Текст книги "The Girl On The Half Shell"

Автор книги: Susan Ward

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

At the front of the rope line, I am relieved. I know the bouncer. “Randy.” I shout over the blaring music from within to get his attention.

Randy looks, does a thorough security type scan of the crowd, sees me, smiles, and the rope is pulled back. Rene and I are pulled quickly into the courtyard in front of the door. The front of the line is pissed.

I can feel Rene watching me as if she wants this explained, but I ignore her. Randy keeps his eyes on the front of the line, but leans in to hear me.

“It’s really packed.”

“Some group from Seattle is booked tonight. It’s crazy inside, Chris. Crazy. Not cool at all. Not the usual scene.” He starts pushing back against the line. “Hey, behind the line or I boot you to the end.” He’s stressed. The crowd is enormous and I can feel the pulse in the air that this is a happening. I didn’t know there was a special event tonight, but I bet Eliza did and that’s why she had Daddy book her a private room.

Randy grabs my arm. “Are you packing? I can’t let you in if you’re not packing. ABC has been a real pain in the ass lately.”

I pull from my purse the fake ID Rene appropriated for me. She takes them from her father’s fembots under the pretense she has a right to check their age. There is an entire shoe box of stolen IDs in our dorm room. Rene is the go-to girl for ID, but I think the box means something else to her, though she hasn’t told me.

I hold the New York license beneath Randy’s nose. He checks it, then Rene’s. “Any trouble, Chris, and you run out the back,” he whispers in a low, fierce tone. “A fight. Police. Anything. You run. You get caught in here tonight it’ll make the papers and we’ll lose our liquor license. That fucking whore with the band will make sure it makes press.”

My entire face colors. I nod before Randy lets me walk into the club with Rene. The ground level bar is a crush of bodies. I fight my way to the railing above the dance floor below. The music is ear-splittingly loud. I can feel Rene watching.

At the railing she leans in and stares at me. “Chris?”

No one calls me that. I shrug. It’s the nickname I prefer, who I am here, in this little bit of bad. I’m glad Rene doesn’t probe further. She is caught up in the band on stage. A young, blond shoeless singer. He’s very hot, in that grunge sort of way Rene likes, loose jeans, bare feet, stringy hair, and lean body hopping on stage.

“God, I’d love to go home with that tonight,” Rene purrs, fanning herself with a hand. She looks at me. “OK, now what? We didn’t come here just to watch Eliza, did we? That would be so pathetic, Chrissie.”

Downstairs in the private party room with the mirrored window is Eliza and her mob. On the floor by the stage Tami is dancing with Johnny Ramirez, her public school boyfriend that she kept even after Eliza ended their year of oh, it’s so cool to date boys from the public school phase.

The smart thing to do would be to leave before they see us, but I just want to do something and I don’t know what I want to do. Rene is waiting, trying to ignore the guy beside her, who is working really hard to get her attention.

She shakes her head in aggravation and looks at the pest at her side. She arches a brow. “You’re—” heavy exaggeration on you’re—“talking to me?”

She says it in a perfectly bitchy, rich girl sort of way, a superior put down well done, and the guy just stares at her. She shakes her head and grabs the cocktail waitress passing by. “Two Kamikazes.”

I’m not really much of a drinker, I don’t know what’s in a Kamikaze, but it sounds like the right kind of drink for tonight.  I grab the rail and pull myself up to see down below. It’s really packed in here. It’s easy to pick out the hot girls in the crowd. They are always dancing. Always laughing. Always drinking. Always tossing their hair.

I take a hefty swallow of my Kamikaze and realize it’s just a fancy name for a vodka drink. Hmm… the drink isn’t bad at all. I scan the crowd, watching the hot girls. What would Eliza do if I were the hot girl in the private party room with her ex-boyfriend? I take another hefty sip of my drink, hoping some kind of inspiration will come.

Rene is on her second Kamikaze. She can out drink a sailor. First, scotch at the beach, then two cocktails in under fifteen minutes. She stares at the glass. “How many of these do you think make a set? Six? Eight? They’re so cute. They’ll make a cute set in my apartment in Berkeley.”

I frown. “What?”

“The glasses.” She holds one up then slyly tucks it into her everything bag.

“You’re stealing the glasses?”

Rene nods and smiles. “I have to drink one more. You have to drink two. Or is eight a proper set? I am never sure how many of anything should be in a set. Perhaps I should call my mother. Mom would definitely know that.”

