Catch Me

by Claire Contreras

  I cringe, stepping away from her hold. “You’re going to bust one of my ear drums!” I reprimand as I follow her line of sight. I see the group of guys she’s talking about. They’re all dressed similarly: a couple in jeans and long sleeves, a couple in slacks and long sleeves. I purse my lips and shrug at her, not impressed. She throws her head back and laughs.

  “We soooo need to get you a drink … or twelve! I can’t believe you didn’t drink before coming!”

  Nina is all about pre-gaming and probably had that amount to drink before coming out tonight. I really don’t think it’s sunk in her head that I’m trying not to be the wild child I used to be.

  “One drink,” I say loudly.

  Nina squeals and lets go of my hand as she propels forward and wraps her arms around a tall guy. He smiles widely and receives the hug, crushing her onto him. I can’t see her face, but his looks like the definition of happiness, which stuns me enough that I stop walking. Nina has never had a long-term boyfriend. All of her relationships are fleeting moments of pretend love or opportunities. The guy she’s clinging onto has long shoulder-length dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and a scruffy beard. He’s totally not her type and completely my type. I usually go for what Nina calls the grungy look—dirty looking but totally hot, her words.

  She steps away from grungy guy’s hold and turns to me with a huge smile on her face and I know this means they’re just friends. Or in reality, he’s just a friend to her; she probably means more to him though.

  “Bee, this is Sky!” Nina says, pulling my arm so forcefully that I stumble a little as I walk to her. Sky steadies my other arm and looks at me with a bemused expression.

  “Sorry,” I say, embarrassed even though I didn’t fall, and even if I would’ve it wouldn’t have been my fault. “Hi, Sky. I’m Brooklyn.”

  He collects a handful of his hair and swipes it back on his head, letting me see his face better under the pulsating lights. His eyes are clear blue, like the sky, and I wonder if that’s why his parents named him that or if it’s a nickname in reference to it. He has light stubble over his jaw and thin lips that are turned up.

  “Brooklyn, I love that name,” he says, leaning in to give me a peck on the cheek. “I’m Skylar.”

  “Skylar,” I repeat with a smile as I nod in appreciation. “I like that name too.”

  Skylar wiggles his eyebrows playfully and I laugh. “You ladies wanna sit down?”

  “Sure,” I shrug.

  “Bee needs a drink, Sky!” Nina booms. “Like … yesterday. She’s really uptight if she doesn’t have one.”

  I gape at her. “I am so not uptight!”

  I’m really not. And I had wine earlier; I just refuse to tell her that so that she won’t make fun of me. Nina has this thing: wine is for old people, beer is for frat people, cool people drink tequila. I so do not drink tequila.

  We sink into the low couches in the VIP section and I ask the waitress for a vodka tonic, hoping that’ll ease Nina’s pestering.

  “Good girl,” she says brightly and proceeds to drape one of her legs over Skylar’s lap.

  Oh my God. She’s going to flash everybody. I close my eyes and scoot closer to her, pulling down her dress a little.

  “You see? Uptight,” she says with a laugh.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Are you purposely flashing your vagina?” I ask incredulously.

  She groans and lowers her leg, shifting in her seat. “Anyway, Bee, Sky is the playwright I was telling you about …”

  I nod, not knowing what the heck she’s talking about, but playing along for her benefit. I completely understand now, though, why she’s all over him. He’s one of her “opportunities.” I wish my cousin would be a little bit harder to get sometimes. It’s not that she’s slutty, like Hendrix pegs her to be, but she definitely takes what she has and uses it. Skylar gets up and walks away, saying something I don’t catch.

  “You know he’s totally into you, right?” I ask her as we watch him leave.

  “Yeah, but he’s just a friend.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I swear! I haven’t fucked him and I don’t plan on it,” she says, seemingly annoyed that I would think she was.

  “Is he married?” I ask. She has a thing for married or taken men. That is her downfall and that’s the one thing we always argue about. As much as I love her, it’s so wrong that she does it and I cannot get over it. It’s a subject that makes me uneasy.

