Flashback 2 of 3, let's go.

This one corresponds to Chapter 17 in the timeline if you care to read back! I'd like Blackout to be enjoyable for re-readers, especially with these flashbacks acting like Easter eggs throughout the story.

Hope you enjoy. x

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The Welcome Back Party

room in a compromising position—with my bottle of vodka pressed to my lips.

Probably should have locked the door, considering Jamie knew my habit of leaving it unlocked when I was inside.

I lowered the glass vessel as he stepped inside, my tongue darting out to catch a trickle of the spirit from my bottom lip. No drop wasted. Jamie's hands were empty, but I knew from the ruddiness to his cheeks and the watery sheen over his eyes that he'd been drinking, too.

Not that I was discreetly watching him down beers with his teammates tonight. Not at all.

I wasn't supposed to look at Jamie because he'd shut down the notion of us falling into bed again. But I couldn't help it. Every part of me was drawn to him, eyes included. That navy shirt he wore—tight at the shoulders, looser at his torso tapered—didn't help the situation.

His eyes had a marksman's precision. I didn't fight him as he took the bottle of vodka from my hand and set it on the desk—I'd essentially finished its contents, anyway.

"Haven't you drunk enough tonight?"

"Haven't you removed that stick up your ass?" I retorted, without missing a beat. A flare of heat in my stomach alerted me to the vodka doing its job, and I shut my eyes and breathed through the intense sensation.

Jamie raised his eyebrows cockily. "That's rich, coming from the girl who gets one phone call and ditches the party."

My eyes snapped open. "Stop bringing it up."

"Come on."

"I don't want to talk about it." I pushed Jamie away, taking a step back. His ultimatum from before the winter holidays still rang in my ears if I let my surroundings fall silent enough.

You can't control other people's feelings by writing it down on a piece of paper.

You treat me as a walking dildo, conveniently lying by to get off on.

So I didn't let my surroundings be silent—keeping myself busy, or drunk to ward off the pesky thoughts.

"In fact, I don't even want to talk to you. So unless you're here to retract your statement and fuck me," I relished in the stiffening of his shoulders, "we have nothing to say to each other."

We were both breathing heavily, though Jamie had said little. His cheeks caved as he worked his jaw, obviously frustrated.

"I want to know who Eric is," he stated, a foot away from me.

I sniffed haughtily, my lips tilting into a mocking smirk. "And I want to come on your face, but we don't always get what we want."

Maybe that was a cheap shot, using shock value to throw his argument. But I was nearly drunk under the table, while Jamie seemed more cool and composed than anyone at a college rager was allowed to be.

"Tell me."

"No."

Two seconds passed, during which our stubborn stares clashed like duelling swords.

"Is he bothering you?"

I scoffed. As if. "Is he bothering you? Seems like he is."

"Viv. Please."

"Get out of my room first."

I refused to waver, though Jamie probably thought the situation was a bargain—like I'd give him information about Eric in exchange for him leaving the room. Except I had made no such promises.

Cheap shots, I knew.

But even the thought of my past heartbreak was sending anxiety crawling through my veins like miniscule spiders. It wasn't even because of the specific boys from my past. It was the burdens they left me with. And I wasn't about to make Jamie carry them.

"Fine," he swallowed, walking backwards until his toes were an inch behind the threshold. The stark motion sensor lights in the hallway silhouetted him against the dim lamplight of my bedroom.

"So..." Jamie leaned against the doorframe. "Is Eric your latest boy toy?"

I gripped the door and brought it closer to me, my expression carefully blank as Jamie desperately hunted for answers.

The realisation of what I was going to do just spurred him on. "Don't you shut me out. Why won't you tell me? You probably blocked him because how dare someone try to get to know the untouchable Vivian Sok—"

I rapidly swung the door, but Jamie's reflexes bested mine.

A solid hand countered the wood before the door could latch, and Jamie grunted with the impact before continuing, "—after she fucks and discards him—"

"Ugh," I grunted, leaning my weight against Jamie's. After pushing for three seconds, I realised my physical strength would never win. But he always respected my boundaries. "Get out."

And just like that, the resistance from the other side vanished, and the door slammed closed. I rested my forehead against the cool surface, willing the thoughts in my head to just quieten.

You're not good enough to love. Jamie will leave you when he realises that.

