly rocking back and forth. It looked like it was made from diamonds formed out of raindrops and it sparkled like morning dew. I’m hypnotized by its slight sway and shimmer when I feel someone’s hand land on my shoulder.

I flinch coming out of my trance and turn to see a familiar face. It was the boy I had pushed down yesterday. At first I think he’s going to finally rip me a new one for being such an ass to him during the game, but he smiles and starts to say something I don’t quite catch because of the loud rap music drowning out the sound of anything else.

“Huh?” I shake my head and point to my ears.

He sort of slumps and then nods to a crowd of teenager and then motions for me to follow him. I think he’s asking me to dance so I hold my hands up to refuse but he’s already walking away so I just sigh and follow him. Much to my dismay, we weave through the crowd and walk further into the back of the house where we finally reach open double doors that lead to the backyard, which looks almost amazing as the inside of the house. Long torches are placed in the ground in a path to and around the pool and in other various spots.

People are jumping in and out, making water splash everywhere and near the back there’s a pond in the ground and next to it, a vintage looking bird bath with a sculpture of a small angel sitting in the middle of it. My first reaction is to go touch it because something that beautiful couldn’t possibly be real but I’m stopped by the sounds of the boy’s voice next to me.

“You looked kind of lost so I just want to show you that this is where most of the team is.”

“Oh yeah.” I say scanning over the pool area again. It was true I saw a lot of people I recognized from yesterday’s game, including Rowland who tried to push me down and Mark who was convinced I had something going on with Peeps. They weren’t my friends and they didn’t seem to like me very much but I thanked the boy anyway.

“No prob. I got so lost my first time here. This house is like a maze. It’s crazy, man. I’m Ben, by the way.”

He doesn’t look as intimidating as the other players. We’re about the same height but he had the whole skinny athletic thing going on. He’s wearing a baseball cap backwards over his blonde hair and his clothes are two sizes too big. He looks exactly a person Lia would describe as a “douchebag-try-hard-wannabe” but I was in no position to judge. Other than Peeps, he was the first person to talk to me all night. Well, if you didn’t count that one girl who told me to “buzz off” after she fell on me.

“I’m Albie. Though everyone calls me Sugar. You don’t have to if you don’t want.”

He gives me a look and then turns his head back toward the pool where two boys were starting to play chicken fight with a girl on both of their shoulders. “Okay.”

I can feel the conversation dying and I wish he never even tried to help me. I was good in my chair, being ignored by people and now he probably thought I was weird.

“Uh…sorry about yesterday.”

He snaps his attention back to me and looks confused about what I’m referring to. “Yesterday?”

“When I pushed you during the game. I didn’t mean to make you fall.”

He stares at me almost like he’s trying to decipher if I’m serious or not and when he see that I am he lets out a snort. “Naw man. It’s cool. That’s just the game.”

“Oh.” I look down to my hands and fiddle with my thumbs. I had nothing else to keep this conversation afloat.

“You weren’t that bad actually. Are you thinking about joining the team?”

It was now my turn to decide if he was serious. Sports and I were not a good combination.

“Hell no. Seriously, I didn’t even know what I was doing. I’d do nothing but make an ass of myself and the team.”

He chuckles and he’s about to say something but an arms wraps around my neck and swoops me away.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Shug.” Peeps exclaims.

“Wait...uh bye?” I look back and try to wave goodbye to Ben but he’s already gone and Peeps is leading me back into the house.

“Who was that?” She yells over the music but I can still barely hear her.

“Ben. He’s on the soccer team.”

“He’s cute.”

I give her a look because I know exactly what she’s trying to do. “I guess. If you’re into boys who dress like douche-bags.” Okay so maybe I judged him a little bit. But I only said he dressed like one and not that he actually was.

“Well are you? I wasn’t interrupting anything was I?”

I glare at her. “Will you just drop it? Is our entire friendship built around the fact that you think I’m gay? Because even if I am, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be your shopping buddy and discuss make up and cute boys with you.”

She rolls her eyes and tightens her grip around.

“Why are you getting so ups—” She pauses while her eyes widen. “Shoot! I almost forgot. I need you help with something.”

She lets go of my neck only to grab my hand instead and starts leading me back toward the stairs where I had just come from.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Upstairs.”

She leads me up the steps and I try to ignore the look I can see from several boys who probably think we’re about to hook up are giving me accredited nods.

“Uh…why?”

“You’ll see.”

The staircase is huge and it spirals into the second floor that’s almost identical to the first but without a kitchen, more doors, and a long hall way. She pulls me along it’s becoming increasingly certain to me that she know her way around Finn’s house very well. And that could only mean she had been here on several occasions. She doesn’t let go of my hand but leads me down the hall until we stop at a small white door.

