Page 69 of Blitz

Have a good sleep, baby.

I remember calling him shortly after midnight. We video-chatted for a bit. My call log tells another story—a ten second call, followed by a three minute and twelve second call around one thirty. Another call right before two, this one declined.

Shit. What did I do?

Chapter twenty-eight

Tucker

My fist strikes the bag with a satisfying thwack. Barrett doesn’t flinch. He simply holds the punching bag steady and lets me have another go. Thwack. Thwack thwack.

“We should talk about it,” he says.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I wipe the sweat off my face and prepare for another bout.

“All I’m saying is—”

“Well, stop.”

“Dude.”

I strike the bag. Again, and again, and again, until my hands ache and my arms shake and all I can feel is the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

She drinks. She’s a partier. She’s the type of person who goes out and gets drunk every weekend.

And I don’t know if I can be with a person like that.

“Maybe with some perspective, it won’t seem that bad.”

“I don’t.” Thwack. “Need.” Thwack. “Perspective.” Thwack thwack.

“Come on, man. Let’s—”

“I’d rather not.”

Barrett rolls his eyes. “Clearly.”

He holds the bag steady as I work out all of my frustration. I don’t need perspective. I need a girlfriend who is on the same page as I am. Someone whose life fits into mine. And I don’t know that someone who goes to parties every weekend and drinks their face off is the right person for me.

She’s Mason. She’s the girl I’m in love with.

But she might not be the right girl for me. And so I hit the bag a few more times, again and again and again, because I can’t scream at the universe and I can’t cry and I can’t do anything. I don’t want to change her. I don’t want to force her to be someone she’s not. But I also can’t surround myself with negative influences.

Both of my grandfathers died of alcoholism. It’s how my moms met, in a support group for children of alcoholics, a fact she’s well aware of. My mom is a recovering addict—pills, something she got hooked on after a surgery twelve years ago. She’s been clean for ten and a half years. It’s something she still struggles with every damn day.

Family history alone makes it easy enough for me to abstain. For a guy my size, it would take so many drinks for me to get drunk, it almost isn’t worth it. On top of that, I don’t like the taste of alcohol. I’m still underage until June. I have no reason to drink. I try not to surround myself with people who are into that lifestyle. No judgment on them for liking it—it’s just not for me.

I know some of the guys in the house drink. Barrett nearly bought out the liquor store when he turned twenty-one last summer and fully stocked our liquor cabinet for years to come. After one night of consumption for the hell of it, the bottles have rarely been touched. Most of them are still sealed. Greg has been known to have a few beers at a frat party; he always stops before he gets wasted. Amir will have one or two drinks to be sociable, but he isn’t interested in the partying scene. Miles goes to frat parties now that he’s dating Sam, so who knows what he’s been up to in recent months. And Wes doesn’t leave his armchair, so if he’s drinking alone in his room, that’s news to me.

I’ve been to two frat parties in my life: one was the mistake I made freshman year, and the other was to pick up Mason. Football parties are far more tame in comparison. No booze, no pot, nothing that would get us kicked off the team. I don’t usually go to those, either. I don’t particularly like socializing. I would much rather sit on the couch with the guys and watch a movie or play video games than make small talk with guys trying to take my place in the starting lineup.

“It’ll be okay,” Barrett says. He grunts when I hit the bag with a particularly hard thwack. “Or maybe it won’t. Fuck if I know.”

“What if it was Diana?”

He blinks at the mention of his best friend. “What about her?”

“If you and Di were together—” He flushes red and I make a mental note to reexamine that later. “If you and Diana were a couple, but she had a hobby that put you at risk—”