Money was power and I finally had it, all stored in that perfect black card my dad had given me for college, and not for emergencies. He’d known how hard I’d worked in high school, how devastated I’d been when I hadn’t gotten the scholarships I’d applied for, how I had thought my only option was community college and that I’d be stuck in our small town forever, watching the cheerleaders who married the jocks grow up while I grew old. He and my mom had encouraged me to splurge, to treat myself, that it’d all be taken care of.
I put those thoughts out of my mind. What I needed to focus on right now was the target: getting the bouncer’s number and tricking my sorority sisters into thinking I’d had it to begin with, that I hadn’t failed last night. Failure was one thing, but deception was another beast entirely. I didn’t want them to ever find out I’d had to be dishonest to them, especially over a guy like that bouncer.
I crossed my brow thinking of it and the attendant asked if something was wrong. Of course they wanted to please me. Of course. “No, it’s fine, I think I need to get my eyebrows waxed though.”
They said something in Vietnamese (Kim had told me it was Vietnamese, the only East Asian the polyglot didn’t speak, but I should have guessed given the fact that the certificates on the wall read “Nguyen”) and an attendant went to set up the waxing room. I hobbled over in spa flip flops, my toe nails now wet with a plain sheer nail colored crème jelly polish, and lay down in the chair and leaned back, letting the warm wax cover my brow as I kept my eyes shut, seeing all black.
Soon, I was leaning back in the limo on the way to Club Grit, in a sparkly sequin dress with matte sequin piping accents, as I took a pill, washed down with a bottle of alco-pop that I chugged as the girls chanted, “chug, chug, chug”, which I took away from my lips with a gasp, poured upside down, and watched as not a drop poured out and the rest of the girls let out a cheer.
I had never expected that a sorority would have a limo on retainer, but I hadn’t known about OMG before college either. I’d never thought that pills would become something I took instead of my daily chewable vitamins. I’d dreamed of this lifestyle, but never really thought about it.
We were stuck in traffic, but in the meantime, I texted a guy from high school: a crush I’d grown out of but who still had eyes for me. I wiped out his previous messages to me.
I texted him: “hey”
He wrote back: “ey girl wassup!”
Great. He was probably at home as usual. There wasn’t much to do on our town on a Friday night...or any other night. “NM, hitting the club w my girls, wanna meet up?”
He thought I was joking I guess. “LOL sure.”
Hopefully, this would be the last thing I had to send to him. I knew he’d be bragging around town I’d flirted with him but I wasn’t home to have to deal with that. Hopefully, I’d never be. “K c u there.”
Luckily, he stopped texting at the perfect point. I renamed “Logan” to “Skylar”. Now, if the girls checked my phone, they’d see that I had texted “Skylar”.
We made our way to the front of the line and I didn’t see Skylar, the real Skylar, bouncer boy. That made sense. He probably hadn’t earned door privileges yet. I guess at the club, that kind of bouncer was like the sorority’s social chair.
“We’re on the list,” insisted Samantha. “Check for Emma Nelson. Skylar put her on the list.”
“Skylar?” asked the guy working the door.
“Uhm the new bouncer?” said Samantha with a smirk and raised eyebrows. Not cute, just bitchy, and just what she used to get her way. She wasn’t one to charm with honey and milk glances. Things were supposed to be ready for her at a hat’s drop and if they weren’t, there was hell to pay. The fiery redhead didn’t take shit from anyone, especially not some bouncer. That’s why I’d asked her to be my Big: that sort of go-getter, can-have attitude was what I admired in someone. It was better than being a pushover, the one thing I’d never be again.
“Yeah, he’s not new, he just works here seasonally, but I know who he is...but he doesn’t have that kind of authority. Bouncers don’t, none of us can do that. Plus, he didn’t mention he was having guests tonight,” said the bouncer, confused. Fuck. Why did all the bouncers at Club Grit have to be so damn, well, nice?
“You texted him, right, Emma?” asked Kim accusingly.
“Oh, I guess he didn’t get the text in time, haha.” I passed Kim my phone and she opened the text from “Skylar”, read: Logan.