“That asshole. He always does this. Don’t freak out, Shug.”

She opens the door but I’m already freaking out a little when I see Finn on his back passed out next to a toilet.

“Holy shit. Is he okay?”

“Besides the fact that he’s a complete idiot?” She kneels next to him and sort of taps his cheek making him squirm. “He’s fine.”

“He’s been drinking?” I say trying to wrap my head around what was going on. At least I knew why he’d been missing in action all night. Though, I was a little surprised. I didn’t perceive Finn as the type of person who’d drink himself to this level. Hell, I didn’t know he even did anything that didn’t involve a soccer ball. Finn might’ve been nice to me a few times but I still didn’t know anything about what type of person he was. But Peeps definitely seemed to and I wasn’t sure how that made me feel. They undoubtedly had a past and I’m not a jealous person but I couldn’t seem to shake this weird feeling it gave me.

“Clearly.” She pushes a piece of hair behind her ear and lets out a long breath making her cheeks puff out. “Come on. I need you to help me get him to his room.”

I’m hesitant but I do as she asks and kneel on the opposite side of him. She counts off backwards from three and we both lift up one of his arms and pull him to his feet.
Once he’s up he starts to come to his senses and we both anchor him around our shoulders. He was a lot heavier than he looked. Or maybe I was just a lot weaker than your average boy.

“Mmmmm.” He groans lifting his head and assessing the situation. “Peeps?” he asks leaning more on her now. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to help yo—gross, Finn. Your breath smells like beer and skunk ass.”

“That may be true…” He pauses to burp. “…but you my friend have just admitted that you smell the asses of skunks in your free time.” He points a finger at her and then pokes her chest.

I giggle and he jumps before looking at me. “Christ! Don’t sneak up on me like that.” He grabs his chest and finally looks up at me.

“Albie! You came!” He exclaims before throwing his weight onto me and wrapping his arms around my torso and squeezing me while burying his face into my neck.

“I...uh…” It's like my entire vocabulary is wiped clean from my memory and I forget how to talk and breathe at the same time for a second.

Peeps is giving me a ‘When did this happen?’ jester and I don’t want her to see how red it’s making me so I push him off and send him falling back into her arms.

I want to apologize immediately but he starts laughing and wraps his arm back around her trying to regain his balance.

“You were passed out on the floor.” Peeps speaks up.

“I wasn’t passed out.” He argues finally standing up straight on his own and placing his hands on his hips. “I was tired so I decided to take a nap.”

“On the bathroom floor?”

“It’s my house. I can sleep wherever I want.” He says frankly.

“Well whatever. We’re taking you back to your room.” She grabs his arm and starts pulling him out of the room. “C’mon, Sugar.”

The hug had caught me off guard and thrown me out of whack completely. Hugging is first base right? I made it to first base with Finn. Christ, I couldn’t even look at him anymore. Was he really that happy to see me? He didn’t seem as excited to see Peeps. He didn’t give her a big hug. That has to mean something, right?

“Shug?” Peeps snaps.

“What?” I snap back stunned.

“What are you doing? Help me with him. He can barely walk.”

I nod and help support him as we start to make our way back down the long hall.

“Nooo.” He whines. “I want to party.”

“I think you’ve partied enough.”

“Albie. Don’t let her take me. Let’s go party. Don’t you want to party with me?”

Yes.

Hell yes.

Oh my fucking god Yes!

He places an arm around me and leans his head on my shoulder starting to shift his weight onto me again but I quickly jump away making him fall flat on his butt.

“Sorry.” I hold out my hand to help him back up but he ignores it.

“I don’t feel good.” He buries his head between his knees. “I think I’m going to puke.”

“You better not! Wait. I’ll go get a bucket or something.” Peeps runs back down the hall and into the bathroom.

He just sits there on the floor faintly rocking and he hiccuping every once in a while but in some messed up way, I found him to be extremely cute in this situation. I sat down next to him and rubbed up and down his back.

He looks up at me as the corners of his lips rise and I don’t know why I felt so nervous before. According to Peeps, he always did this and here I thought all he ever did was kick a ball around. I didn’t know anything about him yet it felt like I was sitting with someone I’d known for years.

“I still have to give you the picture. It’s in my room.”

Dammit all, I liked him. I really liked him. We were both boys and I like liked him and that could only mean one thing.

I guess I was so confused anymore.

Shit.

All of the monstrous nerves that made my mind go blank around him had settled into to tingly butterflies that had started to float around in my stomach and chest and maybe even a bit in my head.

And all of that goes away once he vomits in my lap.