by ANDREA SMITH
“Do you want to sit at a table on the mezzanine?” she yelled over the music. “It is roomier and we can at least hear each other talk!”
“Sounds good to me,” I yelled.
We headed up that way and right before we got to the wide staircase, Ian came up to Gina, grabbing her from behind, and laying a major lip lock on her. Those two were so crazy in love, and the surprising thing was they were totally opposite personalities. I had to smile as I watched them in action. Ian patted her ass stood back and admired how sexy she looked.
He came over to me, gave me a hug and a “Happy Birthday!”
“Thank you!” I yelled over the din of all of the noise.
“You look fantastic, love,” he hollered. I loved his British accent. What a match, Gina from Jersey, and Ian from Manchester, England.
“Thank you!” I yelled. Finally the song stopped and we had a few minutes until the next set played.
“Ian, Ty and I are going to take a table up on the mezzanine. Where’s Piers? I want to introduce him to Tylar.”
Ian shook his head.
“Giner (that was British for Gina I presumed) you need to let things be with that,” he said.
“Hey Ian, it’s her birthday and she is going to want to dance. Who better than Piers?”
Ian laughed and smacked her tight ass.
“He’ll be along, I’ll send him up. I should be relieved here in about thirty and then join you up there love.”
“I can hardly wait,” Gina giggled. “C’mon Ty, let’s get some drinks."
Gina got us the VIP table up on the mezzanine. There was an alcove portion on the mezzanine that was located above the band stage below. The mezzanine alcove jutted out a bit over the dance floor, and had its own staircase leading down to it. It was semi-private from the rest of the mezzanine. Gina explained it was general reserved in advance but she had instructed Ian to keep it available for us. Gina pushed the button on the wall next to our table which summoned the waiter that covered this area of the mezzanine.
Gina ordered us both another round. Before we were finished with our first round, Ian had joined us, bringing his younger brother, Piers with him. I was introduced to Piers as “The Birthday Girl.”
Piers was extremely good looking and possessed the same hot British accent as Ian. He was about 5’11” in height, lean build, and had dark, almost black hair that was neatly trimmed in what I would call a business cut. He had dark brown eyes, and a very relaxed, non-uptight demeanor about him.
(Here I was comparing him to uptight Trey, but he was really no competition for my beautiful, absent Trey.)
A few minutes later Gina's brother and sister-in-law joined the party, Pete and Amie. They had only been married for a few months. I had met them the day I had arrived at Gina's house. They bought the next round of drinks.
The next group up was a Scottish boy band that that Ian had discovered on his recent trip to Atlantic City. They had been booked at one of the casinos and Ian had been able to get them for a four week gig at the Sanctuary on weekends for July. They were called “Johnnie and the Self Abusers.” I had a fairly good buzz going, and Piers leaned over the table and asked me if I wanted to dance. I recognized the old 80’s tune ‘Don’t You Forget about Me,’ starting. How appropriate I thought. Someone had definitely forgotten about me.
“Sure, I said, grabbing Piers’ outstretched hand as he helped me up. We descended the stairs to the lit dance floor.
It was one of those songs that bordered between fast and slow, so Piers and I did a mixture of both. I was impressed by his fluid movements on the dance floor. I caught myself wishing it was Trey that I was dancing with now; his arms wrapped around me holding me close.
As the song ended I raised my head from Piers shoulder. He had his head bowed slightly towards me. Before I knew it, his lips were brushing mine in a sweet kiss.
(Oh shit.)
“Happy Birthday, Tylar,” he said, smiling.
I returned his smile. He put his arm around me and we headed back up the staircase to the mezzanine.
Once seated again, more drinks were set in front of me. Oh God, the dreaded, Jell-O shots. I remembered those from my senior prom. I quickly downed mine.
Right then someone came up from behind me put his arms around me with a squeeze and gave me a ‘Gotcha’!
“Oh my God!’ I squealed, turning around to see Luke, Clint and Rodney.
I jumped up immediately to hug them.
