Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1)

by Bartsch, Carina

  “This is my girlfriend, Sophie,” Andy said, introducing the blonde girl under his arm. She had striking features and full, fire-red lips. I thought she seemed nice, but I reconsidered after watching her give Alex a warm hello and me nothing but a fake smile.

  All righty, then. For unknown reasons, Madame Sophie evidently can’t stand me. Not that I cared. After tonight, I knew I’d probably never run into her again.

  The introductions with the other two girls didn’t go any better. Yvonne and Jessica each gave me a nod, which I returned just as unemotionally. Jessica had shoulder-length black hair and a little bump on her nose, while Yvonne was blonde with slightly plump hips.

  Well, I thought, after this cool reception what else can I expect from Elyas’s friends? I noticed Alex rocking on her feet when we turned to Sebastian, the blue-eyed, curly-haired blond.

  “Hi, Alex,” he said with a suspicious glint in his eyes.

  “Hey,” Alex replied awkwardly.

  Alex? Awkward? I had never thought I would use that word in connection with her, so it was strange after umpteen years of friendship to finally have an occasion to do so. Alex was definitely full of surprises.

  “You must be Sebastian,” I said with a grin as Alex poked me in the side with her elbow.

  “Yup, that’s me. Nice to meet you, Emely,” he said, smiling, and held out his hand.

  Unlike the girls, the guys all seemed nice.

  “What can I get you to drink?” Elyas asked me, leaning down so I could hear him.

  I groaned. Why couldn’t he just let me be?

  “I can get something myself,” I said.

  “I’m sure you can,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to cast doubt on your competence; I just wanted to know what you’d like to drink.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed in resignation. “A Coke,” I said. There wasn’t any point in debating it with him. He grinned, nodded, and made his way to the bar. As I flashed a look of annoyance after him, I noticed the boy with the brown eyes again. Our eyes met; he smiled and waved me over.

  “You’re Domenic, right?” I asked.

  He nodded and said something, but with the loud music I couldn’t make out a single word. “Sorry?”

  He leaned over to me. “Don’t mind my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Sophie. She’s always like that with Elyas’s female friends. Don’t take it personally.”

  “Then you can tell her to relax, because the last thing I am is a friend of Elyas’s. I’m just here with Alex.”

  As Domenic leaned in to respond, I felt someone tug my arm. I turned to find Alex, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Let’s dance,” she said with a pleading face.

  I sighed. There were people who could dance, and then there were people like me whose movements more resembled someone in the grip of an epileptic seizure. Finding the level of enthusiasm in my face wanting, she pulled out the big guns.

  “Please,” she said with a saccharine smile.

  God, she was a miserable little shit sometimes. But then I noticed Elyas returning with the drinks and, suddenly, dancing seemed like the better option. I raised a finger to signal to Alex to wait and turned to Domenic, who leaned back over to hear me.

  “I have to go dance with Alex. When Elyas comes back, tell him to set my Coke next to you.”

  “Sure,” he promised.

  “And if he slips in anything suspicious, please tell me!”

  Domenic laughed softly and nodded. Alex impatiently grabbed my hand and dragged me into the crowd on the dance floor.

  The second we were far enough from Elyas’s friends, she stopped and stared at me, wide-eyed. “So? Tell me! What do you think about Sebastian?”

  “He seems really nice,” I yelled over the music, making her beam. Satisfied with my answer, she dragged me a bit farther until she found a free spot where we had enough room to dance. Alex started moving right away, holding both of my hands and tugging me around until I finally cast off my inhibitions and started making as big a fool of myself as possible.

  Alex was one of those people who could really dance. Dancing next to her, unfortunately, made me look even more ridiculous. At least five hundred people were gyrating around us, mostly doing their own thing. Still, I wished I had more talent. It’s not that I was stiff or lacked rhythm, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I just didn’t look good.