I roll my eyes. I finish my drink, motion to the cocktail girl for another, which really pleases Rene since I hand her my glass, and now there are three rattling around in her everything bag.

What would Eliza do to me? She’d want to make me feel small, insignificant. As if my party wasn’t the happening. As if her party was the happening, which is exactly how I feel now. How would she do it? How would she do it?

I look at Rene. I know what Rene would do. “Who’s the hottest guy in here?”

Rene doesn’t answer. The pest is gone and there is a new guy beside her and this one she’s talking to. I tug on her shoulder. I repeat my question.

She holds up a finger to her latest conquest, a superior gesture of be silent and wait. “Why, Chrissie? What are you going to do?”

I give her a hard look. “Just answer me.”

“You are not going to do anything stupid?”

I give her another look. It takes Rene only a moment to zoom in on a guy standing on the other side of the upstairs bar. “Him, Chrissie. Him. Definitely hot and just the right amount older.”

I look in the direction of her stare. I whirl to put my back to the bar and slouch down slightly. Oh no, not him! Another secret I haven’t told Rene: In December I had a near fuck experience. Jack flew off the day after Christmas, and it had made me really angry in that way I never handle well. I went to Peppers, got drunk, and before I knew it was with Mr. Incredibly Hot across the bar having a near fuck experience. I don’t even remember how I got to his house, I was that drunk.

I can feel my face scrunching up tighter as my eyes tightly close to a foggy picture of ending up on a pool table with my shirt up and this guy snorting lines off my stomach. There is nothing attractive about a man who snorts coke, not even off your stomach, and I couldn’t seem to stop what was unfolding…and then the panic: How did I get here? What have I done? How do I get away? Is he just weird or dangerous?

I still can’t believe I did it, let myself get fuzzy drunk, unable to figure out how to get out of the house with some guy I don’t know who wants to bathe me and shave me there. It was being drunk that saved me, because I was enough drunk to vomit all over his tile, but not so drunk as to pass out.

As it was, he wasn’t dangerous, just weird, and pretty OK about everything in the morning. He gave me some sweats to change into, drove me back to my car and probably burned my number, which wouldn’t have matter because I didn’t give him my real number or name. Rule number one of Rene: never give your real name and number to a guy you meet in a bar.

I cringe. Oh no, I am definitely not making contact with Mr. Near Fuck Experience. I’m beginning to feel nauseated, my head is spinning, but not from the alcohol because I really haven’t had that much. Please, don’t let it turn into a full blown panic attack.

“Chrissie? What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing! That guy is too old.”

“Old for what?” Rene turns to her new guy friend. “Oh crap, I’ve got to get her out of here. I think she’s drunk. She doesn’t drink much. I can’t take her home drunk. It will be a total shitstorm if I do.”

“Rene, I’m OK,” I reassure her rather feebly. When I turn to look at her I realize we are being watched by her latest male conquest and another guy who looks like he is with him. Jeez, he’s really cute. Maybe twenty, with blond streaked light brown hair and big green eyes. A really cute surfer/rocker sort of guy. Cute and probably clueless. He’ll do… just as I think that, something flashes in his eyes.

“Hey Rene, is there something wrong with your friend,” he says, but his eyes never leave me.

Rene frowns. “She’s a lightweight. Like I said she doesn’t drink much. Do you need to go outside for some air, Chrissie?”

My cheeks burn. Can you embarrass me even more, Rene? I ignore her and lean over to speak to the cute stranger. “Hi. I’m Chris.”

The guy stares at me, and then shrugs as if to say, OK I’ll play. “Hi. Neil. Neil Stanton.”

I can feel Rene watching.

“How would you like to be a really, really cool guy and do me a really, really big favor?” I ask.

OK, what’s up with all the ‘really.’ So Valley Girl. How lame is that? Like, really, really lame. I take a steadying breath. This can go one of two ways. It can be a Breakfast at Tiffany’s moment or the last scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: the firefight in Bolivia scene. Probably Bolivia. I pound the last of my drink and turn my head so I can lock eyes on Neil. He’s watching me, amused and a little wary in that way guys have when they are unsure if there is something wrong with a girl. I put the glass on the bar. Here goes nothing.

“I want you to go downstairs to the dance floor and wait for me,” I say.

“Wait for you?” He stares at me. OK, what did I say that was wrong? Those pleasant green eyes are staring at me really pissed. He takes a long drink from his beer. “Hey, if this is a brush off, it’s unnecessary. You don’t need to make a fool of me. I wasn’t trying to hit on you.”