  “Nope. Live-in girlfriend,” she says.

  “And you’re not fucking him?” I ask curiously. “That’s … new.”

  She exhales. “I choose wisely. Sky and I would never work. He’s too emotional for me.”

  I nod, now thinking we’re hanging out with a psychotic emo guy, but say nothing about it. I scan over the VIP area again and see a couple of familiar faces: models, actors. My eyes stop when I reach the group of guys we previously saw and this time I feel my blood drain from my body. It happens quickly; the blood drains and rises, causing my heart to sputter rapidly and my breath to hitch.

  “What? What happened?” Nina asks, her voice alarmed. “You’re fucking killing me, Bee.”

  I register her words and let go of the grip I have on her arm. “Sorry,” I say, but my eyes are still on the guy looking at me. With the dim lighting I can’t see their real color, I can’t see the richness of them or the waves they have, but I can feel the intensity and the heat they let out as they pin me.

  “You know him?” Nina asks.

  I nod, still looking. “His name is Nick. I met him the other day.”

  Nick, seemingly reading my lips, smiles. It’s a very slow and sensual smile that takes over his face. It’s not really a heartwarming smile, even though it does warm parts of my body.

  “He’s looking at you like he wants to eat you,” Nina comments.

  My heart is still pumping at a ridiculous pace, and for some reason, I cannot look away. I can’t even play it cool and pretend I didn’t see him or that I’m not completely attracted to him.

  “Your drink,” Skylar says, stepping in front of me and blocking my view of Nick, and I’m oddly thankful for this.

  “Thank you!”

  “No problem.” He sits down closely beside me, his thighs touching mine, as he takes a sip of his own drink. He leans in to speak so that I can hear him. “So, you were living in LA before you moved here? That must be an … interesting transition?” he asks, his voice light.

  I shift to look at him and our foreheads bump, making us cringe and move apart. I hadn’t realized how close we were sitting. “Yeah, in a good way though,” I respond with a smile.

  “You say that now, wait until winter hits,” Skylar says, tossing his drink back.

  I laugh. “You’re right.”

  Nina pulls me close to her. “I just saw my friend Priscilla get here,” she says and points at a short girl in zebra print pants. “I’m going to say hi. Be right back!” She leaves before I can say anything else.

  “She’s a social butterfly, that one,” Skylar says, shaking his head with a smile, totally checking out Nina’s ass as she walks away.

  “She’s … something all right,” I offer.

  Skylar laughs. He has a fun laugh that makes me smile. His Adam’s apple bobs as he does it. He reminds me of my brother in a strange way, maybe because they’re both tall and skinny. Skylar is obviously hotter than my brother, to me anyway.

  “So you’re a playwright? You look like you play in a band or something,” I say, taking a sip of my drink.

  “Eh, I used to until I realized I was going to die of starvation if I didn’t do something else,” he says.

  I laugh. “So you chose to write plays for small income venues?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  “Touché. I’m good at it though, and it’s actually paying the bills quite nicely,” he says, a smug grin spreading over his face.

  “You don’t look like the clubbing type either,” I point out.

  Skylar throws
his head back in laughter. “You don’t like to generalize at all, do you?”

  I cringe and laugh along with him. “Sorry! It’s kind of true though!”

  “It is true,” Sky says with a chuckle. “My brother owns the place, so I come hang out here sometimes. Usually upstairs in his office, but since Nina was coming …” He lets his words drown in the music as he turns his face away from me to look at my cousin.

  “Cool.” I don’t know whether or not I should bring up Nina. I want to continue talking to him so I can get my mind off of Nick and the fact that his stare is burning a hole on the side of my face.

  “You want another drink?” Skylar asks, standing up.

  I jiggle my glass to show him I still have plenty and watch him walk off to the bar. I bite down on my lip and readjust the bottom of my dress before opening my clutch purse and taking out my phone. I write a text message to Allie letting her know I caved and went out with Nina, because that’s what you do when you’re sitting by yourself and don’t want to look awkward. The leather seat dips beside me and I jump slightly, whipping my head to look at who sat next to me.

