by Nella Tyler
Ty deepened the kiss almost immediately, swiping his tongue against my lips and letting his hands wander a little bit over my body bit by bit. I moaned as softly as I could, opening my mouth and letting him in, and for what felt like maybe an hour we lay like that on the lounge chair, kissing and touching, teasing each other; we managed—I thought, at least—to keep it PG-13, not exactly groping each other or doing anything too lewd, but every moment I could feel myself getting more and more turned on, and after a while—I had no idea how long—I was sure that if we didn’t cool things off a bit, I would be slithering underneath Ty, begging him to take my panties off under my dress and fuck me right there in the middle of the backyard.
I broke away from his lips and took a deep breath, shivering at how much colder I felt away from the heat of Ty’s body. “Are you okay?” I looked up into Ty’s gray-green eyes and laughed.
“I am awesome and miserable at the same time,” I told him, licking my lips. They still tasted like him, and I knew it wouldn’t be much longer before I found an excuse to make out with him again. “I am so freaking horny right now I almost wish I could have sex with you right here.” Ty chuckled.
“I think I have to draw the line at public sex,” he told me, nodding and pretending to scowl. “But if you want, we can go home soon and make out all you want—and once you’re in bed with me back at the dorms, we can have as much sex as you want, too.” I giggled, biting my bottom lip as I thought about that really tempting possibility.
“We should probably check with Ashley,” I pointed out. “I don’t want to either strand her here, or make her have to leave earlier than she wants to just because we’re getting all hot and heavy in the back yard.”
“That’s fair,” Ty agreed. “Let’s go inside and find her, and see what she thinks about how long she wants to stay. Sound good?” I nodded.
“Sounds great,” I said.
We managed to get out of the lounge chair we’d taken over and I smoothed my dress over my body, looking around to make sure no one was staring at us or laughing at us. Everyone else in the yard seemed to be pretty much completely involved with each other, lost to the rest of the world, so at least I didn’t have to feel embarrassed about my hot-and-heavy session with my boyfriend.
We went inside together and I saw that Ashley wasn’t in the kitchen. “She must be in the living room again,” I told Ty. He nodded and we made our way in that direction. I figured that we’d dance a little bit, sound Ashley out about her feelings on how the night was going, and make a decision about how much longer we would stay. Ty followed me into the packed living room and we started to dance together a little bit while we looked around, searching for my roommate.
But instead of finding Ashley amongst all the dancers, as I looked around, my gaze fell on my ex, Dillon. He was dancing with a girl I’d never met before, and he was pretty clearly—to me at least—more than a little trashed. I stopped short in my steps, staring at him. What the hell was Dillon doing at the party?
Chapter Six
I felt Nicole’s body language change in an instant and immediately looked around to try and figure out what the problem was. I wondered if maybe she’d seen someone doing something inappropriate with one of her friends, or something like that—but when I looked at what she was looking at, all I saw was a drunk-looking guy in a polo shirt and khakis dancing like a slob. Nicole turned her back on the sight and I could see she was really upset.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up at me with slightly watery eyes and then looked around the room and shook her head. “Let’s go somewhere more private,” she said, her lips pressed almost up against my ear.
I nodded and took her hand, guiding her through the crowd of people dancing in the living room and through the entry of the house to the front porch; if there had only been a handful of people in the backyard, the front yard was absolutely deserted—there was a couple on the driveway talking about something in low, intense voices, but other than that we were alone.
“So what’s going on? What’s your problem with that guy?” Nicki bit her bottom lip and took a slow, deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. She exhaled sharply and then opened her eyes, looking up at me with a little more calm.
“That guy was my ex, Dillon,” she said slowly. “I…I think I just wasn’t expecting to see him probably ever again—definitely not at a party like this, or drunk, you know?” I nodded; I could understand all too well how something like that would make her feel.
“It’s always kind of a wrench in the night to run into an ex,” I said, leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek.
