Down the hall

The house vibrated.

It wasn’t just the music—though the bass was deep enough to rattle her teeth—it was the press of bodies, the heat, the chaotic pulse of something loud and living and entirely too young. Emily had barely made it through the front door before the crush of college students swallowed her whole.

Sweat beaded under her arms instantly. Her braless tanktop, already thin from hours of wear, clung to her chest with every breath. The air was hot and humid with beer fumes, synthetic cologne, and the thick, dizzy scent of bodies dancing far too close in far too little clothing.

Someone bumped her shoulder.

Then someone else brushed past her back, close enough to make her flinch. Laughter rolled around her, chaotic and half-drunken, mixing with the throb of music and the slap of sneakers on beer-slick floors.

She turned to edge away—and that’s when it happened.

A hand reached into her space, a blur of red plastic and tan fingers.

“Drink up, mystery MILF!”

The solo cup was thrust into her hand without warning. She blinked, startled, her fingers tightening around it automatically. But the boy—bare-chested, glitter across his collarbone, hat backwards—had already vanished into the crowd before she could say anything.

Mystery MILF?

Her ears burned.

She looked down at the cup. It was half-full with something dark and carbonated, beads of moisture running down its cheap plastic sides. She turned it slightly in her hand and caught a sharp whiff of ****—sugar-sweet, synthetic, strong. Rum, maybe. Something fruity. Probably spiked punch straight from a cooler in the kitchen. The kind of concoction that didn’t seem dangerous until you stood up too fast and the floor swayed with you.

She hesitated.

A boy nearby—young, buzzed, his shirt unbuttoned and forgotten—let out a sudden cheer as a girl jumped onto the kitchen counter and began to grind against the wall. Cups were everywhere. Laughter. Shouting. Music. Everything around her was a blur of motion and noise.

And her?

She was standing there with a drink in her hand, nipples stiff under cotton, jeans tight from the laundry cycle, hair frizzing from the humidity, wondering what the hell she was even doing here.

One sip.

It was half out of nerves, half out of muscle memory. Parties like this weren’t foreign to her—just distant. Another life. One where she didn’t have a baby monitor on her nightstand or milk pads tucked in her bra. She hadn’t meant to come dressed like this. She hadn’t meant to come at all, really.

She raised the cup and took a sip.

Sweet. Sharp. Potent. The **** hit the back of her throat like a slap, and she choked back a cough, eyes watering as she swallowed.

Her lips tingled.

Then, without quite meaning to, she drank again. A deeper pull this time. Her throat burned. Warmth bloomed in her chest—fast, heady, the kind that softened the edges of the world. Her pulse thudded less tightly in her temples. The din of the house didn’t quiet, but it seemed… farther, for a moment. Less piercing.

She exhaled through her nose, shook her head. Her vision swam slightly.

“Jesus…” she muttered, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.

Cup empty.

And just like that, she felt lighter.

Not safer. Not saner. But a little farther from the part of herself that had been clenching all day. All week. All year.

She pressed her back to the wall, surveying the chaos around her. People screamed-laughed. Someone threw up into a plastic plant and was applauded for it. Bass rolled under her feet. And somewhere—somewhere in this mess—was her nephew. Mickey.

She hadn’t come here to party. She hadn’t come here to drink.

But now she had a warm flush in her cheeks, the faintest edge of a buzz, and a body that tingled from the drink and the heat and the hundred accidental touches already soaked into her skin.

Her top was clinging worse now—cotton damp between her breasts, the swell of them pressing into the thin fabric with every breath. Her nipples were visibly hard. She glanced down and cursed softly, arms folding in a half-hearted attempt to hide it.

She needed to find Mickey.

Just tell him what his mother said, get him to call her, and go home.

She pushed off the wall and edged down the hallway, weaving through a crowd of boys shouting over a game of beer pong. She scanned doorframes, looking for a hint, a clue, something that might suggest which room was his. Her head was swimming a little now. Her skin prickled where sweat cooled beneath her shirt.

Then she saw it—a door cracked just an inch, light spilling out.

Maybe that was it.

She reached for the handle and stepped inside.