  After a while, the first beats of Sean Paul’s “Get Busy” sounded—for once a song I didn’t totally hate. Alex was behind me, grinding her pelvis into my butt, dirty-dancing style, forcing me to bend forward and dance lower and lower with her in little circular hip motions. It was definitely not my style to dance like copulating animals, but since Alex was having so much fun, I just went with it. At least until my quads started to buckle and we could only laugh at ourselves.

  “Thirsty?” she shouted at me over the noise.

  I nodded, my throat dry as dust.

  “Good. Don’t leave this spot. I’ll be right back.”

  “See you in a second,” I said, watching her disappear into the crowd. All I could do now was hope no one would snatch her up and that she’d return safe and sound.

  I stayed put, as agreed, but started looking around. I felt uncomfortable by myself on the dance floor, so I decided to find a spot by the wall, where I could see Alex when she came back.

  As I headed in that direction, I did a double take. Elyas was leaning against the wall at my intended destination, and it looked like he had been watching us the whole time. Suddenly my foray onto the dance floor bowled me over with embarrassment, but I didn’t let on how I felt. I found a spot to wait for Alex a few yards from Elyas. Though the distance between us should have made it abundantly clear how I felt, Elyas came over anyway.

  I made a point of crossing my arms. “What a coincidence,” I said.

  “Yeah, huh?” he said, smiling and leaving me no other choice than to roll my eyes. Neither of us said anything for a while, but that was no reason to relax, since he seemed excessively interested in my cleavage; his eyes remained glued to my collarbone.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” I asked, referring to his watching us dance. God, why was this jerk always staring?

  “I’d say so,” he said. “If there had been fewer clothes on your part, it would have been perfect.”

  I grumbled, regretting even asking him the question. Yet again, Elyas was taking extreme pleasure in making fun of me, for reasons I could not explain.

  “Will you dance with me?” he asked with a seductive smile.

  “Uh—no,” I said.

  “Why, what’s wrong?” he said as he took a step toward me, putting his hands on my hips, all cocky, and leaning much closer to my face than necessary. “What if I asked you whether we should take our dancing out to my car right now?” he whispered into my ear. I could feel his breath on my skin. Goose bumps rose on my arms and I felt my cheeks flush.

  “Did I finally embarrass you?” he breathed.

  I cleared my throat. “Oh, please,” I said, roughly sweeping his hands off my hips. “As far as dancing in your car goes,” I continued, returning to his offer. “It looks like you’re going to be performing solo.” I gave him a dark glare before turning my back to him.

  Somehow I could still sense his grin through the back of my head, and it was driving me crazy.

  God, sometimes it seemed his goal in life was to get me to lose my cool. I had no idea why, and I couldn’t tell if I was right. But I was the one who had plenty of reason to torment him, as payback for what he’d done back then. Who knows? Maybe Elyas needed to do it for his self-esteem, to prove he could pull it off a second time. If that’s what he was going for, he was very much going to lose.

  What a freaking idiot. Hadn’t he done enough already? I could not rehash all those horrible memories, even though they w
ere exactly the thoughts flickering through my mind now, sending my mood into a tailspin. To hell with you, Elyas! I stood up from the wall to look for Alex. I was not going to let Elyas ruin any more of my night.

  It took me a second to find her in the crowd. I went to her. “There you are,” she said, handing me a glass.

  We both returned to the bar, where we talked for a long while about unimportant things as we scanned the club. At some point, I switched from plain Coke to rum and Coke, having determined the night would be much easier to get through if I was a little buzzed.

  At one point, as I waited to get another drink, I saw Domenic, and we started talking. Alex was still at my side, but she largely stayed out of the conversation.

  Domenic was quite unlike his sister, Sophie, who totally ignored me. He seemed interested in talking to me. Among other things, I learned he was twenty, played soccer, and worked with his father at his family’s small business. Between his answers to all my questions, he tried to flirt with me. Since he was way less pushy than Elyas, it didn’t bug me at all. The longer I talked with him, the clearer his intentions became despite his facade of innocence. At the same time, unlike certain other guys, he seemed like someone who would take no for an answer. That was good because no was the answer he was guaranteed to get from me. I didn’t get a dangerous vibe from him; he was just a young guy looking to get laid.

