Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy)

by Brooke Jaxsen

  But what wasn’t? Was Club Grit. The girls that hadn’t been called, including me, were allowed to go partying tonight with our Bigs. Even though the last person I wanted to see was Skylar, I wanted to somehow get revenge. I didn’t know how yet, but he had to have a weakness, an Achilles’ heel. Why hadn’t he fallen for me the way I wanted him to, become smitten and obsessed with me...the way I had with him? Why did he have to pose such a challenge, and why hadn’t last night’s drug-fueled debauchery made those feelings for him go away? Fuck, “feelings”? This was so high school, no, middle school, but I needed some sort of closure, not just watching him bike away down the road, past the palm trees as the sun set and with it, my chances of being with him.

  I texted DeAndre and asked him if he wanted to go to Club Grit with us that weekend and within seconds, got a reply. Of course he did, I was a hot, young, #dtf girl, and he was a frat boy. We went together like cookies and cream, and boy, did he know how to cream.

  Kim pulled me aside. The sorority had a rule: any dates a new member went on had to be matched at a one to one ratio with a “date” with their Big, to remind them that sisterhood was important. I knew this rule but had forgotten to schedule something, but it was no matter. Samantha was going shopping with Becca that afternoon and invited me to come with. Of course, I said yes.

  Samantha and Becca took me out to Rodeo to get therapy...shopping therapy. And, of course, to hear about the date with Skylar. It was a conversation I was dreading but also craving. I didn’t want to talk about Skylar, about my failure, but I did want to vent, to bitch about an asshole with some people that might actually understand.

  We walked down to Rodeo, just a few blocks from campus like everything in Beverly Hills worth going to. There was nowhere else in all of the Orange County that rivaled Rodeo Drive in terms of luxury. It was an experience in and of itself and not something I would have ever expected becoming a monthly, sometimes weekly, part of my life. It was the most famous street in Cali, or at least up there with the likes of Route 66, and seen in shopping montage after montage for good reason: there were so many awesome stores that had window fronts like works of arts, workers more attentive than spa attendants and driven by commissions and repeat clientele they built relationships with, and of course, the sheer #bling factor.

  First, we headed into the Bebe store. They were always so on target, so on point, and so trendy before the trends were trendy. This wasn’t the Rodeo Drive from Pretty Woman, but then again, we weren’t exactly Richard Gere’s prostitutes cum girlfriends. The sales ladies knew us, or at least the Omega Mu lavalieres we wore, and we received the best treatment, so obviously, they earned their commissions. We all knew our sizes (Me: six. Samantha: four, but she’d been doing a lot of yoga lately so it was loose, but she didn’t go for a two. Becky-Becks: eight, but she was stacked in the front and the back) so we found what we wanted fast.

  The girls talked me out of a white dress with lots of feathers and rhinestones, saying it’d look more appropriate on Bjork at best. They did talk me into a body-con dress that showed off the body I’d gotten from the past few weeks of nonstop dancing at Spring Break and at Club Grit, a body that was the same size but firmer and fitter, that could dance longer and whether that was from muscles or pills and alcohol and drugs, was irrelevant, but it was a body that needed to be shown off, to be admired, to be flaunted, and although I didn’t say it?

  In front of Skylar.

  The dress was body-con and black, obv., and it needed a new pair of heels to go with it, so we headed to the Christian Louboutin pop up boutique. Kim would be proud. Capsule stores were all the rage, as were limited edition goods. Have they ever not been in vogue? I ended up getting a tall pair of shiny black heels with rhinestone accents that were bound to make me stand out, with lots of straps as if they were a love baby from Madonna and a gladiator, and the shoes made my ass and tits basically pop. It was #cray. The shoes, with the dress, and my red mini Chanel 2.55 cross body, which matched the Louboutin’s red soles, would be an outfit that’d be impossible to ignore, especially with black sparkly smoky eyes and bright red lipstick. I didn’t care that it’d make me look like a streetwalker: it took a lot of money to look this cheap.