“You guys! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Because,” Gina interrupted, “It wouldn’t have been a surprise! I told you I had one coming!
“Whoa,” Clint whistled, checking out my attire.
“I see that ‘Whoa,’ and raise you a ‘Wow’!” said Rodney. I was blushing again.
“You got some sweet body, baby!” Luke said. “I guess in those jeans and boots, we don’t get to appreciate it too much,” he winked.
“You guyyzzz” I gushed, feeling no pain. “C’mon, it’s my birthday, let’s toast!”
Gina brought another tray of Jell-O shots, and we all took one, and downed it. The band below was keying up to do another tune. The lead singer had the mike, announcing the next song:
“Okay everyone, we’re going to do a two song tribute right now to the ‘King of Funk’. So I want everyone to bring their party asses on down to this dance floor. That’s right, for the late great, King of Funk, Mr. Rick James his 1981 hit, “Super Freak!”
“C’mon,” Gina, said, grabbing my arm as the band started playing ‘Super Freak.’ “Everybody!” she commanded. Ian was busy having Piers and Pete help him get some more tables set up in the alcove since the arrival of Clint, Rodney, Luke and apparently, Luke had invited others that hadn’t arrived yet. So it was Gina, Amie, me; Clint, Rodney and Luke on the dance floor.
I had learned how to freak dance in junior high school not that I had since had much opportunity to use it, until now. Maybe it was the alcohol, or my friends being here, or the way I was dressed, but all inhibitions left me then. Gina was freaking with Luke, Amie with Clint, so it was Rodney and I freak dancing. Rodney followed my lead and he was a quick learn.
I was bumping and grinding against Rodney, then turned and let him do the same to me. We circled each other, front to front freaking, then back to front freaking. At one point I was down at his ankles working my way back up his body to the beat when I froze around his mid-section. Not good. I was being watched by a pair of very familiar, very emblazoned sapphire blue eyes. Trey was sitting at the bar adjacent to the dance floor, leaning back, with a beer in his hand, and a blond on his left. I couldn’t tell if they were together or not.
Rodney noticed I had not come back up all of the way, and bent down to face me.
“Are you alright? Are you going to be sick?” he asked, concerned.
“I may be,” I answered, “Don’t turn around, Rodney, but Trey is sitting over at the bar, and he’s looking over this way.” Naturally, Rodney turned and saw him.
“Holy shit,” he said, “I’m outtie.”
Rodney ascended back up the staircase to the safety of the mezzanine. Chicken shit I thought. I was not about to me intimidated by him. I immediately danced over to where Clint was and joined them.
As ‘Super Freak’ ended, the band immediately went into another Rick James song, ‘Party All the Time,’ as in ‘my girl wants to.’ Perfect I thought. Amie was tired, so she went on back up which left Clint and I dancing to the tune, along with Gina and Luke. Clint and I were bumping and grinding and I was getting the ultimate pleasure watching Trey in my very astute peripheral vision squirming in his seat. I made sure when the song ended, to jump up and wrap myself around Clint in a big hug. I think he was a little shocked, but no more than I.
After two in a row, we were all a bit worn out. As we climbed the stairs back up to the mezzanine, Gina grabbed my arm to get my attention.
“That was quite a little show you put on down there for Trey, yo
u looking to get Clint and Rodney’s asses kicked tonight?”
My look of surprise and shock didn’t fool Gina at all.
“Don’t bother,” she said, “I know how you roll, girlfriend and hey, I’ve got no problem with dude sitting over there watching you and feeling like his heart is being ripped out, believe me. But C’mon, Ty, you know that it’s not really fair to Clint and Rodney when he takes a piece out of their hides later, right?”
“I was dancing with Piers, too,” I argued, “So you think Trey’s going to take a piece out of his hide, too?”
“Doubtful,” she answered. “In the first place, we’re not even sure Trey was in here when you were dancing with Piers.”
Secondly,” she continued, with a laugh, “You weren’t dry humping Piers like you did with the others.”
“It’s called ‘freaking” I argued, “And it’s a perfectly acceptable dance.”
