Though we usually try our best to stick together at parties like this, I find myself alone after heading off to find the bathroom and getting stuck chatting with two girls from my psychology class. With a single scan of the room, I find Will and Caleb in the far corner of the living room with their heads bent together. Caleb is nodding along to whatever Will says, and when he responds Will ducks his head and glances toward the center of the room, meeting my gaze as he does. He straightens, waves me over, and says something to Caleb, who frowns and turns to see me too. For a moment, he doesn't move or even react to seeing me, but after an extra second a smile breaks out across his face. If I weren't drunk and halfway across the room from him, I'd think its a little forced, but Caleb is always happy to see me, so it can't be true.

I slip through the crowd to reach them, stumbling past the last person and bumping right into Caleb. He straightens me out and grins down at me. "You good, Ali?"

Through a laugh, I lift my cup and nod. "I'm great. What about you?"

This time, Caleb is the one to laugh. "Pretty good."

I turn my gaze to Will, who is watching Caleb as he takes a sip of his beer. By the time I blink, he's already looked away, this time meeting my gaze with a smile. "Where's Hunter? We assumed he was with you."

Shrugging, I swallow down the last of my drink. "Haven't seen him in a while." Automatically, I scan the room. "Last I saw he was with Tyler, but then I saw Ty with Paige—" At that moment, I finally spot Hunter. He's leaning back against the wall, staring across the room at a spot several feet away from where I'm standing with Caleb and Will.

Staring at Stella, who appears to be lost in a world of her own while grinding on a junior from the baseball team.

Shit.

A moment of clarity slams into me. "Fuck."

"What is it?" Will asks. I answer by pointing over at Stel, who has to be making Hunter feel like shit without even realizing it. "Oh. Fuck."

My head drops back, and I groan in frustration at the downward spiral that will become the rest of my evening. "Dammit. Here." I hand off my beer to Caleb. "I'm going to need to be sober as soon as possible to deal with this."

"Do you want some help?" Caleb asks, although he doesn't appear all that thrilled at the possibility of sectioning himself off with just Hunter and I until our whole group is ready to leave. I don't blame him, but I know he would drop everything to help Hunter or any of us.

I shake my head. "I've got it. We'll just go out to the porch or something. Try and check in with Ty and Tristan though, okay? Text me when you're ready to go." He nods, already downing the rest of my drink as he turns to Will. They resume their conversation in low voices as I slip through the crowd to Hunter's side.

He doesn't even look away from Stella as I reach him.

"Hey," I say, grabbing his arm. "Let's take a walk."

His muscles tense under my grip. "I'm fine, Alison. Go back to the party."

Raising my eyebrows, I say, "Wow, didn't realize I left the party. Must have teleported or some shit like that." Finally, he looks at me for long enough to show me just how funny he finds me— by his pissy expression, I would say not very—, and I grin as our eyes meet. "Now, let's take a fucking walk. Don't make me go alone. My drunk ass may fall and break a hip."

Hunter stares down at me, expression surprisingly devoid of emotion for one who was watching his ex dance with another guy, but his eyes share what his face doesn't.

My grin fades, dampening at the sight of his pain. "Trust me, Hunter. Don't torture yourself. It's better if you walk away."

Finally, he relents. Nodding, he lets me pull him out of the crowded living room and onto the back porch. There are still people out here, but its far quieter, and we're able to sit at the hanging bench swing without having to wait for it to clear.

I didn't expect him to be all chatty; he never is, even when he's in a good mood. There are certainly moments where Hunter won't shut the hell up, but those moments are few and far between.

Still, his silence, his stillness, is stronger than I thought it would be.

Usually in times like this, I move our conversations along with enough enthusiasm that he eventually grows tired of the sound of my voice and joins in, but I can't think of anything to say at the moment besides, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Hunter stares out at the backyard. His whole body exudes sadness. "You're not the one who cheated on me."

I look at his side profile, feeling my heart ache for my best friend who only ever treated his girlfriend with love and appreciation and reverence. She retaliated by sleeping with other guys who meant nothing to her, thereby planting seeds of doubt in Hunter that he has yet to weed out. Seeds that have just grown and grown until the cracks appear, visible to me and his other friends, refusing to be patched up or healed.

"I know." I would have never. "I'm still sorry."

Hunter just shrugs. He has nothing else to say, but where Stella is concerned, his thoughts and feelings always come spilling out.

