Chapter 4
Immediately Ashlyn and Ali went off on their own. Christen pulled Kelley toward the beer pong table hoping to play the winner of the game in progress. Tobin looked at Morgan and Meghan.
“So, should we grab something to drink?” Tobin asked.
“Already on it.” Meghan responded.
The girls made their way to the kitchen where a keg was set up. The guy running the tap gave them each a cup. They walked over to where Christen and Kelley were just beginning to play a game against two of the baseball players. Tobin laughed when the game was over before it really even began. Kelley and Christen were not really that good at beer pong.
Christen and Kelley made their way over to where they were standing. “Did you guys see our epic failure of a game?” Kelley asked.
“Yeah, bummer guys.” Tobin said.
“No i missed it I must have blinked at just the right moment.” Meghan stated.
Tobin and Christen laughed, while Kelley just glared at Meghan.
“Ok don’t give her any crap. I will remember that.” Meghan laughed.
“Christen and I will win a game of beer pong before the night is over. I promise you that.” Kelley replied.
“Sorry dude.” Tobin said to Christen.
Christen sighed but was inwardly excited at the possibility of spending the night with Kelley trying to win at beer pong. She had no illusions that they would actually win, they were pretty terrible. Kelley’s enthusiasm was infectious to Christen though.
“Of course we will.” Christen responded.
Christen and Kelley made their way back to the kitchen for another beer while Tobin, Morgan and Meghan went outside. There were quite a few people just milling around on the porch and the front lawn. They talked about everything from where they were from, what they were majoring and just random aspects about their lives. Tobin learned that Morgan and Meghan had known each other since they were six years old. After talking for awhile Tobin excused herself so she could get another beer. She walked back into the kitchen and the same kid was working the tap on the keg.
“Back for another? Pegged you as a one beer drunk.”
“Whatever dude, just give me another beer.”
Tobin took her beer from the guy and mentally yelled at him for being a jerk. His little dig really didn’t bother her that much, but she was surprised that someone could and would be so douchey. She wasn’t really looking where she was going when she bumped into someone.
“Shit I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.” Tobin stammered.
“No shit. Jesus.”
Tobin looked at who she had ran into. It was Ashlyn’s roommate Alex.
Geez. Her eyes are so blue. I could stare at them all day long, Tobin thought to herself.
“Sorry Alex.”
Alex looked at the girls she was with and frowned. “I’m sorry I don’t recall your name, but you should watch where you’re going when you’re walking.”
“Yo! She just apologized, maybe you should accept like a decent human being and move on.”
Tobin looked at who had suddenly came to her defense. She was surprised to see Meghan there with Ashlyn right behind her.
“Whatever.” Alex said as she walked away.
“Hey thanks Meghan.”
“No problem Tobin. She seems to be a special kind of someone.” Meghan said as she glared at Alex’s back.
“Yeah tell me about it. She’s my fricken roommate.” Ashlyn added.
“Sorry. Your life must suck.” Meghan replied.
Ashlyn walked them to another room where Ali was waiting. There were card games going on and there was a dart board set up in the corner of the room. Meghan went to go get Morgan and then they joined a game of Fuck the Dealer. Tobin was getting extremely lucky and not having to drink too much at all. Tobin was thoroughlyy enjoying her first party. She looked over at her friends. She could tell that Morgan and Meghan were getting drunk, because they were not doing to well at the games they were playing. Tobin smiled to herself and was glad that she had found the friends she had so far. But she couldn’t keep her thoughts from Alex and her stunning beauty.
She had known for a while that she was into girls instead of boys and had wrestled with the implications of that. She hadn’t told anyone yet and wasn’t sure if she was ready to.
*******
Kelley was on her fourth beer already and she was heading back to the kitchen to get the fifth one. The dude pouring out beers knew her name by now and was slowly becoming impressed with the amount of alcohol that she was putting away without becoming drunk. As she grabbed her next beer she looked around for Christen and noticed that she was not too far way.
When Kelley saw that Christen saw that she was staring, she turned away and began to blush. Suddenly she felt someone grab her arm. She looked up and saw a guy staring back at her. His eyes where a little bloodshot and Kelley could tell that he was buzzing pretty hard already.
Fuck…Kelley thought.
“How’s it going, I’m Nate.” He said.
“Nice to meet you Nate, Kelley.”
“So got any plans for the rest of the night?”
Well that was forward, Kelley thought. “Yeah, I was going to stay at the party, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, this party isn’t up to my usual standards. Why don’t you come and hang out with me and my friends?”
“Nah, I’m going to stay and hang out with my friends and win at beer pong.”
“That’s lame, our little shindig will be some much better Kelley.”
“Sorry, my friends and I came here together and we were going to chill.”
“Lame…..”
Kelley just wanted to get away, but all of her signals that she was uncomfortable were lost on Nate. He tried to grab Kelley’s hand. She roughly pulled it away from his.
“Seriously this party is so lame.” Nate said.
“I’m actually having a lot of fun.” Kelley replied.
“Hey Kelley is there a problem here?” Christen asked as she walked up to Kelley and Nate.
“Nope I was just leaving.” Nate said as he turned around.
“Thanks, Christen. That guy was getting so annoying. He wanted me to ditch the party and hang out with his friends.”
“No problem. I could tell you were getting super uncomfortable.”
“My knight in shining armor.” Kelley said.
Christen laughed as Kelley inwardly scolded herself for being so forward. She couldn’t really blame the alcohol because she really hadn’t had that much to drink yet. But she was glad that Christen laughed and didn’t get all weird about it.