“It’s not just that,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “I just…it brought back everything about the end of the relationship, you know?” I glanced around and saw that Lucas had put in a bench swing.
“Want to sit down with me and we can talk about it? Do you want another beer or a water or anything?” Nicole considered my questions and shrugged, smoothing her skirt over her hips and sitting down. “Let me get you another beer. I feel like this is going to be a decent-length talk.”
She smiled weakly and I ducked back into the house, crossing the living room as quickly as I could. I spotted Ashley in the kitchen and told her that Nicole and I were on the front porch—and that we might be getting ready to leave soon. I didn’t know if Nicole would actually want to leave, but she didn’t look like she was the kind of upset that would make her want to spend the rest of the night at a party, trying to ignore her ex.
I came back out of the house and Nicole was still there, sitting on the porch swing and swinging slowly. I handed her one of the two beers I’d grabbed and took a sip of my own.
“So, tell me the story,” I suggested, reaching down to pat her knee in a way I hoped wasn’t condescending.
“So Dillon and I started dating in junior year of high school,” Nicole said. She took a sip of her beer. “At first, everything was great. He was great, it was fun and sweet and just…” she shrugged. “You know. Normal high school relationship.” I nodded.
“But obviously that part didn’t last,” I said. Nicole smiled wryly.
“It took a while for me to start seeing it,” Nicole explained, “but bit by bit it just started to seem like nothing I wanted was good enough—I wasn’t smart enough, or I wasn’t ambitious enough, or whatever enough for him.” She sighed. “And at first I started to try and be smarter, more ambitious, all the things he kept complaining about, because he was—I thought—this great guy, and I couldn’t afford to lose someone like that. And I thought that if I could just be what he wanted and needed me to be, that we’d be happy again like we were at the beginning.”
“But you did eventually wise up, right?” I smiled a little bit, meeting Nicole’s gaze. “I mean you kicked him to the curb, and here you are—smart, beautiful, talented, and with a guy who thinks you’re amazing.” Nicole’s weak smile became a little warmer and her eyes started to regain some of their sparkle.
“I did eventually tell him to get the hell out of my life,” she admitted. “I’d changed myself a lot to fit his expectations, and after a while I sort of realized that I was the one making all the changes, doing everything to suit him. Never once in the entire time we were dating was there something I wanted to have different actually change.” She shook her head again. “It was like everything had to be about him all the time, and eventually I had enough of it.”
Nicole sighed and looked down at her beer. She took a long drink of it and looked up at me again. “But it does kind of suck watching him drunkenly hit on girls.” She bit her bottom lip and I saw the color leap into her cheeks. “Not—not that I want to have anything to do with him anymore,” she said quickly. “Just because…I guess there’s a part of me that still feels bad about not being ‘good enough’ for him, so to see that he’s…” she shrugged.
“To see him hitting on girls like that makes you wonder if you’re worse than he said, or if he was right somehow,” I fini
shed for her. “You’re not, and he wasn’t,” I told her firmly. “You are an amazing woman, and I’m already in love with you even after only knowing you for a couple of months.” Nicole smiled up at me, really smiled, and it almost took my breath away. “I have an idea,” I said, reaching out and finding her hand. I gave it a squeeze. “Let’s ditch the party. Before you say anything—we won’t go straight back to the dorms. There’s an eighteen-and-up club I know about downtown, and we can all go. It’ll be even better than this.”
“Eighteen-and-up?” she glanced at her beer. “What if they smell alcohol on me?” I shrugged.
“They probably won’t, and even if they do they won’t care,” I said. “They’ll put a black X on your hand so you can’t buy alcohol at the bar, and we’ll just spend the rest of the night dancing and having a good time. Ashley can come with us too. It’ll be great.” Nicole licked her lips and considered it. She knocked back some more of her beer and smiled up at me.
“This is probably the last beer I should have for the night anyway,” she pointed out, glancing at the half-empty bottle. “Are you okay to drive?” I nodded.
