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Rebecca is wasted.
The kind of drunk she hasn’t been since university, where she feels half in her body and half out of it, the room just slightly moving. She thinks, absently, that she’s too drunk, a little voice in the back of her head that sounds obnoxiously like Rupert telling her to have some class, for God’s sake, darling, but she’s been silencing him with shots of tequila and the comfort of knowing that she’s safe here—sitting on the floor of Keeley’s living room with Keeley herself, Roy, a few of Roy’s friends, and Ted.
Ted, who’s sat next to her and looks as far gone as she feels—his shirt sleeves are rolled up and his hair is sticking out at all angles, his cheeks flushed and eyes far too bright, and every time he speaks his words are slurred, his accent thick, and she’s been doing her best not to find it incredibly hot.
In the morning, she knows, she’ll blame it on the alcohol—blame it on Keeley, who’d waited until they were all three sheets to the wind before picking up an empty wine bottle and declaring it “make out time”—but the truth is she was still thinking somewhat clearly when instead of begging off and making an excuse not to participate, she’d looked at Ted and thought about having his mouth on hers, and it was enough to make her spin the first round.
In her drunk brain, she finds it perfect, really—low stakes, the chance to finally kiss him, to find out if there’s sparks, without hinging too much on it. Without making herself too vulnerable. She’s known for a while that she has feelings for Ted—that every brush of his shoulder against hers, and every smile, and every kind word have her craving more. In the last few months, she’s found herself coming up with more and more excuses to spend time with him, to be near him, and he’s seemed to respond to it—always takes her up on her offers to work together or grab dinner, always looks at her so warmly, she feels her heart pick up.
She can recognize that perhaps snogging him in a game isn’t the best declaration of how she feels, but it’s safe and easy and she’s drunk enough at the moment that she’ll take it. Take that chance, adrenaline and nerves and what if’s coursing through her veins.
They’re an hour in, constantly interrupted by laughter and fresh drinks and a slow drunken haze, but so far she’s kissed Roy and Keeley and Roy’s friend Thomas who, to his credit, really went for it after eyeing her all night; but he’d tasted like Jager and she knows it’s been a while, but she doesn’t remember kissing using that much teeth, so she’d merely smiled and winked and pushed the bottle toward Roy, who’d spin it hard and gotten Ted.
They’d looked at each other, Ted with a somewhat deer in the headlights look as Roy leaned over; but he’d dropped a kiss to Ted’s forehead instead and when he pulled back took a long swig of his beer and said, “What? He’s my dad.” Everyone had cackled and Ted said “thank god,” but his smile had been warm and pleased and they’d all done another round of shots. She’d kissed Keeley, who spun the bottle and barely let it stop before she was halfway across the circle saying “finally!” before pressing her lips to Rebecca’s. It was sloppy and soft but it felt good, felt freeing, to kiss her—no lightening, as Roy would say, but when Keeley pulled back and smacked a kiss to her nose, she knew it wasn’t anything that would change them in the morning, and Keeley had spent the next ten minutes talking about taking Rebecca’s lady cherry and she didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d made out in university with an Italian exchange student whose name she can’t remember.
The bottle keeps spinning and they all keep snogging and it’s ridiculous and juvenile but she doesn’t care, just keeps waiting, hoping, when Ted spins the bottle and kisses Roy’s other friend Nolan, and Keeley kisses Roy, and Roy kisses her again, and she feels herself getting frustrated—keeps looking at Ted, his knee touching hers, his hand occasionally bumping her arm as he gesticulates a story about getting lost in an airport for three hours, each unintentional touch like an electrical spark.
And then she spins, and holds her breath, and the mouth of the bottle settles firmly on Ted, and she looks at him and thinks if this is her only chance, she’s too selfish not to take it. Too selfish, and too drunk, and too full of need to know what his mustache feels like, if his lips are warm or cool, if it’ll be everything she thinks it would be, if he’d just stop staring at her and actually kiss her.
Except he doesn’t. He stares, his lips parted and eyes wide and it hits her like a shot that he looks terrified. Looks completely unprepared that this could happen, and she’s dimly aware the room has gone silent, only her own, barking laugh, “Well?” cutting through uncomfortably.
And then Ted swallows, and for the first time all night says “Pass,” and Rebecca feels she’s been punched in the throat. He looks away, and she stares at him for a long moment, feels her heart give up. She’s abruptly sober, everything so still, and Ted won’t look at her, and her eyes burn.
He doesn’t want her.
Not even like this, not even for a laugh.
He’s kissed everyone else, but he won’t kiss her, won’t even look at her, and the room comes roaring back when Thomas says, “Cold, mate!” and someone laughs. Rebecca’s cheeks flair in embarrassment and she hears Keeley say her name, but she’s stumbling to her feet—needs to get out of there. Out of the room and out of the house and away from Ted who doesn’t want her and she hears herself say something about water but when she moves it’s toward the back door. She needs air, can’t breathe, her vision swimming with tears and she feels pathetic; feels disgusted with herself and guilty and it makes sense—she’s his boss and of course he wouldn’t want to make things weird, wouldn’t want to put himself in that situation; but she’d thought, foolishly, that they were more than that. Thought, at the very least, they were friends, and that friendship superseded any employer/employee relationship but she’d been wrong and stupid and this is what happens when you let your guard down, Rupert’s voice says, and she physically shakes her head to dislodge it, bursts into the backyard and takes a few deep gulps of air.