  “Brooklyn,” Nick says, tilting his head to appraise me, his eyes cataloging every inch of my face. “I’m Nick, we met the other day.”

  “Yeah, I remember. How are you?” I say, offering him a smile, hoping he doesn’t realize that having him sitting so close to me makes me feel like a bowl of Jell-O.

  “I’m great,” he says, his mouth quirking up, calling my attention. My eyes stay stuck on the fullness of his lips as I watch him speak. “What a small world, huh?”

  I nod slowly, bringing my eyes back to his. God, those fucking eyes are so expressive. I swear he’s telling me he wants to fuck me. I’m not kidding, I’m not imagining it. He’s really telling me that with his eyes.

  “Yeah, small world.” I all but squeak.

  “You come here a lot?” he asks, bumping his knees against mine as he scoots closer to me. The rough denim of his jeans against my bare legs is causing goose bumps to break out over my skin. I rub my legs over with my hands and notice how his eyes stay glued to them.

  “Nope. First time.”

  He tears his eyes away from my legs and looks into my eyes again.

  “Shea mentioned you were going to be working at Harmon?”

  My eyebrows furrow, wondering where this conversation is going. “Yeah …”

  He flashes me a smile. “Cool. I’ll see you around then. I have to get back to some people. Maybe I’ll catch you later.”

  I smile. “Have fun.”

  He nods, pursing his lips as if to contain a smile. “You too.”

  He stands, picking up his cup from the table in front of us and walks back to his table. The checkered dress shirt he’s wearing leaves no room to wonder whether or not he’s fit. His back is broad and I can tell he has toned arms just by looking at his forearms. I look back, catching Skylar as he walks toward me and almost feel the urge to laugh. He’s the typical guy I go for and he absolutely pales in comparison to Nick.

  “Dance?” Skylar asks when he reaches me.

  I shrug. “Sure.” That’s what I came for, after all.

  Skylar offers me his hand as I stand, holding my skirt down so that I won’t give everybody the free vagina show Nina was offering, and he leads me out onto the dance floor. We bump into a couple of shoulders trying to get to an empty spot, and when we reach it, Skylar turns to face me and begins to dance. He’s holding my hands, not my hips, which is unusual for the song, but I go with it. It’s a funny place, a dance club. You go there to dance with complete strangers. You let them touch all up on you and grind all over you, but heaven forbid the same person that has their penis pressed to your back tries to make a grab at your ass the next day in broad daylight. It’s such a strange concept and it’s even weirder that I feel so at home in this setting. I’ve always let myself get lost in music, in dancing. I live the lyrics. I fly with the beat.

  Nina joins Skylar and me as the next song starts. She picks my hand up as she jumps excitedly when Rihanna begins to sing about finding love in a hopeless place, which again, is pretty fitting for where we are. I smile at my thoughts and close my eyes, throwing my arms over my head and swaying my hips to and fro. I’m so absorbed in the music that I don’t even register hands on my hips or the way the person behind me, whom from the size of his hands I assume is a man, is mirroring my movements with his own hips. As the song transitions into Robert DeLong’s Global Concepts, the large hands on my hips inch up to my waist where the V cuts of my dress reveal the flesh over my ribcage. I shiver at the feel of his hands and open my eyes as I grab his hands and peel them away from me. Pivoting around, my face lands on Nick’s hard chest. He smells like a mix of cigarette smoke and masculine divinity. That’s the only word that comes to mind in describing his scent, and even in my mind it sounds corny. I take a step back, giving us the only space the people around us allow, and look at his face. The moment our eyes meet, I feel like my heart is going to explode. The only thoughts running through my mind are: if this is how it feels to look at him up close, what the hell would it feel like to kiss him?

  My thoughts turn to mush when his head dips toward mine, and I find myself automatically closing my eyes and parting my lips for his. We’ve completely stopped moving now and the bodies swarming around us are bumping us from all sides, but I don’t care.

