Conflicted (Secrets and Lies) (15 page)

Trey's fists cut off Brandon. I wiggled away as he sunk to the floor. Bri pulled me aside as the boys surrounded Brandon and Braden. Blood trickled down Brandon's nose while Braden spit out pools of it. Braden scrambled away with his hands over his head as he took parting shots from Shane and Jackson. Brandon attempted to get up but Trey stopped him with a blow to the body. His eyes were full of fury and he wasn't going to stop any time soon. I had seen this side of him before and it scared the shit out of me. I stepped away from Bri placing my hand on his back. His faced had turned red with his muscles bulging throughout his neck as he shook from the adrenaline. I tugged harder on his shirt for him to stop but he kept swinging.

"Trey, that's enough!" I shouted.

"It's not enough Mia. You should never let anyone speak to you like that no matter how shitty you treated them. This asshole needs to learn some manners!" he yelled.

"Trey, please stop! He's not worth it," I pleaded.

He could easily put Brandon in the hospital if he didn't stop soon. I looked for Shane knowing he'd be the only one to stop him. Shane saw the panic in my eyes and restricted Trey by locking his arms from behind. Trey tried to fight off Shane to get back to beating the shit out of Brandon. Shane gripped Trey tighter while Jackson picked up Brandon and shoved towards the front door. Bri and I stepped away from the scuffle to lean against the wall.

"Hey man, you've proved your point! You're going to scare your girl if you keep this up," Shane shouted, turning Trey to face him.

Trey snapped out of fight mode trying to find Bri. She stepped closer to him assessing the blood covering his fists. Her expression transitioned from worried to tender as she placed a palm on the side of his face. His breathing started to slow as his eyes found hers.

Trey grabbed her hand and whispered, "Bri, I'm sorry. I know you hate when I fight. I couldn't let him get away with what he said to Mia."

Bri nodded caressing his cheek to soothe him. His eyes drifted to me then to the ceiling.

"Mia is nothing like those southy girls. Those preppy fuckers have no idea."

"Trey, I appreciate what you did but you know I don't care."

I cut off with the sharp look he gave me. It didn't matter if I cared - he cared. Bri stood on her tiptoes to give him a gentle kiss. Her lips lingered on his for a minute before she snuggled into his side. He held her in his arms tightly as calm shifted back into his eyes.

I exhaled slowly glancing at the four of them and pointed towards the cave. Before we disappeared, Jackson found the remote cranking up the music to bring the party back to life. As we entered the cave, I went behind the bar to grab the Patron. We had done a variety of shots throughout the night but tequila was not one of them. After what just went down, tequila seemed necessary. I filled five shot glasses to the brim then slid them across the bar to awaiting hands.

I raised my shot glass. "To the best friends a girl could ask for. Thank you so much for my party and everything else you do for me," I toasted.

We downed our shots. I eyed everyone and poured us another round.

Jackson raised an eyebrow. "Who's trying to cause mayhem now?"

"I've been hanging out with you too long Jackson. I'm warming up so that I can kick Bri's ass in the keg stand competition that she is hell bent on having with me," I said, shooting a wink in her direction.

Shots were exactly what we needed. After a few more rounds, we returned to the party. I lived up each moment of my birthday surrounded by a group of friends that would do anything for me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Mia! Answer your fucking phone!"

I was having a real difficult time processing the words shouted at me. I buried my head further into the cold surface beneath me hoping that the steel rod penetrating my skull was a figment of my imagination. When that failed to work, I decided maybe rolling over to my side would help with the pain in my head. I rolled over to find myself crashing onto the porch floor.

What the hell
?
Why am I outside? Have I been here all night?

I tentatively opened one eye only to have the sun blind me. My loud crash stirred someone to the right of me. Before I had a chance to investigate any further, I heard my ringtone again.

"Mia! Answer your fucking phone!"

I'd answer the damn thing if I knew where it was right now. I hoisted myself into a sitting position and put my head into my knees. My head weighed a million pounds. There was an overly enthusiastic construction crew thrashing into it with sludge hammers. I leaned forward placing a hand down to stand up.