I settle back into the cushioned bench, knowing full well that later tonight, he'll share everything with me. Even the things I don't really want to hear.

* * *

By the time Caleb texts me saying that he and the others are ready to head out, Hunter has mellowed out to his usual demeanor. I know he's still thinking about what he saw inside- how could he not?- but he's not as tense, not as withdrawn. I'm able to pull him out of his head enough to have a semi-decent conversation which thankfully keeps me as entertained as the party would, maybe even more. Even when he is in a shitty mood, Hunter has the ability to put a smile on my face and keep it there. All my friends can.

"Okay but Jamie? Really? You have to admit she was a low point for you."

Hunter scoffs, shaking his head while looking straight ahead into the backyard. He pushes off on the wooden boards that make up the porch, swinging the bench we're on gently. "No, she wasn't. She wasn't perfect, but she was nice."

"She slashed your tire!"

He hesitates. "Yeah, that was pretty psycho, but in her defense I pushed her into it. I was fifteen. I did not know how to be a boyfriend, nor did I care to really try. I think the slashed tire was completely understandable."

I look at him in a mixture of disbelief and amusement before answering Caleb and telling him to meet us out front. "You always do that. Even with the ones who screwed you over." I stand up, adding, "They're ready to go."

"Do what?" He asks as he stands up and follows me down the porch steps and around the house.

"Defend them."

Hunter shrugs. "Well they had to put up with me. I figure that earns them some automatic brownie points."

"Why?" I roll my eyes. "I put up with you. Have for a long time. It's not that hard."

He laughs, and its actually a light, happy sound rather than a sarcastic one that he's often prone to. "That's not saying anything more than you're made of stronger stuff than pretty much any other girl I know."

I blink, trying to control my expression as my insides warm and my heart flutters. I'm usually pretty good at remaining calm and casual in the face of such praise, but even though I've started to sober up, my inhibitions are still far lower than usual, as is my self-control. "Well, I can squat double my body weight." Really? That's what you have to say in response to that?

When he laughs again, I give up on hiding anything and just smile up at him. He throws his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him and making me stumble over a dip in the ground. "That's not what I meant, Alison, and you know it." He sobers up, adopting a more serious, composed persona the closer we get to the car, which I now see has four boys- three of whom are clearly drunk- milling nearby. "You're good to me. Always have been, and hopefully always will be."

I find the courage to look up from the uneven ground to look at his face. "Of course," I whisper. "You're my best friend."

"Don't let Will hear you say that," uHunter says quietly, but the amusement is clear in his eyes, in the softness of his mouth.

Before I can answer, we reach the car, and suddenly the three drunk boys surround us, talking animatedly over each other in an effort to get our attention. Despite his smaller size and often calmer personality, Will wins out, saying, "Can we please get ice cream?"

Caleb quickly agrees, and Tyler turns on him. "You traitor!" Ty nearly shouts. "You said you wanted tacos!"

Smiling guiltily, Caleb says, "I did, but ice cream just sounds good."

Will turns and high fives him, flipping off his older brother in the same instant, only to be knocked into the side of the car by an annoyed Tyler.

Great. Guess I'll be stuck watching them later too. They're much more manageable when I'm drunk and can blow it off, but knowing that Hunter will probably have more to say later about Stella means that's not an option.

As Hunter steps forward and separates the brothers, keeping a hand on each of their chests, and starts lecturing them in his usual manor, I can't help but smile.

It'll be worth it to help him feel better, even if its just temporary. Anything to help him.

* * *

For a while, once we get back to my house in relatively good health and great spirits, the six of us have fun together in such a simple, genuine way that I'm reminded for the millionth time just how much I love my friends. Will, Tyler, and Caleb are still drunk, but all intoxication does to them is increase their energy and remove their filter. Will in particular is more relaxed and open when he's drinking, and seeing him so carefree always brings a smile to my face. Caleb is more vocal and physical about his affection for us- as if thats even possible- and has proposed to each of us in increasingly hilarious ways throughout the past forty minutes. Tyler is alternating between eating everything in the house, apologizing profusely for doing so, and trying to convince Hunter and I to let him bake something at 1:53am while drunk.

Even Tristan, who I have seen very little of tonight- mostly through my own maneuvering because I truly was worried how well Drunk Ali would handle the "lets be friends" concept- is looser than I have ever seen him. He's laughing and joking around with the guys, and even though he gives me a bit of space, he doesn't look at me with nerves and anxiety anytime we cross paths or happen to look at one another. Seems like remaining malice-free agrees with him.

