The House

Chapter Five

Ethan and Julian were weird once all the guests left.... They were actually mad at each other that night and were now avoiding each other in the living room. It was so weird to watch.

Morgan hadn't left his bedroom.

Liam was smoking weed in the living room by himself. It was probably going to put him to sleep at this point, but he had basically been partying by himself the last hour or so and was trying to keep himself entertained with all this bullshit going on around him.

"Hey, it's still not that late. Do you guys want to play something?" he offered, hoping to break the ice.

"I think I'm going to go to bed," Ethan slurred. He had been drinking way more than he usually did, Liam noticed. Probably because he was upset.

"Aw, you're no fun," Liam complained.

"I'll play," Julian offered. Ethan glared at Julian from their bedroom door.

"Fine, you guys play then," Ethan replied with a heavy tone of hatred in his voice.

Now Liam felt bad. Like he was doing to opposite of helping Ethan -- he was going to turn it around for him.

Julian sat down on the floor across from Liam at the coffee table as Ethan slammed the bedroom door shut behind him. The door shut so hard, Liam was pretty sure the walls of the entire house shook.

Julian was a pretty beefy guy, so it was funny seeing him struggle to cross his legs on the floor.

"Okay... So... Cards?" Liam started shuffling on the coffee table even though Julian hadn't said anything. This was awkward. He started dealing out for one of the games they always played, Crazy Eights. It wasn't that much fun with only two people, but Liam had been a little drunk and now he was feeling pretty high. He was on autopilot.

"Hey, Liam," Julian started. This was so weird. They were never together just the two of them. "I'm sorry if this is weird for you."

"What? It's fine, couples fight. You guys are making way too big a deal about this," Liam giggled, "...Drama queens..."

"...Ethan didn't tell you why we're fighting?" He sounded really surprised...

Liam looked up over the cards in his hands at Julian, who was struggling to flare out the cards in his hand without dropping one. He finally got them evenly spaced out and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked frustrated.

His dark hair was always really cool -- the sides were shaved down but the rest of his hair was getting kind of long. He wondered how it would look as a mohawk. Liam wanted to dunk his hand in hair gel and slop it onto Julian's hair. Did people still do that? The mohawk look? Was that dead? That would be so much fun to do.

"...I'm so sorry. I'm really high right now -- did you say something else?"

Julian looked over at him, "...No."

Just when Liam was starting to feel even more awkward because of how much time was passing without either of them saying anything, Morgan's bedroom door swung open.

The gut-wrenching feeling he had in his stomach when Morgan had his hands all over him came rushing through him, the minute he saw that stupid Norwegian swim god walk through his door -- without his shirt on. Why wasn't his shirt on? He felt his face heat up. It felt kind of tingly, like it was on fire.

"What're you guys doing?" he tripped, hitting his toe on the side of the accent chair because of how fast he walked into the living room, and bent over to slump into the chair cradling his foot.

Dammit... He probably did drink that whole thing right out of the bottle. Liam was saving that whiskey, he had been the one who managed to buy it in the first place.