It takes me a moment to figure out why he is mad. He thinks I’m messing with him, in that bitchy rich girl way, and for some reason my confidence soars even knowing he’s thinking I’m a total bitch. I’m never the one who gets to experience the feel of pretty girl power and I certainly didn’t expect to with super-hot guy. He thinks I’m a bitch.

I start to laugh.

“Screw you,” Neil says. He turns to his friend. “We’re out of here, Josh.”

His temper focuses me. I grab his arm. “No, no, no. It’s not like that, really. Please, let me explain. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Now the look he gives me is just plain insulting. I look to Rene for help. Not a chance, her eyes scream at me. She’s going to leave me alone in this.

This has gone from bad to worse. How do I dig out? The truth. Just tell him the truth. It can’t get worse than this. He already thinks you’re a bitch and probably a crazy bitch at that.

I stare up into those angry green eyes waiting expectantly. “I wouldn’t mess with you because I’m the girl who usually gets messed with. You see, there’s a girl down there having a party and she invited me, but I know it’s just because she wants to do something to humiliate me. But at some point between dinner and now I just got pissed. You know, like when you’ve had enough of someone messing with you and you’re just angry. Fed up pissed, and I thought, what would piss her off more? Show up here, have a hot guy meet me and look like I don’t care about her stupid party. That would piss her off more, because she enjoys having people care when she’s really, really mean to them.”

Damn. Really, really again. The whole speech makes me come off pathetic. The air in my lungs forces its way out in sharp, rattling spurts.

Neil stares at me. “Are you telling me the truth or is this some other bitch game?”

“The truth,” I insist, totally embarrassed now.

After a few seconds I force myself to look at him. He’s frowning, but…is that a smile in his eyes?

“You think I’m hot?”

I refrain from rolling my eyes at him and start to laugh.

“You’re OK.”

He shakes his head. “You better not be messing with me.” He takes Josh’s beer and downs it. “You want me just to wait by the dance floor?”

I nod. “All you’ve got to do is wait for me. Pretend like we’re together. Dance a dance and walk out with me. That’s all.”

He looks undecided. Neil looks at his friend. Josh shrugs, but shifts his eyes to Rene who is too busy watching me to notice. His friend wants him to do this. He thinks it will get him hooked up with Rene for the rest of the night.

Neil orders another round of drinks. When his beer comes, he grabs it. “Don’t keep me waiting or I walk.”

I nod. Rene looks at me in a way that makes me a little less brave, like she thinks this is a childish stunt and pathetic and just plain not going to matter.

I walk down the steps. It’s just bullshit, but knowing there’s this cute guy down there waiting for me gives me a little extra swagger in my step.

Then I touch the bottom step and in a flash I know I’ve read this guy all wrong.

Chapter Three

The kiss is hard, fast and burningly intense. Neil is all around me, strong and unfamiliar and in command with his maleness. He forces my mouth apart and he fills me with his tongue. I feel panic, that shattering panic I felt in my near fuck experience. I don’t know this guy. I didn’t know Mr. Near Fuck Experience. Neil is messing with me now that he thinks he’s in control.

I struggle in his arms and try to break free. “Stop it. I didn’t say you could touch me.”

Neil ignores me and his hands flatten against my back. He must still be pissed off and somehow I didn’t see it. Did Rene see? Is that why she gave me the look?

I feel like I’m going to freak out and make a fool of myself in Peppers. Oh how Eliza would love it if I freaked out on the steps of Peppers.

I jerk as his hand takes hold of my ass to lift me up into him and this time I use my hands to try to put a little space between us.

“I thought you wanted this believable,” he whispers as his mouth moves to my neck.

“Believable yes. Insulting no,” I snap, still struggling in his arms.

“Haven’t you ever been kissed before? Stop wiggling. I’m only doing what I would do if you were really my girlfriend and I was waiting for you.”

“That explains why you are alone,” I counter. “Stop mauling me.”

He steps back and rakes an aggravated hand through his tousled waves. “God, you had better be at least eighteen. You feel like you’ve never been kissed before. You’re not thirteen or something, are you?”

“Of course, I’m eighteen. I just don’t kiss perfect strangers.”

“You don’t kiss anyone. I can feel a girl who doesn’t like to kiss. Why don’t you like to kiss?”

This guy is just doing me a pathetic favor so why does he have to go all Dr. Ruth on me? Who would have thought this guy would be sensitive enough to pick up on anything? Neil’s got me all worked out in under five minutes.