Oh shit, bad idea.

My stomach dropped to the floor. I fell to my knees taking deep breaths to rake in the waves of nausea that screamed through my body. After everything remained where it should, I resorted to crawling over to the porch railing to bring myself up. My entire body felt like it had run a marathon. I was sore everywhere. Once upright, I risked opening both my eyes and tried to focus but had difficulty just seeing straight. I stood still blinking repeatedly to get the picture to focus into one solid frame rather than three that shifted in and out.

Christ, am I still drunk?

I looked myself over trying to see if there were any bruises for how sore I was. I took comfort in the fact that one place wasn't sore. Thank God, I didn't have sex with anyone. It brought the only sense of peace to my foggy head since somehow I changed from my dress into a t-shirt and shorts. I heard a moan to my right. It looked like Jackson but I was unsure since his back was to me. I stumbled my way over to that couch to peer at its occupant. It was definitely Jackson. I leaned over gripping the couch for leverage so I didn't fall on him. I lifted my leg to give him a swift kick in the ass. He winced having the same hung-over feelings run through him.

"What the fuck Mia?" Jackson yelled. He grimaced when his tone caught up with him.

"What the hell happened last night?" I shouted, cringing the second I did it.

Oh, that was an extremely bad idea. The construction crew in my head switched over to chainsaws with that action. They started to slice away parts of my brain making each splinter count. I held my head as the pounding picked up another notch. Jackson lifted an eyelid then swiftly shut it to bury his head into the side of the couch.

"Shit that's bright. I don't know why we're out here," he grumbled.

My phone rang again and the repeated screams to answer it ran through the house. I surveyed the rest of the area and gasped at the sight. There were people everywhere. People were across the lawn passed out cold with empty red cups surrounding the entire premises. I leaned back on the railing pressing my fingers to my head. The last thing I remembered was taking shots together as a house in the cave.

Why can't I remember the rest of the night?

I had gotten very drunk in the past but never blacked out the majority of a night. I narrowed my eyes at Jackson. It was his job to keep matters from getting out of control. He was still in last night's clothes. It perturbed me even more that I had no memory of changing clothes.

The venom in my voice was unavoidable. "Jackson, what the fuck happened last night?"

He peered over his shoulder. "What! We had a good party. It's no different from any of other parties that we have thrown in the last few months."

Now, he was starting to piss me off. Sure, we had thrown parties and had plenty of people spend the night but we managed to keep them inside the house rather than lawn ornaments. It amazed me that the cops were not here with the sight on our lawn. The scene in front of us was one that any frat party would brag about for weeks but here in the burbs not so much.

I grabbed him by the tie and forced him to roll over and sit up. I gestured to the yard.

"I'm pretty sure that our past parties didn't look like this the following morning," I snapped.

Jackson opened his eyes taking in the surrounding scene. His eyes widened as he noticed the dozen or so people that were dead to the world on our lawn.

"Shit," Jackson mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well..." I remarked, raising my hands.

He stared at me totally confused. "Mia, I don't know what happened."

Before I had a chance to respond, my phone started ringing again and brought an onslaught of screams with it. Jackson gazed around seemingly puzzled by the voices from inside.

"House meeting. Now," I demanded.

Jackson nodded. He stood, swayed, and fell back on the couch. It reeled back some of my anger with him since I had the same struggle.

Shit. He looks like he's still drunk too.

"I'm going to wake up the others. Please find my phone since it won't stop ringing."

Jackson waved me along. He held his stomach as he took slow breaths. I managed to get to the front door without swaying or throwing up. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was inside. I opened the door not nearly prepared for the sight ahead of me. People had passed out everywhere. The entire living room had bodies on couches, the floor, and the coffee tables.