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe not. Whatever. Let’s go in.” The bouncer let us in anyway because who would refuse us? Kim had a reputation as a big spender and there was a gaggle of girls in tow. She was mama duck, and we her willing ducklings, but was she going to take us under her wing or leave us to flounder, letting nature, human nature, cull the weak from the flock? Even I already knew the answer. I gulped. I’d disappointed her before we even got in the club. Fuck.
So the first thing I did inside the club? Looked for Skylar.
Of course, it’s what you look for the hardest that’s the hardest to find.
Of course, he wasn’t even working yet. I caught him coming out of the employee’s back room as he slipped on a shirt over his perfect abs. Shit. He’d been late to work and was hauling ass to get onto the dance floor and to work. But luckily, that meant he wasn’t exactly occupied yet.
I ran as fast as I could in my flats to find him. I hadn’t gone for heels, my feet too sore and the rest of my body too hungover to properly function in them. “Hey. Remember me?”
“Drunk girl, at it again?” he asked with a sigh. Obviously, there was no other reason I’d be wearing that dress if I wasn’t there to party and to party hard.
“I need to ask you for a favor,” I said, curling a lock of hair behind my ear like I had before. I knew the trick didn’t work on him, but what he didn’t know is it’s what I did when I needed a favor, reflexively, because I’d read in a tip in Cosmo that said it worked, when I was maybe thirteen, and I’d been doing it ever since even though it hadn’t helped me very often before college.
“I’m working, if you haven’t noticed,” he said sarcastically. “Oh wait, that’s how you found me, stalker girl!” He was not very amused, that much I could tell, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t some pick up artist here to try my PUA tactics on an HB8. I was here to pick up something else: them digits, #hey!
“I thought I was drunk girl?” I asked, voice already slurring. Fuck. This wasn’t very sexy.
“You’re both.” Skylar frowned as if he was trying to think of something and I thought to myself, don’t strain the brain too much, weirdo. Why couldn’t he just be the normal kind of bouncer, the one that didn’t overanalyze, the kind that played the kind of games we sorority girls played so that we could just get this over with, so that we could fuck in a coat closet and move on with the rest of our lives, instead of having to see each other over and over, instead of having my heart race whenever I heard him say—
“I’m neither. I’m Emma. And you’re Skylar.”
His name. Skylar. Fuck. There it was again, and my heart rate went up. Why did I say it? I was drunker than I thought if I was throwing around power words like that. Skylar, Skylar, Skylar, get that name out of my head and my heart, but fuck, Skylar.
“Wow, how did you ever guess, mind reader?” So sarcastic. So negative. Such a challenge.
“Mind reader, drunk, stalker, I do it all and more, but I can also disappear. I just need your number to prove to my friends that I can get it.”
“Fat chance. Also, I think the proper term is sorority sisters, not friends.”
“The same thing,” I said, confused.
“Except they’re not. They’re not at all. If you think those girls are your friends, after last night? You’re not only bad at holding your liquor, you’re a fucking idiot, Anna.” At least he’d used my name this time. At least he’d remembered it.
“Please, just play along,” I begged. I flashed my credit card. Even in the dim li
ght of the club, it shone, the dark metal of the black card heavier in my hand than any plastic could ever be.
“Believe it or not, you can’t just charge that by running it through my crack,” he said facetiously. “Ass rack.”
I pulled out my wallet and took out a hundred dollars. “If I pay off the cab, are we even?”
“That’s money you owe me anyway, but besides, I’m not that cheap. I’m a bouncer, not a whore, but you can ask one of the bottle service girls for that. Oh wait, you can’t, because they have too much class and dignity in their work to play these games either!”
“You think you’re better than me?”
“Honey, I don’t just think it. I know it.” I half expected him to cross his fingers in a Z formation, but of course he didn’t.
“Please. Is there anything I can do?” I pleaded, running a finger over his firm pectorals. I wanted to fuck him but not out of obligation, but because the harder he ran, the faster I chased.