  The feel of his breath leaves me quickly but his lips never touch mine so I open my eyes.

  “What?” I breathe.

  He smirks and shakes his head before leaning in and placing his mouth over my ear. “Why’d you stop dancing?” he asks, his voice is raspy and low and I unwillingly close my eyes again.

  I stand on my tiptoes and hold onto his biceps, to steady myself, feeling his muscles flex under my fingers as I lean into his ear.

  “Because you were getting frisky,” I respond, letting go of him and standing back to look at him again.

  His mouth quirks up again and he snakes an arm around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest until all I can do is gasp in his smell. When he begins to sway his hips against mine, I automatically move along with him. He lets go of me just long enough to bring my arms up to his neck before holding me against his hard body again. His intense gaze never leaves mine as he takes my hands and spins me so that my back is on his chest and both of his arms are around the front of my body.

  “I think you like it,” he says, making my breath hitch as his bottom lip trails over the shell of my ear.

  I’m suddenly finding it hard to breathe and it has nothing to do with the dancing. I look around and catch Nina’s profile as she speaks to Skylar over by the bar. She’s completely enthralled in her conversation and I wonder if she even remembers I’m here. When Nick lifts up my hair from my back and drapes it over one of my shoulders, I close my eyes, completely forgetting about Nina. Nick wipes the beads of sweat on the back of my neck and blows on me. He may think he’s cooling me, but his breath on my neck is making me shiver heat.

  I feel him brush the spot in between my shoulder blades with his lips, and I throw my head back to his chest. We’re still swaying along to the beat of the music, but it feels like our dance is much more sensual than the music that’s playing. His hands begin to inch upward again, and again I place my hands over them, effectively stopping him.

  “I’m not going to cop a feel, Brooklyn. You can relax,” he says, his voice husky.

  I shake my head letting him know I won’t relax, even though my eyes are still closed and my head is lulled against him. I turn myself around to face him again when the song comes to an end and he dips his head close enough that I can see his beautiful ocean eyes before he places a kiss on my cheek. I suck in a breath as he brushes his lips softly up to my ear.

  “You look beautiful, by the way. The most gorgeous girl in this place,” he murmurs as he lets go of my arm and turns to leave.

  I stand in place, stunned by his words and the feel of his li
ps on my cheek. I don’t even try to will my heart to go back to normal as I weed through the crowd to find Nina.

  “Hey, ready to go?” I ask when I reach her.

  “Are you?” she shouts excitedly. “Are you leaving with that hot ass guy you were dancing with?”

  My mouth pops open, then shut, then open, then shut. “No!”

  Skylar laughs loudly at my reaction and Nina turns to him. “I told you, she’s uptight when she’s sober!”

  “Ugh. Can we just go?”

  Nina laughs and nudges me with her elbow. “You didn’t look so uptight out there, though. Maybe you should take him home and have some fun for the night. The Hen is gone for the weekend …”

  “Nina! I am not doing that! Are you insane?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she groans. “Bye, my Sky, I’ll see you on Sunday!”

  “Bye, babe. Bye, Brooklyn, good to meet you,” Skylar says, giving me a hug. “I’ll just walk you out.”

  The strangest sensation runs through me as I follow Nina out of the club. Sky has his arm draped over my shoulder, so I can’t see much, but I feel like I have to look back. When I do, I find Nick’s probing eyes. He’s standing by the railing of the VIP area, watching me leave. His jaw is clenched and his lips are set in a straight line, his expression is the complete opposite of how it was when he was dancing with me. I’m about to wave at him when I see a girl walk up to him and say something. He looks at me for a moment longer and finally grabs the hand she’s offering him and goes out to the dance floor with her. I swallow the uneasy feeling that takes over the pit of my stomach and walk out the door, already regretting not staying those extra five minutes.

  Loud pounding on the door stirs me from my slumber, making me groggily wipe my eyes as I throw the covers off of me. I walk toward my door still blinking away sleep and yawning.