Christen touched Kelley’s arm. “I will always be there to get you out of those awkward situations.”
Kelley smiled and suddenly felt like there was a hundred butterflies in her stomach. “So should we head back to the beer pong table and try and regain our dignity there?”
“That sounds like a perfect plan.”
They headed back into the room where the beer pong was being played and patiently waited their turn to play again.
Finally when it was their turn they actually were able to beat the team that they were up against. Christen hugged Kelley and Kelley could have sworn an electric current was racing through her skin and veins.
Christen smirked when she saw who their next opponents were. “So you think you can actually beat Kelley and me?”
“Dude, no worries. You’ll be crying when we are through with you guys.” Ashlyn responded with a smile. Ali just kind of rolled her eyes and took the ball. She rolled it back to Kelley and Kelley took her first shot. Of course she missed, but it was okay because Christen was actually pretty good at beer pong. Christen of course sunk her ball into one of the back cups.
“Do I have to carry this team every time we play?” she joked.
Kelley playfully punched her on the arm and awaited Ali and Ashlyn’s shots. They of course both went in and Kelley and Christen had to roll the ping pong balls back to them. The game went on for awhile because after the first round no one seemed to be able to actually make a shot. Finally Ashlyn got on a hot streak and it was soon 2 cups to 7 cups left.
“Come on Kel, we need to pick it up.” Christen mumbled.
Kelley concentrated, and threw her ball. It landed in one of the cups. Christen threw her ball and it too landed in the cup. They got balls back and Kelley tossed. It hit the rim of one of the cups and bounced out.
“Shit!”
Christen once again made a cup and then it was 2 cups to 5 cups left.
“Ready to lose this round?” Ali asked them.
“Dang I expected the trash talk out of Ashlyn, but you too Ali? That hurts.” Kelley pouted.
True to her word both Ashlyn and Ali made their cups and Kelley and Christen were forced to leave the table so others could play.
“Damn we weren’t even close to beating them. Now Ashlyn will never let us forget that she beat us.” Christen complained.
“Oh well, at least we lost in style.” Kelley smirked.
They continued drinking well into the night. When it was nearing two in the morning Tobin found Kelley and Christen.
“Hey guys. I’m going to head back with Moe and Meghan.”
“All right I think we’re going to head back pretty quick too. We’re going to watch this last game of beer pong.”
“Cool, cool see you tomorrow for jam time.” Tobin said as she walked away.
They watched another game of beer pong then headed for the door. They had no idea where Ali and Ashlyn were. They had disappeared earlier in the evening after they lost at beer pong three games after beating Kelley and Christen.
They walked out of the house and Christen couldn’t help but admire Kelley as she walked in front of her. She knew that she liked Kelley and wasn’t sure how long she would be able to hide that fact. It was probably the alcohol speaking but she decided to do something about it. Besides unless she was really bad at reading people, she thought that Kelley might be into her too.
She ran to catch up to Kelley and put her hand into Kelley’s. Kelley looked at her and Christen could have sworn she saw her smile.
“Kelley, I know this is random and I have only known you for a week, but you are the coolest person I have ever met.”
“Aww thanks Christen. You are by far the prettiest person I have ever met.” Kelley responded.
Christen smiled and knew that she had judged the situation correctly. They walked the rest of the way to their dorm in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but one where both girls were content. As they neared Christen’s dorm room she stopped and looked at Kelley.
“So would it be ok if we went to coffee or something just the two of us?”
Kelley looked up at Christen and pulled her into a hug. “I would like that.”
“Cool. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
They hugged one more time before Christen walked into her dorm room. Kelley mentally gave herself a high-five as she walked up to her room. As she opened the door to the living area she could hear Tobin softly snoring in her bedroom. She went into her bedroom and crawled into bed. She fell asleep with a big smile on her face.
*****
The next day all four of the girls were a little hung over as they played their respective instruments. They were in Ali’s room, because Ashlyn didn’t want to jam in hers when Alex was there. Plus Ali’s RA room was quite a bit bigger than their rooms. They were running through a couple of songs that they all knew really well, and were quickly becoming staples of their jam sessions.
Ali was sitting on the couch in the room listening to them. She was thinking about how awesome it was for Ashlyn to have something like this. She had always dreamed of finding other people to play with on a regular basis. After they had ran through the song Empire by Of Monsters and Men Ali had a sudden idea.
“Hey you guys. You should form a band the four of you.” Ali said as they finished the song.
They all looked at her curiously before turning back to each other.
“I don’t know. I mean it would be a lot of work.” Tobin said.
“Dude come on it would be fun. It wouldn’t have to be anything super serious when we start.” Ashlyn countered.
Kelley and Christen looked at each other, and Ali swore that it looked like they were having a conversation with each other using just their eyes. Did something happen there? Ali wondered. She made a mental note to investigate that earlier. She had seen how they looked at each other but didn’t think that anything would happen between them so soon.
“I mean I’m down it would be fun. Just so it doesn’t interfere with my studies.” Christen said, as Kelley nodded in agreement.
“Ok I guess I’m down too.” Tobin said.
“Cool! So I guess Sunday’s are practice days then?” Ashlyn asked.
“Yeah, but we need to get you a real drum set not just a practice pad.” Tobin said.
“Let me take care of that. I’ll talk to some of the percussion instructors. See if we can practice in the band rooms so I can use one of the kits there.” Ashlyn said.
They agreed to have an informal meeting to discuss some things during the middle of the week. They were going to discuss what they should call themselves, where they want to play, what type of music and most importantly who was going to sing.
As the others left Ashlyn smiled to herself. She was beyond excited.