  The thing I liked best about our talk was that it seemed to rub Elyas the wrong way. He had joined our group at the bar, and from the looks he was giving Domenic, it almost seemed he was jealous. It was probably just bruising his pride that every other guy had a better chance with me than he did.

  Plus, I was getting the strange feeling that Elyas and Domenic didn’t particularly like each other. There was some kind of tension beneath the looks they gave each other. I couldn’t tell if they were at odds or if it was run-of-the-mill top-dog behavior—a “Whose is bigger?” contest, in other words.

  At some point Elyas must have had enough because he vanished and didn’t reappear for at least an hour. I wondered where he had gone off to, and scanned the crowd during a short pause in my conversation with Domenic. No luck at first, but then I spotted him. He wasn’t that far from us, but he appeared happy to be talking to a brunette so pretty she could give any cover model a run for her money.

  Ugh, I snorted softly. Did that boy have nothing else on his mind?

  I shook my head and turned to find Alex next to me—lo and behold, still talking to Sebastian. My plan seemed to have worked. I had managed to include Sebastian in my conversation with Domenic, making it possible for Alex to join in discreetly and for me to get the lowdown on her crush. Now Alex and Sebastian had been talking to each other exclusively for more than twenty minutes.

  I stirred my drink, enjoying the feeling of the ice cubes knocking against the glass. As I got lost in the moving surface of the liquid, I was struck by an idea that made me smile. I hesitated, reconsidered a few times, but then decided to make it happen. “Will you excuse me for a bit, Domenic?”

  “Of course, if you promise to come back.”

  I nodded, turned, and marched toward Elyas.

  If I’d been sober, I would never have been brave enough to do it, but alcohol had to be good for something.

  Wearing a wide grin, I reached my destination and stood next to Elyas. He was so caught up in his conversation with the brunette that he didn’t notice me at first. That wasn’t bad, because it gave me time to muster the courage I was going to need.

  “Dearest! There you are,” I finally said loudly. As he turned toward me in surprise, I swung my arms tightly around him. Touching him felt like . . . I have no words. For the life of me I couldn’t explain why I was doing this. But there was no turning back now: I was all in! I stood on my tiptoes and gave him a big wet smacker right on the cheek.

  Note to self: Remember to gargle with a couple of gallons of mouthwash when you get home.

  Elyas furrowed his brow and looked at me as if he had just watched me kiss a dead frog. He obviously doubted my sanity—or his own. I gave him a big, bold smile and watched myriad expressions flutter across his face, each for only fractions of a second. Then he slowly clued in to what I was up to, but apparently still couldn’t respond.

  The brunette stiffened, and her eyes passed from me back to Elyas. We hadn’t quite reached the point of “click,” yet.

  So the brunette was a bimbo, to boot. God, did I always have to do everything myself? I was going to have to get out the big guns. I sighed and summoned my inner strength. I took Elyas’s hand, placed it against my stomach, and started beaming. “Can you feel him?” I squeaked. “Little Elyas is kicking for the first time!”

  The brunette stared at me for a couple of seconds, her eyes big, before she finally turned on her extremely high heels. Elyas’s mouth fell open as he stared after her until she disappeared into the crowd.

  He slowly turned to me. “You . . . you’re . . . you are a total bitch!”

  I put my hands on my hips. “What do you mean? Am I going to have to raise our child all by myself?”

  Elyas had fully transformed into a fish: his mouth opened and closed, but no sound passed his lips.

  I smiled. The sight was priceless, and a wonderful sensation of satisfaction filled me. “Fine,” I said. “Toodle-oo, sweetums!” I gave him a wave and left him standing there as I made my way back to the bar.

