Chapter 4: Hung Over
The air in Sen’s apartment always held a specific quiet, a settled dust of textbooks and soldering iron smoke. It was a silence Brittany had grown to crave, a polar opposite to the throbbing bass and shrieking laughter she’d just left vibrating in her bones. She let herself in with the key he’d given her, the metallic snick of the lock loud in the hallway.
“Sen?” Her voice felt too bright, too party-loud for the dim, orderly space.
“In here.” His call came from the bedroom.
She toed off her heels, the cool laminate a relief to her feet. She carried a heavy, unlabeled plastic bottle she’d taken from the party, setting it with a thunk on his tiny kitchen counter. The clear liquid inside sloshed. Tequila, the good stuff, smuggled out in a water bottle. A peace offering, or maybe just a shared secret.
He was lying on his bed, still in his jeans and a faded university t-shirt, glasses on, highlighting a diagram in a massive fluids dynamics textbook. The bedside lamp painted his profile in warm gold. He looked up and his serious expression melted into the smile that was for her alone. “Hey. How was the vortex of social obligation?”
“Loud. Sticky. Full of guys who think grinding is a conversation.” She flopped down beside him, making the mattress bounce. She smelled like cigarette smoke from others, cheap perfume, and the night air. He closed his book, setting it aside without a second thought. “Missed you,” she murmured, rolling onto her side to face him.
“You saw me this morning.”
“A travesty of time.” She reached out, running a finger along the seam of his jeans near his hip. “What’d you do?”
“Worked on the quadcopter project. Ate leftover stir-fry. Thought about you at the party.” He caught her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “Wondered if anyone was trying to buy you drinks with their daddy’s credit card.”
“Only three,” she said, grinning. “I told them my boyfriend was a engineering warlock who could hex their carburetors from afar.”
He laughed, the sound low and warm. He pulled her closer and she went willingly, settling her head on his chest. They lay like that, her listening to his heartbeat, him playing with strands of her hair. She told him anecdotes from the party—a girl who cried over a spilled vodka soda, a fight that started over a misunderstood meme. He listened, his quiet “mmhms” and occasional questions a steady anchor. This was their ritual. She would bring the chaotic world to him, and he would help her parse it into something manageable.
“I’m parched,” he said after a while, extracting himself from her. “You want anything? I have water, or maybe some of that weird sparkling tea you left here.”
“Just water, thanks.”
He padded out to the kitchen in his socks. Brittany stretched, arching her back on the bed, feeling the pleasant ache in her muscles from dancing. She heard the cabinet open, the clink of a glass. Then a pause. A long pause.
She smiled to herself, imagining him staring at some new piece of gadgetry he’d left on the counter. He was easily distracted.
A moment later, she heard a cough. A sharp, surprised sound. Then a muttered, “Oh.”
Curiosity pulled her up. She wandered to the bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame. Sen was standing by the counter, the unlabeled plastic bottle in his hand, its cap off. He took another, longer swig from it, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Sen!” she said, too late.
He lowered the bottle, blinking rapidly behind his glasses. A shudder wracked his lean frame. “Jesus. That’s not water.”
“No,” she said, pushing off the doorframe and walking toward him. “That’s the tequila I grabbed. I was going to tell you.” She watched his face. His expression was one of profound, analytical confusion, as if his senses were presenting data that made no logical sense.
“It burns,” he stated, looking at the bottle with betrayal. “Why does it burn like that?”
“That’s the alcohol, baby.” She was close now. She could see the pink already spreading up his neck. “How much did you drink?”
He considered. “I… was thirsty. I thought it was your water. I took three… maybe four big gulps. To wash down the stir-fry.” He swayed, just a millimeter. His dark eyes, when they met hers, had lost a layer of their sharp focus. “The room is… very still. But also… not.”
Oh no. A lightweight. A complete and total virgin to this. A fond, protective panic bubbled up in her chest. “Okay,” she said, her voice shifting into a gentle, commanding tone. She took the bottle from his limp hand and screwed the cap back on. “Come on. Back to bed. Let’s get you horizontal.”
