I hated tequila.

I pretended I could drink it, but after getting thoroughly smacked by Jed in Battleshots, I wanted to crawl into a hole. But alas, there were still people in my apartment at 1 AM, and based on the state of us all (including me), a disappearing act of any degree would somehow lead to Jed calling the cops thinking I'd been kidnapped.

The only bright spot was that Kiernan hadn't left yet either. Whether it was tequila-induced or something else induced, we'd ended up together on the couch at some point. Tequila was at least slightly involved, because only tequila would make me blurt out something like, "Your hair smells nice."

The surface-level, liquor-soaked observations continued at first (she did in fact tell me "not everyone can look so glamorous in a white t-shirt"), but the other thing about tequila was that it took the edges off of things we said.

I knew that Kiernan and I considered each other friends by now, but maybe that was the problem. Somehow we still wedged ourselves into boxes around each other, because stepping out of them could lead us somewhere we weren't fully prepared to go.

My eyes shot open as a weight dropped into my lap. Rudy licked at my hand, his head nearly colliding with someone else's head resting on my chest.

Kiernan jolted upward at the sight of Rudy's head centimeters from hers, cursing under her breath. But then she looked at me, seemed to register my proximity as she blinked a few times, and then shifted herself onto the open cushion with a level of wariness that felt appropriate when the sun hadn't risen yet.

"Good morning," she said, her voice somewhat hoarse.

I ran a hand down the side of my face. "It is not the morning, I don't care what the clock says."

Kiernan lifted her wrist to inspect her watch at eye level. "It's 4:50 am. It's the morning."

My tongue was heavy as I conjured up a response. "Time is a man-made construct, Kiernan."

She offered me a closed-lip smile, and without thinking twice I offered her one back. Not much needed to be said, and in the dead silence there was just an understanding that how we'd just found ourselves would stay between us.

Regardless of my glib, potentially still drunk commentary on time, it was in fact four in the morning. There was also a bizarre vulnerability that clung to the dissipating darkness, enticing words and feelings into my mind that seemed to hate existing during the day.

I forced my gaze away from her just as she started threading her fingers through her hair in an attempt to work through a nonexistent mess.

Across the living room, I saw Jed's bedroom door shut, and the only light on in the apartment was the one in the front hallway, casting little slivers of light on gutted limes and empty shot glasses on the kitchen island. It seemed like people had trickled out in various stages of the night, and somehow Kiernan had not been one of those people.

Whether it was intentional or not on her part I hadn't worked out yet, and when I brought my gaze back to her, it seemed like she was trying to work me out too.

Even inebriated, Jed had still managed to start the dishwasher at some point last night, and the gurgling whoosh of it turning over filled the silence, unfreezing us both.

As she sat up, she briefly brought a hand down onto my leg. "I should go."

"I could call you a car," I offered, finally shifting myself fully upright against the arm of the couch.

"No need." She'd located her phone and bag on the coffee table in front of us. "I have enough functioning brain cells to do it myself."

While Kiernan slipped into the hall bathroom, I made an attempt to piece together the rest of my night, but thankfully as I scrolled through my phone, there were no rogue texts sent or photos taken. I considered that a win, however small.

The bathroom door opened, and shadows rearranged themselves on the walls as Kiernan walked by the kitchen. She stopped for a moment, seemingly surveying the damage, before beginning to stack the shot glasses abandoned on the island with the same wariness guiding her movements.

Something about the gentle clinking of the glassware lifted me off the couch and into the kitchen.

"Stop stop stop." I reached for her hands. "Jed's party, Jed's mess. That's the rule. So you can just go."

Kiernan recoiled almost imperceptibly, and it was suddenly clear I wasn't nearly as cognizant as I thought I was, because that was a fucking dumb thing to say.

I let go of her hands. "I didn't...I didn't mean that the way it came out."

She set the glasses on the counter, still neatly stacked. "I know."

Maybe it was that lack of cognizance, or maybe it wasn't, but her tone felt detached from the rest of her, and it set me a little on edge.

Her phone rang on the island.

Time seemed to suspend itself for a moment as we both looked at it, but then Kiernan's hand jerked into action.

"Hi, sorry," Kiernan's voice shot upward as she spoke. "Yes, this is Kiernan."

I watched her delicately place her hand on the counter, unable to work out who the hell would be calling her at this god forsaken hour before remembering she had in fact called a car, even before I told her to get out. It didn't make it any less dumb.

"Out front is fine, thank you." Kiernan nodded a few times, her gaze firmly on her sneakers. "I'll be right there. Okay, bye."

Still feeling the need to walk back what I'd said, I blurted out, "All I meant was that you didn't need to stay and clean. I appreciate it, but...it's fine."

"I know it's fine," Kiernan said plainly as she rubbed at a dark shadow beneath her eyes. I almost got the sense that she was trying to reassure me, but maybe not. "Wish Jed luck for me on Monday."

"Will do."

I knew it was too early and too raw to give our conversation much thought, but it was hard not to notice how long the silences seemed to linger between our exchanges.