I ignore the question. He shrugs. “Forget it. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

He takes my hand and starts pulling me through the crowd. I look over my shoulder and thankfully see that Rene has followed with Mr. New Conquest. Halfway across the room I realize lots of girls are looking at Neil, he is pretty hot, and he slaps hands here and there, stopping to talk when his name is called as he continues to work through the room. Neil is known in this crowd and popular. Most of the people don’t look local, but they know him, and it feels good to be pulled along with him in that “this girl’s with me” proprietary way and to feel unexpectedly a part of whatever is happening in this club tonight.

He stops when we’re at the far side of the room at a standing table beneath the stage. In between songs, the lead singer leans over to say something to Neil. Neil laughs, says something back. I can’t catch it, the room is too noisy.

I look across the room. Rene is still several feel away. “You’re not from Santa Barbara, are you?”

Neil isn’t really paying attention to me. His eyes are locked on the guitar on the stage. I lean into him and repeat my question louder.

“I’m a local,” he says, not shifting his eyes to me, his head moving in tempo with the music. “I just live in Seattle now.” He sets his beer on the table. “Different kind of scene. Less bullshit than SB. Most everyone here is from out of town. A few locals. But most everyone is here to see him.”

The band is good. The sound is different. But what is so special about him?

Neil leans forward into me, his elbows on the table. “This is one of those nights you’ll remember. You don’t know it now, but it is. You are here, in a no-name club, watching Kurt before he becomes famous, before he becomes iconic, as he’s just there changing music forever.”

Oh, crap. Way to go, Chrissie. This guy is a musician, probably with some struggling, no-name band in Seattle. That’s why he’s part of the happening here. He’s one of them. Leave it to me to find a musician in the crowd. That’s all I need.

I force a smile. “If you say so.”

“You can’t hear why they are so great?”

There was something insulting in the way he said that. I start to critique the band in my head: Three guys. Guitar, bass and drums. Sort of a little heavy dirge rock, mixed with punk and metal. The music is too angry for mainstream popularity. I hear a little bit of the Ramones and a twinge of Black Sabbath. Three cords, simple arrangement. Kurt has an interesting voice. Rene thinks he’s hot. The drummer is the one with the talent.

I bite down hard on my lip. Oh no! Did I just say that out loud? Crap! Neil fixes his gorgeous green eyes on me. I feel something. I’m not sure what. It’s sort of a strange thing. His eyes are hard to read, and then finally he starts to laugh. I feel some of the tension leave my body.

“You are an ignorant girl when it comes to music. You can’t kiss and you don’t know music.” Neil takes a dollar from his pocket, rips it in half, and hands a piece to me. “We’ll see who’s right.”

I hold up my half of the bill. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Keep it. Someday we’ll know which one of us is right and the winner gets the other half of the dollar.”

There is something cute and boyish and challenging in him. The corners of my lips tease with a smile. “What makes you think I’m ever going to see you again?”

Neil shrugs. “You have to. I’m a really cool guy who just did you a really big favor and you have half of my last dollar.”

Rene and Josh finally join us. Neil sets down his drink and takes my hand. “What took you so long?” he asks Josh.

“Andy’s over there.” Guy stare. Serious guy stare. Then, Josh sighs heavily and asks, “Are we staying or hitting it?” He looks at Rene. “You want to go somewhere to party?”

Neil’s mouth presses into a hard line. “I’m supposed to dance with you, right?”

I don’t like how he says that. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Neil rakes a hand through his hair. “It’s not you. There’s just someone here I don’t want to see. Get it?”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

He gives me a quizzical look. “No. Just some asshole I don’t want to see.”

Josh says, “Neil, you’re really going to have to get over it someday.”

“He screwed us over. Fuck him.”

I’m in the middle of a heated argument between the guys, and Neil’s fingers tighten on my hand as he leads me onto the dance floor. The dance floor is large, but I can see that Eliza and her mob have left the private party room and are mixed through the crowd. Eliza is dancing with Brad. She pretends not to see me and I pretend not to see her.

Unfortunately, my eyes connect for a moment with Brad’s. He looks away quickly as though I were nothing. I feel weak, mortified, and pathetic. With that touch of eyes I am forced to admit to myself that being here is only half about Eliza. I wanted Brad to see me with someone else, so he would think he didn’t matter, so that maybe he would stop mattering to me.

I’m being consumed by an array of emotions. I can’t process them. They are too quick. And the lights in the club are casting strange color across the crowd, making Eliza and Brad harshly gleaming figures, and the music is angry, the way I feel inside, angry, angry, angry.

“You OK?” Neil shouts.