“Uh huh,” Gina replied, “Hey, I ain’t the one you have to convince, Ty. I was dancing it too, you know. It’s just that, well,” Gina started giggling almost uncontrollably, “My partner didn’t leave the dance floor with a hard-on like both of yours did!”
“Shut up no they didn’t!” I laughed, “You are making that up Gina!”
I was bent over, laughing so hard that I didn’t notice that Trey was walking to the dance floor with the blond that had been sitting next to him at the bar. Gina hadn’t missed a thing though as she glanced at me.
“Showtime,” Gina said, nodding her head toward the dance floor. I turned to follow her gaze and my heart sank to my knees. We hurried the rest of the way up the steps. I didn’t want to give Trey the satisfaction of knowing that I had seen him take his blond whore on to the dance floor. The band did a Mike and the Mechanics 80’s song called, “All I Need is a Miracle.” What an appropriate selection I thought.
I tried to ignore the lyrics of the song that was playing, the song that Trey was dancing to with someone else, but the words floated up to me over that insanely expensive sound system Gina had told me about, the words crisp, clear and sharp as a knife as they pierced my heart.
I couldn’t take it any longer; I felt the warm tears brimming in my eyes threatening to spill; Gina saw it, too. “C’mon,” she said, taking my hand. “Let’s go to the little girl's room." I was hoping no one else had been paying attention, but I thought Piers might have noticed since he had been talking to me since he had sat back down after our dance. All I had been hearing were the stupid words to that song.
We had barely made it inside the restroom when the flood gates opened. Gina grabbed a box of tissues off the countertop, and was trying to do damage control to the eye make-up she had so carefully and expertly applied earlier by lightly dabbing.
“It’s okay, sweetie, you are going to be fine, no need for tears,” she was trying her best to soothe me.
“Why in the hell is he here?” I blubbered. “And with his blond Atlanta whore to boot! He must really be trying to send me a message with this stunt, and it’s my birthday!” I wailed.
“No, no, honey, c’mon, you don’t want streaks down your cheeks, now,” Gina was dabbing away.
“Oh I don’t give a shit what I look like, Gina. I want to leave!”
“Oh, no, we are going nowhere, girlfriend. Now you just take a minute and calm yourself down and listen to me, I mean it.”
I nodded my head obediently. Gina took out a compact and dabbed some pressed power just underneath my eyelids.
“There, that’s better,” she said.
She then got some pencil liner out and re-lined my bottom lids.
“Perfect,” she said.
“Now, I need to tell you something, Ty,” she started in a conciliatory tone.
“I am probably the reason that Trey is in here tonight.”
“What?” I was in screech mode. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, I said something to Aunt Becky when I talked to her last week. I let her know that Ian and I were having you come to Atlanta this weekend to celebrate your birthday. I asked her to let Clint and the others know, and that they were invited as Ian’s and my guests to the Sanctuary tonight in honor of your birthday. I swear to God that I didn’t ask her to invite Trey, though!”
“Gina, you knew damn well that between Clint, Luke and Rodney, Trey was bound to find out, now didn’t you?”
“So what if he did? He should be here for your birthday, right?”
“I don’t get you Gina,” I replied, slightly amused, “One minute you act like you think Trey is a major control freak Nazi, and the next minute it’s like you’re playing matchmaker with us. What’s up with that?”
“Well, I do think he’s somewhat of a Nazi, yeah, but I mean, he’s your Nazi, Ty. For whatever reason, and don’t ask me to explain, because even I don’t understand it, when I see you two around each other there is this dynamic between you guys, it’s like this hot energy that you bring out in each other. I mean yeah, it drives me nuts when I see him go all ‘Edward Cullen’ on you, but I think you need to play it out. It could be something really good.”
“You are something else,” I laughed.
I couldn’t be mad at her. I did feel better knowing that his coming to the club wasn’t for the purpose of rubbing my nose into the blond, though I was curious about her.