"I am out," he said sorrowfully. I pressed my ear to the door, craning to hear every word, even though I should have been fortifying my heart against this man. This was such a mess. "I'm out of your life in every way imaginable, remember?"

I did remember.

All or nothing. That's the new deal.

Nothing, I'd instantly chosen. And I didn't regret it, because that would keep me safe. If we were nothing, nothing could hurt me.

"You forced my hand," I defended. I didn't know if Jamie would hear me, but something about the proximity of his voice and the prior intensity in his eyes suggested he wouldn't leave until he had the conversation he was looking for.

His palm landed on the other side of the door with a thud. "Because I can't take only being your fuck buddy!"

The anguish in Jamie's voice somehow matched the one swirling in my heart, but definitely for two different reasons. All I wanted was for him to leave me alone. He saw the world in black and white, but relationships, heartbreak, weren't as simple as yes and no. The last thing I wanted was anything emotional, anything like a drunken heart-to-heart, and I was determined to make him give up on me.

Clearly, withholding information was only making him more curious. Time to switch tactics.

My fingers hovered for a moment before twisting the door handle. Jamie's face relaxed with relief when he saw me.

"Eric is my ex-boyfriend. But he cheated on me last August, and sometimes he just randomly calls me to tell me he loves me," I explained rapid-fire. "I blocked him because I'm sick of it now, not because I'm heartless. Sorry, there's no villainous story there. Find someone else to blame."

Jamie paused for a moment, stock-still. Then he touched his temple and shook his head. "Idiot."

I sniffed coolly. "I guess I was. Chalk it up to a life lesson."

Jamie's wounded expression flickered to me. "I was talking about him." Oh. Oops. "He had the smartest, strongest, funniest woman on campus and lost her. He's an idiot."

Maybe it spoke to how distrusting I was inside, how screwed up my views on relationships were, but I didn't welcome those compliments. They terrified me.

One, because they weren't true—at least, they weren't how I saw myself. Two, because being as perfect a woman as Jamie described had never stopped things going wrong before.

So the sincere compliments rankled. It just reinforced that Jamie was attracted to the ephemeral parts of me, and that he'd realise the truth one day. Sometimes I was strong, and sometimes I was deeply insecure. Sometimes I was funny, and sometimes I came on too strongly. Sometimes I was smart, and sometimes all the thinking in the world just dug my mental state deeper.

"You don't mean that," I settled on. "You're drunk."

"I mean it," Jamie said emphatically, his frustration rising. "Eric is a moron."

"He's actually really clever. He had a GPA of—"

"—see, I don't give a flying fuck," Jamie laughed almost deliriously. "What little I've heard of Eric tells me he's an entitled, selfish prick with messed-up priorities. Probably going to peak in college, and—let me guess—I'd run circles around that bastard in bed."

He raised his eyebrows in question. I didn't contradict him. "That's what I thought," he said smugly.

This wasn't working. I'd tried telling him to go, I'd tried satisfying his curiosity about Eric, and still Jamie hadn't left. Part of me knew that, if I let him, he would never leave me. He would always take whatever he could get. So I needed to twist the knife harder to get his self-preservation to kick in.

I rolled my eyes deliberately.

"And yet I'm not changing my mind," I drawled coldly. "I'm never giving you a chance, Jamie. Maybe Eric just meant more to me. Maybe you don't get to choose who you fall for. Funny how love works." I let my eyes trail over the distance between us. "Or in this case, doesn't work."

Jamie flinched backward like I'd slapped him—which, verbally; I had. The guilt threatened to eat me alive.

He nodded once, and when I tried to shut the door this time, he didn't stop me.

With my ear against the wood once more, I listened as Jamie made his way back to the party. I listened to the footsteps retreating, to the sudden increase of thumping music and raucous conversation, as the door between the corridor and common room opened—

Then nothing.

I gulped the remaining measly trickles of vodka and passed out on my bed.

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I rolled onto my elbow with a deep, sympathetic frown on my face. "That's why you were mad at me."

At the start of this semester, Jamie and I went through an icy period—one that I could never truly explain. But if what Jamie recalled was true, and if I had spat those things at him...

It all made sense now. That tense standoff in the common room after the welcome-back party, his stubborn cold shoulder all throughout re-orientation week, then our catty exchange at Ravi's birthday party.