“I’m not drunk,” he insisted, but he let her guide him, his steps noticeably less precise. “I’m just… recalibrating. The burn is a chemical reaction. Ethanol on the mucous membranes.”
“Sure it is, professor.” She got him to sit on the edge of the bed, then knelt and pulled off his socks. His hands came down to rest on her shoulders, heavy and warm.
“Brittany,” he said, his voice gone low and wonder-filled.
“Yeah?”
“Your hair is like… spun light. Did you know that? It’s like if a star vomited sunshine.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, looking up at him. His face was open, utterly unguarded. The clever, cautious Sen was receding, and what was emerging was someone even more raw, more fundamentally him. It was captivating. “Star vomit. That’s romantic.”
“It is,” he said earnestly. He leaned down, his nose brushing hers. His breath smelled of agave and lime. “You’re the most romantic thing. In the whole universe. My universe.”
The callback to her words at the campfire, two months and a lifetime ago, hit her square in the chest. She helped him lie back. He went willingly, his limbs loose. She lay down beside him, propped on an elbow, watching him. His glasses were slightly crooked. She reached out and carefully took them off, setting them on the nightstand. He blinked up at her, his eyes beautifully, helplessly unfocused.
“How do you feel?” she asked, brushing his hair back from his forehead.
“Float-y.” He turned his head into her touch like a cat. “Good. Really good. You’re here.” His hand fumbled up, cupping her cheek. His thumb stroked her skin with clumsy tenderness. “I can say anything. The filters are… offline. It’s quiet in my head. It’s just… you.”
“Tell me something,” she whispered.
“I think about marrying you.” The words fell into the quiet room, simple and monumental. “Not now. But. Yeah. I have thoughts. Projections. A five-year plan has an 87% higher success rate if you’re in it.”
She felt her throat tighten. “Yeah?”
“Mhm. And I get scared sometimes. That I’ll wake up and you’ll have realized you can do better. That this is all a… a temporary.”
His brow furrowed. The raw, unfiltered fear in his slurred words hung in the air between them, sharp as broken glass. Brittany’s breath caught, a physical ache blooming beneath her ribs.
Seeing that fear laid bare on his face, in the loose vulnerability of his intoxicated state, shattered something in her. It wasn’t funny anymore. The cheerful captain’s mask she wore for the world cracked and fell away, leaving only a swelling, sorrowful tenderness.
“Oh, Sen.” Her voice wavered. She slid her hand from his hair to cradle his jaw, her thumb stroking his cheek. A single, hot tear escaped her eye and traced a path down to her wrist. “No. Don’t think that. Ever.”
He blinked slowly, watching her cry. His own eyes grew shiny. “You’re sad. I made you sad.”
“You didn’t,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m sad that you carry that. That you think you’re temporary.” She leaned closer, her forehead touching his. “Listen to me. My filters are offline too, okay? So this is just the truth.”
She took a shaky breath, the scent of tequila and his skin filling her senses. “I think about it too. All the time. Marrying you. What our dumb, quiet kitchen would look like. Where we’d go.” Another tear fell. “It scares me because it’s so big. And the future is a blank map. But Sen, look at me.”
He did. His dark eyes were pools of hazy, focused devotion.
“In this moment, and the last one, and the next one,” she said, each word deliberate, “I love you. I will never stop loving you in this moment. Right here.” She pressed her palm over his heart, feeling its steady, slowed beat. “You deserve to be loved like this. Not as a project, or a phase, or a 87% probability. Just you. My good, brilliant, beautiful boy.”
She kissed him then, a soft press of lips that tasted of salt and certainty. It was a seal on the promise. He made a small, broken sound against her mouth, and his arms came around her, clinging with a drunkard’s desperate strength.
“You’re my universe,” he mumbled into her neck, the words thick. “My rock. My river.”
“I know,” she soothed, stroking his back. “I’m here. I’ve got you.” She held him as the alcohol pulled him deeper under, his grip loosening, his breathing evening out into the heavy rhythm of sleep. She didn’t let go. The party sounds were a distant galaxy. Here, in the silent orbit of his quiet apartment, she held the center of her own world—terrified, hopeful, and fiercely, permanently in love.