| 014. Unguarded |

  At some point, Xenia had started wearing an alcohol blanket to resist the cold. It would have been smarter to go back inside for her jacket, but since that jacket had her key, and Neil was lost in the crowd, she'd lost that option.

  Then Malachai had tried to give her his jacket, and instead of just accepting the gesture, she'd had to be annoyingly infuriating and insist on winning it through a drinking competition instead. She could only think the alcohol she'd already consumed was to blame for the poor decision making.

  “Gin and Tonic,” she had ordered, and inclined her head in Malachai's direction. “I suppose you’d better get him something highly toxic too. A long island iced tea, maybe?” The fake barman - one of Malachai’s classmates who was old enough to buy vast quantities of liquor when provided with enough funds - nodded and got to work.

  "It's not a competition if we're not drinking the same thing," he said. She shook her head and waved a hand at him.

  "That's just silly. I'm clearly a lightweight in comparison to you," she said gesturing to first herself and then back at him. "I'd never propose a competition without evening the playing field."

  Malachai took the drink and winced as he sipped it.

  “I hate this drink.” Her smile broadened. “You know I hate this drink.”

  “So, don’t drink it,” she suggested coyly.

  "Sure," he said and put it back on the bar. "I believe that means you've won, and should just wear the jacket. Unless you're trying to get me drunk."

  She scowled, put her drink down and put the jacket on, crossing her arms petulantly.

  "Thanks," she said, unable to help the good manners she was raised with. It was a stupid way to win, it felt like losing in spirit. Malachai ordered something whiskey based, ignoring her childish mood.

  A shadow passed over them.

  “This is an intervention,” Phillip said, placing his hands over the cups on the bar. “Andy is already trashed. The last thing I want is you two starting shots like you did last year - time out.”

  "If Brandy's drunk shouldn't someone be with her?" she asked.

  "Leo is," he said. Xenia grinned at Phillip. He blinked, unsure why she was smiling so happily. He had a weird sense of deja-vu. Maybe it was because he so rarely saw her smile? Maybe something similar had happened last year.

  "I'm not drinking that," Malachai said, pointing to the long island iced tea. He lifted his new cocktail in a mock salute, and walked away from them. Phillip pulled his hands back from the cups. He looked at Malachai's abandoned drink, shrugged, and took a sip. He wrinkled up his face. To Xenia's annoyance he took a sip of her drink too.

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  "Don't you think Leo and Brandy would make a good pair?" Xenia asked, realising too late that the alcohol had made her more loose lipped with her opinions than usual. Phillip put his head to one side, and turned to face her.

  "I don't think either of us are the ones to speculate about relationships," he said. Xenia blinked. Then realised he must mean that he'd actually broken up with Jessica, just as Brandy had suggested.

  "Why start dating her if you were going to dump her immediately?" she couldn't help asking. Phillip bit the inside of his cheek.

  "I really didn't mean to, it just happened that way." She raised her eyebrows at him. "We had such an incredible summer, Xenia. I knew she wasn't exactly best friends with all of you, but even you two seemed to relax into tolerating each other. I thought it was a sign that it would work out. But the moment we got back to school it was like she had to put on all these pretences again. Picking a fight with you about Brandy in the middle of a classroom? I don't recognise that Jessica as the person I got to know. Sometimes when it was just us, it felt like she relaxed into this totally different, amazing girl."

  When Xenia didn't reply, he scowled.

  "Never mind. I don't know why I'm telling you." Xenia wanted to tell him she understood. That she believed him. Her insides solidified unpleasantly, and she couldn't find the words. So he went on. “I feel sorry for the guy.” He gestured in the direction Malachai had gone. Xenia almost stumbled.

  “You feel sorry for him?” she checked. Phillip stared at her, frankly.

  “You clearly like each other, but any time you catch yourself having a good time, you sabotage it. I don’t know how he puts up with the mixed signals. If I were him I’d have told you to piss off. But he must really like you, because he keeps coming back for more.”

  “I need the toilet,” Xenia announced, blanching. She had never expected Phillip to dissect her so perfectly.

  With typical sabbotaging logic she turned back, grabbed the nearest drink, which was unfortunately the long island iced tea and downed it. Phillip raised his eyebrows, and she knew he was judging her, but she didn’t care. She'd had enough of all of this for one evening. She made a bee-line towards the stairwell. Or she tried to. It was weird, as she pushed through the crowds she found everything had started to feel hot, and she wasn't walking straight. She shrugged off Malachai's jacket. She hadn’t realised she’d had that much to drink. Phillip's intervention had seemed premature, but clearly she'd misjudged the situation. She'd have to tell him so.

  She pressed her hand against the wall and followed it round, stumbling up the stairs. Xenia frowned. She was actually beyond delirious. She paused at the next landing, unsure how many floors she’d climbed. She stumbled towards the nearest door, beyond dizzy. The light seemed much brighter all of a sudden and her head was pounding. It reflected off the wall... no, the floor. The world tilted and she was lying down with no comprehensible understanding of how she’d got there.

  Did she fall? She didn’t feel sore, but she knew this was beyond drunkenness. Her body felt heavy. She couldn’t move. She started to panic, and as cold realisation set in that something was seriously wrong with her she blearily focused on a pair of open-toe, silver high heels right in front of her face. Rouge-noir varnished nails poked out at her and she heard a voice she barely recognised as the dizziness became too much.

  “Xenia,” the girl moaned. “You know better than this.”