He rolled his eyes. “If it gets you to leave me alone, fine. Let’s go over to the VIP.”
In that moment, I swear Skylar transformed into another man entirely. He took me by the hand and led me through the crowd to the table. I’d never imagined his grip to be so commanding. It was powerful but gentle, as if he was leading me out of a fire, the fire of my desire. His arms were like ley lines, the only thing that stood out in the darkness, the tattoos on the extended arm like sign posts leading the way to the rest of his body and also, towards the exit, away from the dance floor where I’d found him and back to the VIP section. I never wanted him to let go, but as we neared, he wrapped that arm around my shoulders and pulled me in tight. My cheeks burned: Skylar was touching me, like, touching me touching me. This wasn’t like the way he’d held that girls’ hair up last night: this was something else entirely. He was treating me like I was more than just a client at the club, but like I was someone who mattered to him, someone he cared about, like an old friend or a lost lover reclaimed, refound.
As we neared, I heard the girls hooting and I blushed. Skylar was so good at this, pretending to me something he wasn’t, that it almost scared me. He was smarter than he looked and so much of a mystery. He had a smile on his face and I realized I had to put the act on too, that I couldn’t look like I was enthralled with Skylar even though I was, because the girls would know something was up, that I was supposed to be the one people were entranced by, not the other way around. There weren’t supposed to be guys that fit our ridiculous standards, but I’d found one in Skylar. I just couldn’t show it, not yet.
Maybe not ever. With that thought, my heart sank and I struggled to keep my face looking decent. I didn’t want to be a #downer and I didn’t know why the pills weren’t working, why they weren’t keeping me sociable. Maybe I needed more pills, or more to drink, or something to relax me or loosen me up or hype me up, because anything was better than this state of numbness, caused not by pain but by distraction with what had to be the most confusing but handsome man I’d ever met.
“Hey guys, this is Skylar, the bouncer? He’s on break right now,” I lied as I smiled. I was literally lying through my teeth and I hoped to God Kim Lee didn’t notice.
Kim tilted her head patronizingly, something she only did when she was annoyed with a fledgling pledgling“If that’s Skylar, then who’s been texting your phone?” And of course, she’d already noticed I was lying before I’d opened my mouth. There was no fucking with her, especially over reputation. I couldn’t have fucked up worse if I’d ruined her best designer dress before a social with Beta Rho Omega.
Shit. Logan must have kept texting. “Uh, that’s weird,” I lied, even though I knew exactly what had happened I shouldn’t have texted Logan: I should have chosen someone else, anyone else, or better yet, not cocooned myself deeper into this web of lies I was spinning. What kind of spider got caught in its own nest? My heart was racing and I wanted to hold my hand up to my forehead, to check to see if I was sweating, but I knew that if I let the pulsing of my heart rule over my judgment, that I would be sure to out myself as a liar to the sorority. This wasn’t about to go so deep.
Little did I know how deep it would get.
I had never wanted to lie to them in the first place but I didn’t want them to think I was a loser that couldn’t even nab a bouncer. If I’d known back then what I knew now, that Skylar wasn’t like just any other bouncer, that he wasn’t going to play the games that girls like me, pretty and young, played with boys, that he was a man and that girls like me weren’t what men want, that they wanted women, then I would have never gone after him to begin with. I would have found someone else, anyone else, but not somebody I could never have.
“No, I think that means you’ve been lying to us, Emma,” said Samantha as if she was joking but at the same time was not. I knew she loved to play these mind games, I just never thought it would be with me. Shit. She was my Big,, the one person I had to make sure not to let down, the one person I’d take sides with no matter what in sorority drama, and right now, I was making her look like a fool for believing in me and taking me under her wing as her Little. Lying to Kim was one thing, but to Samantha? And getting caught? That was ten times worse.
“What? No, that’s the other Skylar,” I lied. There was no other Skylar. The guys back home all had normal names like “John” and “Matt”, but “Skylar”? That was uniquely his, uniquely Los Angeles, and the perfect name for the bad boy who I wanted to have whisk me away into the air in that moment, flying away from the VIP section and from Club Grit, but of course, that wouldn’t work. Right then and there, it felt like nothing else would stop my heart from beating so fast that I was sure my pulse was getting more erratic by the second.