“I’m still mostly sober—I’ve been sticking to just the beers, and only a couple of those over the past few hours,” I told her. “We’ll go to the club, dance until we drop, and then go back to the dorms and I will show you exactly how much I think you’re the most wonderful, special, amazing woman in the world—how about that?”
“I’ll have to check with Ashley, but it sounds awesome,” Nicole said. She took a quick breath and carefully climbed off of the porch swing, steadying herself as she adjusted to the lack of movement. “Did you see Ashley inside?”
“She was in the kitchen again when I got the beers,” I told Nicole. “I told her we were out here and that we might be thinking about leaving soon—since you looked so upset.” Nicole smiled. She leaned in and kissed me quickly on the lips.
“I’ll grab her and we’ll talk about this, and make a decision,” she said. I nodded and sat back on the porch swing, letting it sway back and forth in the slightly chilly air as I sipped my beer. It only took Nicole a few minutes to come back, and then there she was with Ashley in tow.
“How would you feel about hitting up an eighteen-and-up club?” Ashley shrugged, glancing at Nicole.
“Dillon somehow managed to find his way into the party,” Nicole told her roommate. “I just…ugh, seeing him trying to put the moves on other girls is so gross. I don’t want to deal with running into him and I don’t want to even have to think about talking to him, but I don’t want to just go back to the dorms either. What do you say?”
“I’m not ready to call it a night,” Ashley said, shrugging. “I’m game to see what this eighteen-and-up club is like, sure!”
“Let me just say goodbye to Lucas and explain the situation,” I told the two girls. “Here, I’ll give you the keys to the car and you can get in and warm up a bit.” Nicole giggled when I handed her the keys, but she nodded and the next moment, she and Ashley were headed to where we’d parked.
I found Lucas overseeing a shot-taking competition in the back room of the house. “Hey, man,” I said, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Me, Nicki and Ashley have to head out.”
“What’s going on?” Lucas grinned at me sardonically. “Better party elsewhere?” He gestured around the room.
“Not a better party,” I told him quickly. “Just one where my girlfriend’s ex isn’t drunkenly hitting on a bunch of girls in front of her.” Lucas cringed.
“Ah—yeah, that makes sense,” he said. “Give me a name and unless someone here just absolutely loves him, he’ll be dis-invited from all future parties at La Casa.” I smiled; Lucas was a genuinely good guy—he let people into his parties based on word of mouth, but if word of mouth ended up later suggesting that someone was not as great as he originally thought, he was perfectly willing to keep that person out of the good times to keep the rest of his guests—especially long-time friends—happy.
“I’ll get his name from Nicki later when she’s in a better mood,” I said. Luke and I gave each other a quick goodbye hug and I clapped him on the shoulder again. “I’m taking her to Ibiza; I don’t think she’s ever been.”
“Pretty tame end to the night,” Lucas said with a shrug. “But then—that’s probably not the end of your night is it?” He smirked.
“If I’m lucky and get her out of the bad mood, nope,” I agreed. “Catch you in class, dude.”
“Get me the name, man,” Lucas said. He turned his attention back onto the competition and I left, more than ready to get in the car and get to the club.
Chapter Seven
When Ty mentioned the eighteen-and-up club I was a little skeptical; I’d already had a few drinks, and I didn’t think they would let us in, and if they did I wasn’t sure that a club was really where I wanted to be. But he seemed so sure I’d like it, and Ashley wasn’t ready to let the night come to an end, so I decided that the least I could do would be to see how it went, and cheer up a little bit.
It took us maybe thirty minutes to get downtown from Luke’s house, and Ty kept the stereo on, pumping great music through the system, for the whole ride. I had started to sober up a little bit by the time he parked the car in the garage across the street from the club, but I figured that was fine; it would improve our chances of getting into the place if I didn’t have breath that reeked of alcohol.