  This had, without doubt, been one of the most successful stunts of my whole life. But as good a mood as it put me in, I couldn’t completely revel in my victory. The reason was my pounding temples. Rum had the downside of going straight to my head, where it left behind only hammering pain, and in a setting like this one, droning with noise, where you could hardly understand a word anyone said, the pain quickly became unbearable. But I didn’t want to spoil Alex’s night, now that she had finally had a chance to get to know Sebastian better.

  “How’s your head?” Alex asked me as we were standing at the sink in the ladies’ room a couple of hours later.

  “I’m pretty sure a guy is standing on my head breaking it open with a jackhammer. I bet your brother paid him off to do it.” She snorted and stroked my arm.

  “That bad? If you’ve had enough, just say so. I’ll ask Elyas to drive us home.”

  “No, I don’t want that. It’s only two, and I won’t be able to stand your whining tomorrow if I tear you away from Sebastian now.”

  “Sebastian,” she said with a soulful look. “He is so great! Do you know what he used to—”

  “Stop!” I said, interrupting her. “Can you please tell me tomorrow? I’m not accepting any more information today—about anything.”

  “Oh, of course,” she said with a pitying smile. “Sorry. It’s fine, Emely. I’ll meet up with Sebastian again sometime soon. The way you’re looking, I think we’d better head home now.”

  “No, you stay,” I said. “Domenic offered to take me home. He has to get up early tomorrow and wanted to get going soon, anyway.”

  Alex wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about Domenic. “Do you like that guy?” she asked. “I don’t know . . . I think he’s weird.”

  “Weird how?” I asked.

  “Mmm, hard to say.” She turned to the mirror and touched up her lip gloss. “He doesn’t strike me as all that nice, somehow.”

  “Really? He seems really nice to me.”

  “Oh, they’re all nice,” Alex added, returning her lip gloss to her purse. I didn’t disagree with her.

  She looked at me and sighed. “I’m sorry about your head.”

  “It’s my own fault. God, why do I ever drink rum?”

  “Yeah, really,” she grumbled. “I don’t know, Emely. I don’t like the idea of you driving home with that guy.”

  “He’s not like that. Plus, it’s the most practical solution, having him take me home.”

 
“If you think it’s all right,” she sighed. “But then you definitely have to text me the second you get home safe, OK?”

  “Sure thing,” I said, hugging her good-bye. “You kids have fun!” I told her as our hug ended.

  “I hope you feel better soon,” she said.

  “I’ll be better after a good night’s sleep,” I said as I left the bathroom and found my way to Domenic.

  He was at the bar, and I asked him if his offer to drive me home still stood.

  “Of course.” He even seemed glad I had asked. I waited for him at the coat check while he said good-bye to a few people.

  While I was waiting, someone tapped me on the shoulder, but when I turned around, no one was there. Oh God, please don’t let me have fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

  A glance to my right revealed the grin of Elyas Schwarz.

  “Were you seriously planning on taking off without saying bye to me?”

  I groaned. “Honestly, yes. And I was already optimistic I was about to pull it off.”

  He smiled and looked at me with his typical hard-to-decipher expression before sticking his hands into his pockets and shrugging. “So Sunny Boy is driving you home, huh?”

  I folded my arms. “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Why should I?” He shrugged. “I just felt obligated to warn you in advance.”

  “Warn me in advance?” I repeated. What sort of shit was he about to pull on me now?

  “You may be too naïve to notice it,” he continued, “but that guy just wants to get you into bed.”

  I stared at him until I burst out laughing. Elyas was warning me about someone who just wanted to get me into bed? How freaking funny was that!

  He apparently noticed the irony in what he said because he groaned and folded his arms. I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt, and I patted his upper arm to congratulate him on his very successful joke.

  “Elyas,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “Sometimes you’re too much!” I’d hardly gotten the words out before another fit of laughter came over me. I just couldn’t stop laughing, and the longer I laughed, the more rankled Elyas seemed to get.