“Let’s get back to my party.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gina and I returned to our table on the mezzanine and either no one had noticed our hasty departure as being anything more than the standard trip to the girl’s room or they were too polite to inquire differently.
The bands were switching out and regular music was playing over the sound system while they set up. I sipped my vodka sonic, amazed that with all the shots I had taken I was still pretty much sober. Trey had that effect on me I suppose.
Luke and Rodney had met a couple of girls from a table downstairs and had invited them up to my birthday soiree; I didn’t know where Clint was at the moment. We heard some screeching noises as the mikes were being tested, followed by the usual, “Testing one, two. Testing one, two."
It was the emcee of the club. Gina said he just introduced the bands and then covered at breaks. I wasn’t sure why he was breaking in after the last set.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have your attention please? I’ve been told that we have a special birthday being celebrated tonight at the Sanctuary, a VIP birthday as a matter of fact.”
Oh God, no. I looked at Gina who had her shit-eating grin going good; Ian right beside her doing the same. Oh God, yes it seemed they had outdone themselves on this one.
“So,” the emcee continued, “If we could just get the little lady down here on the stage, so that our next group can give her a proper birthday shout-out for her twenty-one years on this planet! Tylar Preston? Come on dowwnnn!”
The crowd downstairs and upstairs whooped and hollered.
“C’mon,” Piers said, gentleman that he was, “I’ll escort you down if you want, Tylar.”
“Thank you,” I barely whispered, giving Gina my ‘I will get you back’ look.
Piers put his hand on the small of my back, which incidentally was bare because of this handkerchief disguised as a dress I was wearing. I was suddenly feeling more exposed than I cared to be. Why did that damn staircase have to be so long and steep? ‘Don’t let me fall’, ‘don’t let me fall’; I repeated as a mantra to myself the whole way down. The band had taken stage and was tuning their instruments to what sounded like an electric version of “Happy Birthday.”
Could my embarrassment possibly get any worse? Well, yes, it could and it did. The first person I saw as I descended the stairs was Trey, sitting at the bar, directly in front of the dance floor across from the band warming up. The group’s name was painted on the base drum ‘Osmosis’. (Sweet)
“Here she is!” the emcee announced as he saw Piers leading me over.
“And look at that sexy thing there, c’mon up here darling!�
�
(Please don’t make me climb up on that stage.)
Why did my dress seem tighter? I looked at Piers for help. He smiled and lifted me up, placing me on the stage. Thank God, we wouldn’t have to see whether or not my dress would have survived my doing it.
“Now darlin’, the boys here in the band wanted to play you a traditional Happy Birthday song, but it seems that they just received well – for lack of a better term, an offer that they simply could not refuse. But in order to collect off of that offer, there is a stipulation.”
(Oh God, was this going to get bad again?)
“It seems little lady, that you have an admirer out there in the crowd. Yes sir and this admirer is very generous. He asked that the boys play a ‘spotlight’ dance for you and him only. Now you have to agree to this or well, we give you a 'Happy Birthday' song, and let you sing along with the boys of course. What’s it going to be darling?”
Shit, did I really have a choice? He was holding the microphone up to me.
“Do I get to pick the song for the spotlight dance?” I asked shyly.
“No darling, your benefactor was very specific on that part. Seem he thinks you look ‘Pretty in Pink,’ so is it a go?” (Oh, hell why not?)
“Oh hell why not?” I said.
Thunderous applause. The lights started to dim except for a circular one on the dance floor. I turned to Piers. No wonder he had so kindly “offered” to escort me down for this birthday humiliation. I could be a good sport if I had to I supposed. Piers was standing off to the side.
“Here’s ‘Osmosis’ ladies and gentlemen, with a tribute song to our birthday girl here, from the ‘Pretty in Pink’ soundtrack, this song was recorded in 1986 by the British synthpop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 'If you Leave' in the spotlight.”
The band started the song and I recognized it immediately. The lights were fully dimmed and Piers was still standing off to the side. I was starting to feel a bit weird just standing there, until a pair of strong arms lifted me down onto the dance floor.