The outside of the club was painted white, with black and gray portraits splattered all over: I spotted one of Kurt Cobain from Nirvana and one of Morrissey, but I couldn’t recognize the others as we crossed the street and approached the entrance. The teal neon over the door proclaimed that the club’s name was Ibiza, and the guy at the door had chin-length dishwater blond hair and tired-looking blue eyes. He was tall and skinny rather than big and burly, and I thought that this might actually be the kind of place I would like.
“Can I see IDs folks?” He had a bundle of wristbands in one hand and a black permanent marker threaded between the fingers of the other hand.
Ty took his wallet out of his pocket and tugged his ID free of one of the slots, and Ashley and I rummaged in our purses for our own drivers’ licenses. The man at the door looked at Ty’s ID and then at him, nodded, and tore one of the wristbands free of the wad in his hand. He wrapped it around Ty’s wrist and then turned to take my ID for me.
He looked at the picture and then looked and me and shrugged. “No band for you,” he said with a slightly apologetic shrug. “Can I see your hand please?” I held it out for him and he somehow managed to maneuver the marker into a position to actually use it. He drew a quick black X on the top of my hand, marking me as under 21, and then after checking Ashley’s ID did the same for her. “Have a good time, folks,” the doorman said, smiling.
I followed Ty through the door and the darkness of the club swallowed the three of us up. Past the glare of lights at the entrance it was at first almost pitch black before my eyes; but as I started to adjust, I realized that it was just very dark. Music poured through the speakers: we came in on a The Black Keys song. I smelled cigarette smoke and looked around to see a few people clustered against the walls, on the couches and benches attached to the edges of the room, smoking and chatting, tapping their ashes into ashtrays.
More people were out on the dance floor, obviously having a good time; a few were even up on the empty stage near the entrance to the club, laughing and moving around with abandon. At the other end of the club I could see the bar, an island of neon and fiberglass with bartenders moving behind it in the darkness, a few people hanging out there to get drinks.
Ashley, Ty and I hit the dance floor as The Black Keys changed to a Vampire Weekend song and any doubts I had about the club immediately vanished. Everyone there with us seemed to be decent people—fun, dressed as Goths or as punks or hipsters, drinking beers or water or cocktails, and no one seemed to care whether I was twenty-one or eighteen.
It was a great place
and as Ty danced up close to me, wrapping his arms around my waist and pressing my body up against his, I leaned up onto the balls of my feet to press my lips against his ear so he could hear me over the noise of the sound system.
“I love this place already!”
“I thought you would!” I kissed a spot along Ty’s neck and we continued dancing for a while longer, almost oblivious to the world around us for a few more minutes. When he pulled back, I looked around and spotted Ashley, just as happy as a clam, a few feet away from us. “I’m going to grab a drink real quick—do you want to split it with me?” I considered that. I was mostly sober after the drive to the club, and surely as long as I wasn’t trying to buy drinks for myself it wouldn’t be a big deal, right? I nodded.
“Get me a water, too,” I told him. “And one for Ashley?” Ty grinned and gave me a quick salute, turning and walking over to the bar. Ashley and I continued dancing, looking around and taking in the sights of the various people in the club. It really seemed like a great place—no one group of people stood out as the “typical group” for the club, and everyone seemed to be having a good time, just hanging out.
The music was good and the atmosphere was great, and all in all I was sure I was going to make a point of visiting Ibiza again; and I thought that whatever else happened in my life I was going to try and make it to the club for my twenty-first birthday in a few more years.
Ty brought our drinks and I decided I needed a break from dancing; I was sweaty from head to toe and my feet were starting to ache in my shoes. We sat down on one of the couches attached to the wall, and I took sips of Ty’s whiskey-coke in between sips of water. “I love your hair,” a woman said, stopping and admiring it. “Where did you get it done?”
“I did it myself,” I called back to her. “Easy as pie!”
“I don’t believe that,” the woman countered, shaking her head with a grin. She had short-short hair in a dark color that shone violet when one of the spotlights swept across it, a round face like a faerie, and she was dressed in a black t-shirt with white print that said Hang The Old Year along with a pair of tight-fitting, ripped jeans and converse sneakers.