I weaved my way in and out of bodies towards the dining room to see people passed out on the floor and table in there. I got to the stairs deftly moving around the people passed out at the landing. What I saw was more than enough so checking out the cave or kitchen was pointless. I headed upstairs and banged on Trey and Shane's doors. There was no movement for the first five minutes. When they did get up, they answered their doors with matching glares.

I motioned downstairs and flatly said, "House meeting." I looked over Trey's shoulder to see Bri burying her head underneath a pillow. "Bri, that means you too so get your ass up."

I trotted down to the landing and shouted, "Your overnight stay is over. Everybody out!"

Not one person that shuffled by me was recognizable. As the house cleared out, Trey, Shane, and Bri made their way downstairs. They appeared as rough as Jackson and me. Clearly, something happened last night. Everyone looked the same - hung-over as shit.

I looked over to Jackson to see he had my phone. I grabbed it from him and shut it off without bothering to check the missed calls or voicemails. I knew that someone was trying to reach me but one crisis at a time. All eyes were on me so I gestured to the living room so we could at least lean against something while we tried to piece together last night. We shuffled in there and collapsed into the furniture.

"Who remembers anything about last night?" I asked.

Crickets
...

We looked at each other with blank expressions and no words for several minutes.

Jackson finally stammered, "I remember a few things, but it's really blurry. I remember all of us doing shots. They got me buzzed but I was still paying attention."

"Do you remember the last group of people that you let in?"

Jackson started playing with his lip ring. "Umm...."

My eyes constricted. "Who was the last person that you remember letting in?"

Jackson gazed around the room looking at anything but the rest of us.

"Seriously just tell us," I exclaimed.

"They said they knew you. They knew it was your birthday and that they were here to celebrate. They said you'd be cool with it. Plus, they had their own booze so I didn't really see the harm," Jackson confessed.

I gulped not wanting to go down the road my mind was travelling. "Jackson, what alcohol did this group exactly bring? Do you remember any names?" I asked uneasily.

He fidgeted with his lip ring again. "I remember hearing one of them say O'Connor."

The color left my face as I glanced at Trey. He buried his head in his hands. We knew that this just went from bad to really fucking bad. Shane, Bri, and Jackson watched our exchange.

Bri pulled Trey from his arms. "What?" she asked anxiously.

He avoided her gaze glimpsing at me with a nod to tell them.

Wonderful
.
I get to take the lead on this bomb drop.

I redirected my eyes away from their inquisitive stares and settled them on the ceiling hoping it would offer words of encouragement. "The O'Connor's are from our neighborhood. They're bad news. We were never friends with them. We ran into them from time to time at parties but that's about it. Their claim to fame was fucking people up at their parties." I looked at Jackson and asked, "Do you remember what they brought?"

Jackson frowned. "It was a family bucket."

I wanted to throw up but reined it in. I glanced at Trey who was rubbing his hands over his eyes as his face became even paler.

Jackson cleared his throat and said, "They brought in quite a few buckets. It looked like whop so I didn't question it."

I gaped with the mention of buckets as in plural. This was worse than I thought.

"How would have they even known there was a party?" I questioned.

Bri's face turned red as she dropped her gaze to the floor. I stared at her with wide eyes.

"Umm...I may have posted it on Twitter and Facebook after I got drunk," she confessed.

I groaned dropping my head in my hands. We had just drank God knows what from the O'Connor's. Today couldn't get any worse and that was when Bri's phone started ringing. She retrieved her phone from her sweatshirt and gave us an apologetic look as she answered.

"Hello? Oh...hey...yea, Mia's here."

Bri gestured the phone in my direction. I grabbed it with a raised eyebrow.

"Hello?"

"Why haven't you answered your phone or returned any of my messages?"

Chase shouted so loud that I held the phone away from my ear.

"What's the problem?" I asked utterly irritated.

"I had two servers and a bar tender call in sick. Can you and Bri cover today? I don't ask for your help often Mia but I really need you today," Chase requested tersely.

All I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die but I refused to say no to Chase. We never asked for favors from one another so I had to be his last resort.

"I guess. When do you need us and for how long?" I inquired, unenthused.