It doesn’t help. Her eyes brim and all she can see is Ted’s stricken expression, hear the damning “pass ”—the first one all night—and she feels her skin crawl. The world is still too heavy and she’s still too drunk, stumbling her way out into the grass, and she wants to get out of her own skin, wants to sleep, wants to go back in time and tell herself that she’s an idiot.
That no matter his smiles or frequent touches or support, no matter the soft look in his eyes when he looks at her, that it isn’t real. It’s just Ted being Ted, and she isn’t special.
She isn’t special to him, and the thought cracks something in her chest and she presses her hand to her mouth to keep in a sob.
“Rebecca.”
She startles, whirls around and he’s standing there, hands in his pockets, looking guilty and chagrined and it makes her stomach knot, and she turns away.
“Go back inside.”
He doesn’t listen, of course, he never listens, and she feels angry at that—that she can’t just break quietly. That every time she does, he’s there, but isn’t there, and she flinches away when he puts a hand on her arm.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, and she wants to laugh.
“Nothing,” she manages, “I’m fine.”
She hears Ted shuffle behind her. “You’re not fine.”
Something inside her breaks. “And whose fault is that?” she snaps, then immediately regrets it—it’s too obvious, too vulnerable, and she takes a deep breath, shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. Just—"
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he says, and she thinks the embarrassment is the least of her worries. “I wasn’t tryin’ to—"
“It’s fine, Ted,” she snaps, but she still can’t look at him, doesn’t want to see whatever pity he’s looking at her with now. But she hears him make a sound behind her, something broken, and she can’t help it—she turns, and he looks shattered, looks lost, and as humiliated as she feels, she can’t let him drift—can’t let him think that this will change anything, though she knows, it will change so much. Taking a deep breath, she forces a smile. “Really. I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
She clenches her jaw, tries not to feel slighted at that, too. “I’m your boss,” she says, though it feels stale in her mouth. “God knows this whole night is a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
But Ted is shaking his head, almost frantic. “It has nothin’ to do with that. I just—"
He stops, and if he’s too much of a coward to say it, she’ll do it—needs him to acknowledge it, needs to tongue the wound in a way she knows isn’t fair or helpful but she can’t stop the words, tries to keep the bitterness from her tone,
“Didn’t want to snog me. Fine. It’s fine, Ted.”
It’s not fine, and her chest aches as he tries to protest, stumbling over himself,
“No, it’s not—I just—cause it wasn’t the right—"
And she can’t stand it, Ted, trying so hard to spare her feelings when he just doesn’t want, and her voice is too high and sharp, her words a bold, obvious lie, “It’s just a fucking game.”
“It’s not a game,” he says, and there’s something in his tone, an underlying pleading that makes her look at him, look at him properly, for the first time. He looks frightened, almost, his voice trembling, “Not to me. Not when it’s you.”
Rebecca swallows. Her mouth tastes like ash and she can’t quite catch her breath; somehow manages a hoarse, “What does that mean?” and Ted looks startled. Looks like he’d thought they were on the same page, that he was making sense, and he runs a hand through his hair, frustrated, before he drops his arms and looks at her, and she knows she’s out of practice and knows it’s been too long, but she thinks—prays—that she remembers that look. That he wears it all the time.
For her.
And then he licks his lips, says slowly, over-enunciating in his drunken state, “It means when I kiss you, I don’t want it to be ‘cause some overpriced wine bottle told me to.”
Rebecca freezes, heart hammering when he steps closer, their faces almost pressed together, and his breath smells like whisky, feels warm against her cheek.
“When I kiss you, I don’t want it to be something you can laugh about in the morning.”
His words are shaky, and she pulls back enough to meet his gaze, sees the insecurity there, the doubt, the hope. The same hope fluttering in her chest as she shakes her head.
“I wouldn’t,” she says, hears her own voice far away, whispered and hoarse. And then, with all the bravery she can muster, “Not when it’s you.”
Ted’s eyes widen at his words spoken back to him, and she lets him see it—all the longing, all the desire, all the emotion she’s pent up for months, waiting for him, hoping against all hope that they’d find themselves here:
His hand shakes, but he cups her cheek and she closes her eyes, leans into his touch and hears him exhale; opens her eyes and sees him staring at her, like a mirror image.
“Ted,” she whispers, and then he kisses her, his mouth soft and warm over hers and it’s sweet and chaste and she feels her entire body go taught like a live wire; feels her hands tremble as they come up to settle on his shoulders, and it seems to ignite something in him because his free arm wraps around her waist and he hauls her close and opens his mouth and then he’s kissing her, deep and heady and she kisses him back, feels dizzy with it, the brand of his hand against her cheek and his chest presses to hers and her hands find their way into his hair and she thinks if she ever stops kissing him she might drown. If he ever stops, ever pulls away from her, she’ll simply sink. Her knees feel weak and it’s his arm keeping her up, keeping her close; his tongue finds hers and she has to breathe through her nose and she doesn’t care because it’s Ted, all around her.
She’s dimly aware someone is hollering, but it isn’t until Ted breaks away and turns his head, keeping her close, that she sees Keeley at the window yelling “Get it, Rebecca!” and sees Roy with a hand on her arm, trying to drag her away. Ted is shaking, and it takes her a moment to realize that he’s laughing. He’s laughing, his cheeks flushed, and when he looks back at her his smile is so bright, she feels lit up inside, and she laughs too. Laughs, and buries her face in his chest and feels his arms come around her, holding her close, and she sinks into him, warm and safe.