Hunter, while still in a better mood than earlier, sinks into himself more and more as the time passes. By the time the rest of the idiots finally go to bed, set up in different guest rooms upstairs (Ty, Will, and Caleb in their usual ones with Tristan in the room just beside Tyler), with glasses of water and Advil pills on the nightstands, Hunter has been sitting on the kitchen stool at the island, staring out the glass doors to the shaded patio.

Grabbing my own water bottle from the living room, I join him at the counter and take a sip. I'm no longer drunk, but I can feel the usual effects- the drowsiness and dehydration, mainly- creeping up on me. Succumbing to them is not really an option, however. Not until Hunter is settled in and freed from the ghost of his ex haunting him.

I stay quiet for several minutes, alternating between looking outside, at my phone and the social media apps I'm switching between, and Hunter himself. At the moment, I'm unsure of how to breach the subject without pissing him off or making him shut down, so I think about the situation and wait for the words that are inevitably going to come.

"You don't have to babysit me," Hunter says in a stilted voice. He's barely holding it together. "I'm fine. Just need a few minutes before I can go to bed."

I set my phone down on the counter, putting it far enough away that Hunter knows I'm serious about the conversation and one hundred percent focused on him. "You don't have to act like she doesn't get to you. Not with me."

There's a hitch in his breathing. "She's shouldn't get to me. She doesn't. It's been months, for fucks sake."

Goosebumps race along my arms as the next words leave my mouth. "The toxic one's never leave. Not really. They leave an aftertaste, like spoiled milk."

Unlike with our earlier conversation, he doesn't have a single word in defense of Stella. With the shit she put him through, and the damage she wrought, he would have to have amnesia to have the strength to say anything good about that witch.

Hunter turns away from the glass doors and rests his chin on his folded arms. "I know she doesn't care about me. Not really. I just don't understand why I still can't let her go."

More than anything, I want to lash out against the girl who hurt him so much. Oftentimes, I have, mostly when they first broke up, and we were with our other friends. But there are times when clever insults and my own rage are useless and only make him feel worse. Moments like this, when its just the two of us, I have to wrangle my temper into submission and actually try to give decent advice.

Still, I'm only human, and one with spotty self-control at that. So there's an undercurrent of anger to my words that Hunter is either used to or unbothered by. The partial gentleness in my voice is what I'm really trying to convey, and he knows that. "She may not care about you, but you care about her, and that's okay." It's not, a part of me screams, but I know it is. I may hate Stella's guts, but even I know that, at first, they had a good relationship. Besides, even though most people wouldn't expect it, Hunter has a big heart. He cares about people, even those he shouldn't, and battering him verbally for one of his best traits won't accomplish anything other than pushing him away from me. "That's what makes you better than her, Hunter. And that's why you'll be remembered for more than just being a cheating bitch who made it through half the baseball team in a week."

He turns his stink eye onto me, and I roll my eyes. "Okay, fine. Let me rephrase that: How you care for other people will leave you a legacy in our school and our town greater than just petty drama. You've already changed the culture of our program beyond recognition, and if you weren't you, and if you didn't care for everyone- even those who don't necessarily deserve it- that wouldn't have happened."

"You don't know that." Hunter closes his eyes. "Sure, I care about the kids in the program, and those who will become the future, but no more than other players who are dedicated do. No more than the coaches. It doesn't make that much of a difference."

My eyes narrow, and I feel my neck get hot with my usual anger. "Actually, I do know that. I've met a lot of the town's well known hockey players and coaches. Some have helped me, others haven't, but either way their experiences with me have always been tainted by my father's shadow. But you have put up with my shit for years for no other reason than you want to see me succeed. You were my friend because of me, and who I am, and that means a hell of a lot to me. So I'm proof of at least one person you've touched by being yourself and caring for others, and the four boys sleeping upstairs are too. Even the brat I don't like very much," I add, knowing that the insult wouldn't escape him, and I get the reaction I wanted.

Hunter opens his eyes, scowling at me as he sits up. "Hey, you're supposed to be trying to be friends with him."

I shrug, unable to help the wide, smug grin. "He's not here and won't know that I called him a dickhead."

He sighs and rolls his eyes. By the end of the movement, Hunter has relaxed. I know I didn't cure him of his pain and heartbreak, though I wish more than anything that I could, but hopefully I've given him some peace. If anyone deserves it, he does.

