Morgan smiled politely at them. “Thanks, mom.” Without another word, she thundered up the stairs, with Taylor following close behind. Meekly, I followed, astonished how little her parents cared about talking to her. No real discussions about the finals, no discussion about how they clearly weren’t comfortable with me here without some kind of caveat… Morgan even dropped a “boyfriend” bomb on them and they didn’t even talk about it. Maybe Crystal was right, maybe a lot of this was culture shock.
Morgan and Taylor were so quick to get to Morgan’s room that I almost missed them, and would have had to guess which room was hers. When I got there, I found them giggling and on the bed together, looking over something on their phones.
Morgan smiled at me and patted the bed next to her when I arrived, but Taylor barely acknowledged my existence. After she tore herself away from her phone, she looked under the bed and grabbed some kind of blueberry vodka, with ‘Triple Eight’ on the label. I was looking at her, but Morgan went back to her phone.
“This stuff — Morgan! — this stuff is the good stuff I was talking about, trust me. Locally made, Arin raves about it — trust me.” Taylor sported a grin and started to open it. “Are you ready to become a man, Quinn?” she teased.
Thanks to the gym visit, I was getting more comfortable with their joking. “I’ll stay a boy. None for me, thanks.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing. Cups,” she ordered at Morgan. Morgan went to her closet and pulled out a few red plastic cups, handing me a third one.
“Just in case you change your mind,” she told me, and shrugged. “Or if you want some water. I think there might be other stuff downstairs too.”
“Thanks,” I told her as Taylor poured herself a ‘glass,’ then Morgan.
“Fuck finals!” she toasted, holding her cup in the air.
“Fuck finals,” Morgan chuckled, toasting to her. The two attempted to down as much of the vodka as they could, though Morgan quickly recoiled and came up sputtering. “Jesus,” she muttered.
Taylor, though, kept downing the drink, drinking slowly but nearly downing half of the cup. Morgan shook her head, watching the scene before her. “I have no fucking clue how you do that…” Morgan murmured slowly, coughing once or twice from the drink she just took.
Taylor shrugged at her, then looked at me and winked. “I’m just talented,” she said simply. “You may not like it, but like… I’m good at this shit.” The two laughed.
I was starting to feel weird and out of the loop, so I decided to say something — anything — to stay relevant. “Do you drink a lot, Morgan? The last time I saw you drinking was in her basement.”
Not the greatest thing to bring up since that was an awkward time for us, but I think Morgan knew I was just trying to stay in the conversation. She shifted her body from Taylor to me. “Nope, I really only drink with her and Crystal and Milo and the gang.”
“And Lexi,” Taylor laughed. “You literally only forgot Lexi.”
Morgan simply laughed back, then resumed talking to me. “I think it’s pretty clear I don’t have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff. Not as much as…”
“…Not as much as me,” Taylor said proudly, filling up Morgan’s cup. “Okay, you gotta drink all that before thirty minutes.”
I peered into the cup. The vodka only went halfway. “…Half a cup in thirty minutes?” I asked. “Why doesn’t she just down it immediately?”
Taylor turned to Morgan. “He’s so cute,” she cooed patronizingly.
Morgan turned to me, holding the cup to my face. “Here. Smell it. You don’t have to drink anything, but do me a favor and just smell.”
Hesitating, I took the cup, and sniffed. The smell was halfway between glue and poison. I couldn’t even smell the blueberries. “Ugh,” I instinctively retched.
“Yup,” Morgan smirked, taking the cup back. “That’s why.”
When I was a kid, my small exposure to alcohol was usually in TV shows, portraying alcohol as this amazing drink adults couldn’t resist. So many characters loved it so much, and I figured it was because it tasted so good and happened to get you drunk. Now I was almost confused. “Does it taste as bad as it smells?”
Morgan side-eyed me, almost putting the cup to her lips. She smirked. “It also burns going down too. Za zdorovie!” She started drinking it slowly, matched by Taylor.
Taylor nearly finished her cup, setting it down violently and shivering, before breathing through her mouth a few times. “I think I need to, like, slow down,” she commented sickly.
Morgan didn’t return, still drinking. It was clear she was trying to match Taylor. Slowly, she did, finally coming up for air, clearly putting on a brave face yet feeling the same way. “Why, what’s wrong?” she asked, pretending like it didn’t even faze her.
Taylor shook her head with a smile. “You bitch.”
“What’s wrong? I thought you were good at this shit,” Morgan replied with a sing-song tone to her voice. I recognized it from the last time she drank with Taylor that I saw. Still, I grinned and waited for Taylor’s reaction.
“You suck,” she laughed, filling up both cups to the halfway point. “Okay, both of us set it aside. You’re not gonna look sexy when you’re, like, barfing all over Quinn.”
Morgan looked at me with a little smile. I smiled back and shrugged. “You stayed with me through worse,” I joked and she giggled, turning back to Taylor.
The two of them talked for a little while, mostly about finals, getting to see friends over the summer, and not having to see people they hated ever again. High school girls were kind of characterized as hating other girls, at least in my experience, but it seemed like in this group at least they were way more preoccupied with hating boys. Girls were usually mentioned in the context of plans and parties they were going to. Boys were just badmouthed, apart for a few lucky exceptions, myself included.
It was clear that after a bit, the drinks started to take their effect. I recognized a few of the telltale signs in Taylor’s performance, but the big giveaway was Morgan. The tipsier she got, the more she leaned in to me, until a full half hour had gone by and the girls resumed their drinking, with Morgan practically using me as her standing pillow.
I started playfully pushing back against Morgan, watching Morgan move back and forth like a sitting ragdoll. She eventually turned to face me, doing one of those exaggerated and big neck movements to shift her head that drunk people did. It looked like the drink was hitting her fairly hard. She was looking at me through half-closed eyes, but for the first time, not in a disapproving way.
“Hey,” she murmured cutely in a soft voice. A higher-pitched voice, one I’d never heard from Morgan before.
“Hey,” I responded with a light chuckle. “Having fun?”
“Mmmmmyes,” she replied simply, throwing herself lightly at me. I did my best to catch her and as I did, she lightly kissed me on the lips.
“Get a room,” Taylor quipped.
“We did, we’re in one. You’re just here too,” Morgan fired back, turning her body back to Morgan. “Weird how the school slut is coming after me for this shit.”