As if she had picked up on a similar thought, we simultaneously moved toward the front door, nearly knocking into each other in the narrow hallway. Kiernan lingered a step behind me as I opened it, and she held my gaze for a fraction of a second before lurching herself through the doorway, almost like someone had tugged her through it.

"I'm sure I'll be seeing you again."

If she'd picked up on my attempt at clever callback to our first real encounter, her vacant expression suggested that she wasn't inclined to return it.

"Okay. Goodnight."

When the door shut behind her, the silence that followed was overwhelming.

I learned my forehead against the door, pressing it to the wood to give me a feeling that would drown out the silence. There was an echoing I honed in on, like when you were younger and you'd hold a shell up to your ear to "hear the ocean," except I was old enough now to know it was just the blood rushing through my ears.

"Okay?" I grumbled to myself. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"What are you doing?"

I whirled around at a speed too fast for someone who might've still been drunk, and saw the muscular blob of Jed's silhouette lingering in the space between the living room and the kitchen.

"Having a quarter-life crisis," I answered flatly.

"Oh, okay," Jed shrugged and continued his trek into the kitchen. He arrived at the fridge and without hesitation changed the number underneath DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT back to zero.

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I drove home six hours later, and as I pulled into my driveway, Aspen was rolling her neon pink bike out of the garage.

"Where you going?" I asked as I rolled my window down.

"None of your business." She was wearing sunglasses but the eye roll was apparent enough.

"You know Mom is just going to tell me anyway."

"Then let her tell you. I'm late." She paused, dropping her gaze down to her sneakers. "I'll be back later." She kicked her feet off the pavement and rode down the rest of the driveway before I could respond.

I sighed as I turned the car off and gathered my stuff out of the back seat. It's not like I wanted to be this cliche, overbearing older brother, but I felt like I'd been thrust into it without warning.

I didn't want Mom to feel like she had to change her close mother-daughter relationship with Aspen, because I knew I wished I had more time for that same adjacent relationship with Dad.

Mom was in the living room watching Dateline when I walked in the house.

"Aspen declined to divulge her destination to me as she was leaving," I called to her as I dropped my duffle by the stairs.

"She went to Mark's," she answered casually as I dropped onto the other end of the couch.

I groaned. "So what, are they like dating now?"

"Yes." Mom paused Dateline and gave me that no nonsense look of hers. "Are you dating?"

"This isn't about me," I scoffed. "She's too young, I'm not."

"When's the last time you went out on a date?" She offered me her bowl of popcorn.

"What? I don't know." I waved her off. "I'm working too much right now anyway."

"So you're dating KPMG?"

"Haha, very funny."

She put a soft, reassuring hand to my knee. "You don't need to keep being so closed off from people, Montana. I met your dad when I was your age."

I stiffened up at the mention of Dad, and she recoiled. "Don't bring Dad into this."

"It doesn't always have to be sad," Mom kept her tone soft, and it made me want to snap like a rubber band that was pulled too far. "I don't want you to be sad-"

"I'm not."

She leaned back into the couch and pinched her lips into a thin, almost conniving smile. "Okay well...then go out."

"I do go out," I groaned. "Jed even threw a party with all his teacher friends."

"I mean go out and meet someone."

I had a blunt, fast-paced response to everything until that moment, when I realized that same morning, for better or for worse, I'd woken up with a girl. A girl that earlier this week, I'd willingly kissed when she asked—despite my recent unwillingness to engage in any sort of intimacy with anyone.

But had I actually met someone?

My internal brake-slamming, however short, did not go unnoticed.

"Honey, have you met someone?"

Under even the worst circumstances, I could never lie to my mom. She always knew when I was, and whether that was on me or her I was never really sure. I heaved out a sigh before confessing. "Well okay...I might have. I'm not sure. I don't know."

Mom jumped before scooting closer to me. "Oh, that's wonderful! Tell me things!"

I had to wrack my brain for tangible things I knew about Kiernan. Things that would satisfy Mom's curiosity but wouldn't give me and all my bullshit away.

"Okay..." I nodded, steadying myself. "She went to Yale, she's a speech writer for Cassandra Symons, she's...pretty."

Mom's mouth trembled as if she was barely holding back an amused smile. "Does she have a name?"

"If I tell you, that doesn't give you free reign to stalk her on Facebook like the Gen X'er you are."

Mom held her hands up in surrender. "I won't, I won't."

"It's Kiernan."

"Have you guys...ya know?" She winked.

I held my hand up and glared. "Jesus mom stop. We kissed. Once. That's it."

"Okay, well, you know what you have to do next."

"I feel like this is going to be where the disconnect is."

"Take her to Eatly. Get her flowers-"

"No. No. That's so extra."

Mom looked blatantly dissatisfied, and I sighed again.

"Look, I'll think about dinner, alright?"

She smiled innocently, seeming to be satisfied enough now, but I wasn't. Because I knew I'd think and think and think until it was too late.

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hello! kiernan and montana have risen from the depths of our google docs, and i promise this story WILL be continued and finished in the near future. if you're still reading along, thanks for sticking with us <3