"Now," I hop off the stool, grabbing my phone and water bottle as I do. "Let's go to bed so that you get plenty of rest and can make waffles tomorrow morning."

Once again, he rolls his eyes. "How do I always end up having to drive and make breakfast?"

"Because you love us. Duh."

Hunter shakes his head, sighing under his breath as he follows me out of the kitchen and turns the light off behind us. "You're lucky I do."

"I know."

* * *

The next morning, I wake as refreshed as I can be after how much I had to drink last night. Stopping early and consuming half my weight in water from the time I cut myself off the alcohol to the moment I woke up certainly helped, but my tongue is still dry and sticky, and my mouth still tastes of beer. Still, I'm not grouchy, not once I notice the smell of waffles and realize Hunter really has woken up to make breakfast. Even coming downstairs to see that Tristan is the only other one awake other than Hunter is not enough to dampen my mood.

"Good morning," I practically chirp, beelining straight for the frige to refill my bottle.

"Morning," Hunter responds without even looking at me. Tristan waves and repeats the greeting as well. In front of him is a plate of half eaten waffles that smell absolutely incredible.

After filling my bottle with ice, I slip behind Hunter and start to fill it with water from the filtered facet at the sink. Leaning against the counter, I look at the waffles- oh bless him, he made chocolate chip- and then Hunter himself. His hair is wet, and the whole back of his shirt is damp. "Did you go for a run?"

He nods, checking the waffle that's currently in the iron before glancing over at me. "When I woke up. About two hours ago. I knew you all wouldn't be up until at least 11am, and-" he looks at the clock on the microwave that blinks 11:32 "I was right."

The water nearly overflows before I look back at it and turn off the flow. "You fucker. You're making the rest of us look bad."

Hunter laughs. "Well you could've come with me."

This time, I'm the one who laughs, more so out of disbelief than amusement. "I can barely function on seven hours of sleep when I'm sober. I'm not going to even attempt it while hungover."

"That's why you can make up for it tomorrow." I don't even have to see his face to imagine the smugness of his expression, and I glower at his back. "Although you don't seem too bad right now."

I shrug. "I'm not, really, although some waffles would certainly help."

"The finished ones are in the microwave."

I practically prance over to his side to take the plate from him once he retrieves it. They smell delicious, as does he. "Ew, you stink."

Hunter narrows his eyes at me. "You're very welcome for the breakfast. I'm happy to serve you and your ungrateful ass today and everyday after."

Laughing, I give him a hug, not even minding the wetness of his shirt. I have to shower later anyway, because I certainly don't smell like a field of flowers myself. "Thanks, Hunter." There are three waffles on the plate, and my mouth is already watering. "Have you eaten any yet?"

He shakes his head. "I'll have some in a bit. I just had a protein shake."

Perfect.

I sit next to Tristan and pour some maple syrup over the waffles. I'm so excited, I cut into them and shove a piece that's far too big into my mouth, chew it, and swallow before I say to Tristan, "Was your room okay?"

At first, he doesn't answer. He's nearly finished with his waffles, and he seems to be giving them all of his focus. Once he notices me watching him, however, his eyes widen. "Who, me?" At my nod, he says, "Oh, yeah, it was great. Thanks."

"Of course." I take another bite. "We have stuff if you want to shower or anything. Whatever you need."

Tristan laughs, and the sound takes me off guard. He's laughed plenty when I'm around, especially last night, but he hasn't ever laughed at something I said without intending it to be mean or sarcastic. "Are you saying I smell too?"

I roll my eyes. "Not yet, although I'm finally getting used to the smell of your bullshit."

He laughs again, and even Hunter lets out a small snort at my reply.

Feeling pleased with myself, I scarf down more of the waffles, more relaxed than I ever thought possible in Tristan's presence. Hunter was right that we could get along, or at least not be at each other's throats constantly. Who would've known.

AN: hey there!!! tomorrow I start the lengthy trip back to school, and this semester I'm bringing my car with me. I cannot even explain how excited I am to be able to take it for so many reasons.

I'm also so excited to get back to campus, lacrosse, and even classes!!! I'll be super busy, just the way I like it, and I'm really hopeful we will get to play this season.

this very well could be the last chapter I post for a while, and I know it's shorter than usual, but it's one of my favs.

pls let me know what you think!! I truly appreciate every vote and comment so much.

love y'all
soph