He’s watching me intently. I lean into Neil. “We don’t have to dance.”

He shrugs. “I don’t want to lose my really cool guy standing.”

I wonder if I’ve just been obvious over Brad and if Neil saw my obviousness.

“What was that all about,” I ask wanting to change the subject.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just a friend who screwed me over. It happens.”

The heat of the room and the press of bodies around me suddenly feel too close. I can feel that Neil is annoyed and doesn’t really want to do this, is just following through because…I don’t know why he’s following through on being a really cool guy.

As a group, we roll into another song. The floor is packed, the music loud, Rene is in her element, and Neil and Josh are drinking, holding us, somehow still moving and somehow still arguing. Everyone around me seems drunk. They all look so into the moment, so into the scene. I don’t feel connected with the mood at all. I’m no longer in the room. I stop being in the room the second Brad touched me with his eyes and looked away as if not seeing me. I feel awkward and small as people near me slam into me and every so often Neil’s body presses up against me.

I stare up at him to keep myself from looking again at Eliza and Brad. Neil is staring at something across the room. There is a sudden internally contained tension that he didn’t have before.

I look over my shoulder. That must be Andy. Neil’s friend-enemy. There is something very odd in the way Andy is taking stock of me and staring at his friend.

I turn back to find Neil’s eyes on me. I don’t know what he sees on my face, but his expression softens. He leans into me. “You are not enjoying this at all, are you, Chris?” He frowns. “You don’t like to kiss and you don’t like to dance. You are a very strange girl. You don’t like this at all.”

I flush. This guy can see just enough, but not too much. He can’t see the part where I grew smaller and smaller because some jerk that dumped me doesn’t care that I am here with another guy.

Tears threaten behind my eyelids. I sway into Neil.

“Hey! Are you OK?” He sounds genuinely concerned.

I nod. He steadies me with his hands, his body moving in a matching rhythm with mine and he takes more care that people don’t crash into me. I look once away and then back at him.

He scrunches his nose. “Not helping, is it?”

I shake my head.

“I’ve got an idea.” Quickly he puts his drink down. Before I know what he is doing he’s lifting me from the floor until my arms are on his shoulders and my thighs against his chest. “Do you know what they do in Europe? They don’t crash into each other like we do in America. They bounce. Do you want to bounce, Chris?” He makes a hop. God, this is embarrassing. People don’t bounce in downtown clubs in Santa Barbara. I make a move with my hands to put me down, but Neil doesn’t. The look in his eyes changes into something sweet and gentle and kind. Jeez, this guy has beautiful eyes. I feel them all through my limbs. Another bounce. “Do you want me to make you bounce, Chris?”

That is said sweetly, teasing. I start to laugh and his arms tighten their hold of my body against him as he continues to bounce on the beat. God, this guy is so hot. I didn’t notice how hot until he started to laugh and smile. I feel my heart accelerate.

Josh lifts up Rene, and we are bouncing and laughing. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Eliza watching, and she looks really irritated.

Neil bounces me until the end of the next set, and I love it even though Rene and I are the only girls being bounced.

The music stops and I can hear thumping on wooden stairs as the band rushes off stage to the dressing room outside of Les’s office. Neil is still holding me off the floor, but I am being lowered down to earth in front of him.

“Why don’t we bounce, Chris?” His mouth is against my neck, stirring the sensitive flesh beneath my ear, no longer playful. “Let’s go back to my place.”

Jeez, when did this change from being a favor between two strangers to Neil thinking I’d go home with him? I look frantically around the bar, but Rene is nowhere to be found. Somehow she’s already disappeared with Josh. Crap, she’s just left me alone in this.

I bite my lower lip. “I need to find Rene. I need to go.”

He stares down at me, then shrugs and puts an arm around me holding me in a casual, friendly way. “Come on. We’ll go talk to the band for a while. Give Rene and Josh a few moments, if you follow my drift.”

I follow him up the stairs. There is security at the top of the stairs and Neil leans in to say something. The big, burly bouncer smiles at me.

We’re let into the private party and I can’t help but look to see if Eliza is watching. She is staring and furious. She starts moving toward me. Oh, crap. I realize why she invited me to Peppers tonight. She wanted Jack’s daughter to get her into the private party that Daddy’s money couldn’t seem to do. I push my body against Neil, hoping he’ll hurry before Eliza catches me. I don’t care about this band, this party, but Eliza does and it is enough to make me walk through the door.