  On the way back, we stopped at a macaron (think fanciest cookie sandwiches in the world) and cupcake truck. Food trucks were so in that they had tables and chairs at certain places so the food trucks were like real miniature restaurants, and they even had cronut (think croissant’s soul in a donut’s body) knockoffs. Unlike most pastry trucks, their stuff was all miniature so we could try different things without worrying too much about our waistline, which we never really worried about anyway, seeing as Club Grit was the ultimate work out.

  Club Grit, and not Skylar, whose abs I wanted to feel pressing against my stomach.

  Club Grit, and not Skylar, whose arms I wanted to have entwined around me on the dance floor.

  Club Grit, the one place I was dreading going but knew I had to if I wanted to get closure, on my own turns.

  We all ended up with an assortment of goodies. I ended up with a bunch of pastel colored macarons: light violet lavender, baby pink rosebud, sheer yellow yuzu fruit, as well as an orange syrup laden Italian soda made into a French crème soda, with whipped cream shaken in, glowing an opaque orange and tasting just like a Creamsicle Frappuccino. Samantha went for red velvet cake mini cupcakes and a pie pop: a literal pie on a lollipop stick, oozing blueberry goodness through the quilting, with a San Pellegrino grapefruit soda. Becca went for the glazed Belgian waffles and a powdered sugar doused cronut, unable to stop herself from making lewd jokes about how she adored things that were “white and sticky and sweet”, plus, an Orangina, unshaken because she hated pulp.

  So much sugar, so much heart disease on the way. It was what a lot of the sorority girls jokingly called the “Sorority Brunch”, because instead of the mimosas we were too young to buy, we had orange flavored drinks, and instead of a full buffet of dishes like boiled goose and lox, we only ate sweets. This was #thegoodlife and it was #ourlife. Of course, at least a hundred pics were taken of our food, of us, of us with our food, of us making stupid faces, of our food with smilies drawn on and annotations added with Skitch. When Becca suggested making a Vine with the pastries as puppets, we knew we’d had too much sugar.

  This was the part of sorority life I’d wanted: the shopping, the pastries, the laughing, the loving. I went to Club Grit as a chore to earn this, because in high school, I’d never had this. I’d never had girls I could call a family, or people that had been there for me this way. I’d never had the ability to have fun and not worry about money or living within means, or not having to worry about whether a harvest would interfere with a play date.3

  “Tell me about your date with Skylar!” asked Becca. I knew that of all the girls, she’d been the only to root for us and I didn’t really know why, given her type tended to be more successful, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was a secret romantic. Something had changed in her recently and I didn’t know what it was, but she had a lilt in her voice, a hop to her step, and it was rumored she was actually getting serious with one of her suitors.

  “Long story short, it was not the greatest.” I’d wanted to talk about it before, but now, here? With my sorority sisters? It felt kind of wrong, kind of dirty, even though it was normal to do it with them, to dish about the guys that I’d dated or slept with. Why was Skylar different? Why was he the exception to all the rules of the games I played? Why did he refuse to be a pawn, to refuse to play at all, but then, sometimes, end up turning the tables or starting a different game entirely? It took all my strength, all my will, not to text him, to ask him these questions, but I knew that looking desperate would only worsen the situation because then, I wouldn’t just be the girl that couldn’t get Skylar, I’d be the girl that couldn’t get Skylar and was desperate for his attention, that still wanted him even after he’d pushed me away.

  “Nobody wants a short story. Tell all,”
demanded Samantha, lifting her hands into the air as if to command me, as if she was the leader of a cult and I one of the followers. I loved it when her inner theater minor came out and I laughed.

  “Alright, so, he was cute as usual, but we didn’t really click. He talked more about himself than I expected and I guess that away from work, bouncers are just normal guys and I want something...more,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t a total lie. I’d asked Skylar questions about himself so he didn’t get a chance to get to know me, so that I could figure out why he’d ever be with a girl like me to begin with, so that I could learn that he wouldn’t. Ever. That he was just doing it to save me the embarrassment of being rejected. “We took a pic.”

  I showed them the picture of Skylar I’d kept, the one that I’d been tempted to set as my background so I’d stop going to the Photos app on my champagne colored iPhone 5S and looking at his picture and wishing in that moment, I was the iPhone his eyes were making love to instead of the girl he was next to, cheek to cheek, but ignoring.