"I wasn't mad," Jamie insisted mellowly, one muscled arm tucked behind his head on the pillow. He shifted his body on the mattress and carefully averted my eyes.

Yeah, right. I knew him like the back of my hand—especially when he was being so opaque.

"You pretty much shamed me for drinking the day after. Remember? Riley and I had returned from an unassuming morning of book shopping when you went ham on my party habits—"

"—listen, I'm not proud—"

I reached out and curled a lock of Jamie's hair around my finger. He watched me through begrudging, but warming, eyes as I continued, "And then you ignored me for most of Ravi's birthday party."

Outside my window, the sky steadily darkened, almost like the world was shrinking around us, leaving only the cozy, calm pocket of my bedroom in existence. We'd been exchanging pillow talk, bouncing between jokes and laughing at my drunken antics. But this one antic hadn't been so light-hearted.

"Fine," Jamie sighed, letting his lips droop into a pout. "I was mad. And offended that you seemed to justify giving Eric a chance and not me. Obviously, I had to respect your choice, but fuck. It hurt, and I withdrew."

My finger kept twining his hair. "I am sorry. I knew I could use Eric to hurt you, and make you back off. I shouldn't have compared you to him. I was still scared of opening up to you. But I'm not anymore. You know that, right?"

"I know," Jamie mumbled, still pouting. "I'm not mad now, of course. And I was a bit petty. It just felt good to see you so thrown, for a moment."

Joy flickered in my chest despite the serious tone to the conversation—who would have guessed it? He is a drama queen, after all. That just made me love him more, knowing I didn't have to hold him to a perfect standard. Because I wasn't perfect either.

"Well," I cooed, "I think I should let you know... " I dropped a peck onto Jamie's forehead. "You outclass all of my exes. Pookie."

And for a split second, Jamie was stunned. His expression oscillated between flattered and frustrated, staring slash glowering up at me. But throughout it all, he still looked incredibly mellow lying naked in my bed.

"Thanks," he said eventually. "But please add pookie to the list of things you can't call me. Alongside dude. And Jameson."

Pookie was just for shits and giggles, but still I hummed, "Not even ironically?"

"Especially not ironically," Jamie said, his free hand rising to hold my wrist loosely. I stopped fiddling with his hair as he wove our fingers together. "Viv?"

"Hmm?"

"Go piss." Groaning loudly, I lowered my head to the pillow. He had our routine down pat, despite the long sexual hiatus.

"But it's so comfortable here."

A soft mattress, warm covers and my boyfriend all in one location. That's all I needed for the rest of the night. I didn't want to get dressed, pad to the communal bathroom down the hall and shake off the delightful post-sex sleepiness.

"You know what's not comfortable?" Jamie began.

I rolled my eyes, knowing what he was going to say.

Ever since we signed the contract, Jamie had expressed abnormal enthusiasm for digesting all my rants about endometriosis and patriarchal healthcare and the general woes of being a woman. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue he wasn't only angling to be a friend.

He'd done his own research—and proven it over and over.

Jamie fixed me with a stern look. "Urinary tract infections."

Yup. Figured.

I was out of bed and grumpily buttoning Jamie's shirt onto my body before he could ask me twice, knowing deep in my gut that sexual health was more important than a temporary snuggle session. Even if it was torturous to pull myself away.

"Damn you, Tanner. I regret ever making you glow up."

"No, you don't," Jamie shot back, his bare chest a blur of tan against my sheets. "You like educated men."

"Shut up." I pulled a pair of cotton shorts up my legs, not bothering with underwear. Plus, my short-term plan included getting naked again as soon as possible.

I cast a look behind me as I headed for the door. Jamie seemed completely at home in my bed, hair tousled, sporting a lazy grin with just a flash of teeth. He'd be waiting when I got back. And not just for tonight, or for tomorrow.

Jamie would stand by me through it all, through all the uncertainty—finals, graduation, med school, the scary adult shit beyond.

And even if it meant going to football games in the future with a stupid giant foam finger and a jersey that dwarfed me, or schmoozing my way through a crowd of rich philantropists—in heels, no less—or trying my best to win over a pair of small-town parents, I was damn well going to return all the support.

Starting now, I wasn't missing a thing.

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