* * *

The minute I’m in the room I want to get out. The upstairs private party is not my type of scene. The tiny room is packed. Neil has my hand and starts to pull me through the bodies. There is a raw kind of energy all around me. The girls here are not pretty girls. They are the other kind of girls that I never seem to fit in with, the fringe, wild, counterculture types. They are snorting lines of coke off a table, laughing, kissing, touching.

Everyone is wired, into the moment, and I know I look different, that I am different from them in my oh so Santa Barbara UGG boots and Saks Fifth Avenue mini skirt, and the one carat diamond studs in my ears that I never think about, but for some reason I remember them now.

A few feet from the singer, Neil says, “Wait here.”

I stand alone in the room feeling strange and out of place without Neil beside me. My frantic gaze locks on Neil talking with the band. They talk, smile, laugh, and then talk some more and I’m wondering if he’s going to leave me here alone forever when Neil takes my hand and pulls me into the conversation. The band is really nice, kind and friendly and for some reason really inclusive in the way they talk to me. They instantly engage me in conversation and seem really interested in what I have to say, not at all like the guys at school.

As we talk I see flashes. Someone is taking pictures and the last thing I need is a picture of me with this crowd making the rounds. I look around frantically trying to find the camera. Then I see the girl on the couch with the Polaroid and I feel foolish for being paranoid. I steady my breathing and tell Neil I have to go.

The club is empty as we walk out the back entrance. The windows to my dad’s car are all steamed up and I can see Rene and Josh in the back seat. Jeez, Rene, in my dad’s car? Did you really just screw a guy you met in a bar in my dad’s car?

“Hey Josh. Let’s roll,” Neil shouts.

I stop a few cars away. “Thanks, Neil. You’ve been a really cool guy tonight.”

He smiles and it’s sort of like he’s disconcerted, not knowing how he should deal with me.

“It’s been OK, Chris. I had fun with you tonight. If you’re ever in Seattle look me up. Maybe we can hang out sometime.”

I brace myself. “Maybe I should give you my number in case you come back to Santa Barbara this summer.”

Neil’s smiles at me quizzically. I feel instantly stupid. If the guy wanted my number he’d have asked for it.

“I leave next week on a six month tour. I don’t plan to be back in Santa Barbara.”

God, why did I have to offer him my number?

Josh and Rene climb out of the car. She starts giving him her number and I wonder if it’s her real number, if she gives her real number to guys she screws in parking lots.

All and all, it hasn’t been a completely disastrous night. I’m feeling kind of OK even though Neil did give me the brush off. I sink into the driver’s seat and wait for Rene to climb in.

I turn the ignition and put the car in gear. There’s a tap on my window. I roll it down. Neil says, “Drive carefully. You’ve had a few drinks. Not enough to be legally drunk, but they could pick you up anyway.”

I nod. That was a really sweet thing to say. “I’ll take it really, really slow.”

Neil laughs at the really, really. He turns to leave and then pauses. It’s almost like he’s debating with himself. His fingers curl over the top of my open window. “Hey, I know I’m just some guy you just met, but nice girls with rich, famous daddies shouldn’t be in bars trying to play games with guys like me. The guys you meet in bars play cruel games that hurt. Fuck! Didn’t Daddy teach you anything about how the world works?”

Oh crap! I know, I suddenly know. “You used me. You were a cool guy so you could use me to get into the party.”

I’m furious now.

He shrugs.

“Everyone uses everyone, Christian Parker.”

I roll up my window and pull from the parking space.

* * *

“God, Chrissie! Do you have to drive so slowly? I want to get home, get a shower and get some sleep.”

Rene is slouched in her seat trying to adjust her panties. It’s 2a.m. and the fog is really thick.

“I don’t want to get pulled over. If I get popped for drunk driving in my dad’s car it will make the front page of the NewsPress.”

“If you keep driving so slow the first cop that sees you will know you’ve been drinking.” She pulls down the visor and starts to touch up her lip gloss with the lighted mirror, which is really irritating because it makes it harder to see out of her side of the car. “You should have let me drive.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. What are you on, anyway? You guys didn’t do drugs in my dad’s car, did you?”

Rene glares at me. “I wouldn’t do that. I can’t believe you asked me that.”

“Really. Oh, really. You screwed a guy in my dad’s car.”

Rene shrugs. “He was cute. Neil was cute too. He was really into you, Chrissie. Did you give him your number?”

“No. And he wasn’t into me. Just another user. Why is the world so full of jerks?”

“Because half the planet is male.”

I change the subject. “Did you see Eliza’s face as Neil and I went into the private party. She was pissed.”