“You said that was him before though.” Kim raised a perfectly thin brow that ended in a hook that drew me in. It was so fucking hard to lie to her. Luckily, I wouldn’t have to, emphasis on “I”. She pointed her champagne flute as she said this. I never would have thought I’d get sick of champagne, but I had. At least mixed drinks were exciting and there was always a new one to try. Champagne was too sweet, too bubbly, too...cliché. Too California, if there even was such a thing, but in my heart, I knew that maybe yes, some things were over the top.
Skylar, the real Skylar, acted surprised. “Oh, my friend has my phone.” I had to stop myself from gasping and giving up the game. I hadn’t expected Skylar to lie for me. I hadn’t expected him to play along. Part of me thought that we’d get up here and he’d embarrass me and tell them all about how I’d begged him to pretend that I had his number, but instead, Skylar lied for me. My heart fell. I had never meant to get him involved, and it would be easier to hate Skylar for something like betrayal than to look at myself and the situation and wonder when I’d turned into such a bitch.
“They do?” asked Kim, suspicious as usual but sounding a bit more surprised even if she tried to pretend she wasn’t. Her sixth sense had probably gone off again, her bullshit meter finely tuned. She clicked her nails against the glass, not worry about chipping them but not having to, as she usually had a practical gel manicure, the kind that was more expensive than the normal polish manis, but that lasted longer because they were ridiculously hard to crack, to chip, to wear down, because they were like Kim.
Skylar laughed and rolled his eyes, but held me closer to him. His touch calmed me down, reminding me that he was there for me in the VIP which felt so small right then and there, as if everyone who mattered in my world, the new world at UCBH, was there, and in a way, that was true. But Skylar? He was the rock, keeping me from floating away into the club, like I was afraid I might, embarrassed and preferring flight over fight as far as reactions went. “Yeah, he got it off me before he left the club. He’s kind of an asshole. Just ignore it. Guys will be guys,” said Skylar, and the girls all tittered. Jesus Christ, they had low standards for humor around hot guys. Skylar wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close. He was so strong, it made me feel so safe. The fact I ha
d to feel safe in front of my sorority sisters, in front of my friends, was something that I didn’t want to think about.
“So, where are you two going on your first date?” asked Becca, glass of champagne in hand as usual. What a class act.
“Our first date?” I asked. Shit. I hadn’t expected this to come to that. I didn’t really date guys, I just saw them around campus and flirted, and eventually, we ended up in someone’s bedroom or closet, the sort of behavior that the sororities and fraternities didn’t advertise to pledges but that soon became as much of a part of their daily life as spa treatments and Starbucks runs.
Skylar moved his hand to my lower back and pulled me in close to him. Who did he think he was, getting that touchy with me? And who was I, to actually like it, to like the fact he was being so possessive, even though this was all supposed to be an act to get my sorority off my case. I half expected him to kiss me, to nuzzle into my neck, and to suggest we go somewhere more private, but by now, I knew Skylar wasn’t that kind of guy, that while he would put on this act to spare me and my dignity, to save me from being exposed as a liar to the sorority, that he would leave me wanting, needing, because he played by his own set of rules I didn’t quite understand, a set of rules that didn’t involve taking home a gorgeous girl from a nightclub and fucking her brains out, but one that required he keep her on edge, if not retainer.
“Yeah, you two have to go somewhere,” she insisted. “But your schedule is booked through the week. We have a lot of socials this next week on campus so you can’t come to the club after this weekend, at least for a while. You’re going to have to start doing more activities with the other frosh. A day date would probably be best.” Becca was social chair and good at it, either naturally or by necessity, I couldn’t tell. She had a talent for remembering people’s schedules and during her summers, was a personal assistant to a wealthy businessman who had flown her all over the country with him. Some people thought she was his mistress, but she was just generously compensated for her time and had a fetish for billionaires, in and out of the bedroom. That was all.
Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) Page 3