  “You guys make such a cute couple...but if you’re not feeling it, I guess you’re just not feeling it,” said Becca, shrugging her shoulders. That’s what I liked about Becca. She wasn’t a pusher, like the girls in the sorority that pushed people’s boundaries and limits to make them “stronger”. Just recently, one of those girls that the Bigs had pushed had ended up leaving the sorority and I hadn’t really paid it mind, because I knew Omega life wasn’t for everyone. It wasn’t for the weak. I didn’t know her story or reason for leaving, just that as an Omega sister, I’d be an Omega for life, no matter what happened, and that I’d stay strong, never letting a guy like Skylar make me weak.

  “You invited DeAndre tonight, right?” asked Samantha. It was obvious she was trying to cheer me up by changing the topic, but all she ended up doing was opening a can of worms I didn’t even know was on the table.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait...Kim let her invite DeAndre?” asked Becca in return. She sounded concerned, but she was the carefree one usually, the one who told girls to go after guys and to believe in the best in people. She was the one against gossiping and all about giving second chances, so what beef did she have with DeAndre? Had he dissed her in some way, or was there an actual issue?

  “Uh, yeah, why?” Shit. The last thing I’d wanted was to cause more drama. I’d chosen DeAndre because unlike Skylar, he seemed like he was going to be easy to manage, not some guy that I’d have to hold on a leash and take care of. He wasn’t supposed to be a problem, but a solution. He wasn’t supposed to be the kind of guy that caused me trouble, but the kind that made it go away.

  “Well, you know DeAndre gets...handsy, right?” It was obvious Becca was trying to be diplomatic about something, but I wished she would just come out with it, what the issue was about DeAndre. Frat boys were handsy, to put it lightly, that was a given, but what had DeAndre done that warranted a warning about it?

  “Yeah, I know, I kinda got handsy back with him on Thursday, at Pub Night.” I blushed. I’d been too wasted and too fucked up to remember exactly what we’d done but I remembered I’d had fun with him, that I’d said his name and that he’d said mine, and I remembered that I wanted more.

  “Oh, well, as long as you know,” said Samantha. Becca shot her a glare. I’d never seen them like this. Maybe it was because Kim was usually around as a buffer but this was the Big Battle of the Bigs. There was no hair pulling, no smashing glasses on the ground, no Jersey Shore headlocks and pile drivers like you’d see in a montage, but there was ice and shade tossed left and right. What the fuck was going on?

  “I’ve got to go,” said Becca and she left with her bags in tow. It was weird but I’d catch up with her later, I was sure of it.

  “That was...different. What was that about?” I asked Samantha, but she changed the topic. She was my big so if she said that DeAndre was fine, that was all that mattered, right?

  Right?

  Right.

  Chapter Six, #OutWithTheGirls:

  AS KIM SETTLED IN HER USUAL VIP STATION TO WATCH THE FRESHMAN SISTERS AND ORDERED BOTTLE SERVICE, DeAndre and I hit the dance floor. Now was not the time to bump elbows and learn Kim’s secrets while taking selfies with my smartphone to upload to Instagram for guaranteed hundreds of likes in hours. Now was a time of action, the time to impress her.

  After Becca had left, Sam had given me a pep talk.

  I was young.

  I was nineteen.

  I was gorgeous.

  I was Emma Nelson.

  And I was a sister of Omega Mu Fucking Gamma.

  This lifestyle? This was what I was entitled to, this was my birthright of sorts, and this was the life that I’d need to get used to living if I wanted to nab myself a rich successful guy, or a guy who had that kind of guy for a father. A guy like DeAndre.

  Club Grit was off the fucking walls. Summer was approaching and because Club Grit couldn’t go to the beach, the beach had to come to Club Grit. All the bottle service girls were wearing grass skirts, coconut bras, leis, and platform bamboo styled heels. Of course, I was more focused on what the bouncers were wearing, but it was the normal uniform as usual. Of course, they weren’t supposed to stick out, they didn’t have bottles they made forty percent commission off of to sell. They were busy watching from the shadows, but I was the one watching the shadows.

  Forget Red Rooms of Pain, I loved this paradise. It was Fifty Shades of Blue, and of Green, and Yellow, all across the walls as if I was in Miami, the spotlights twirling like a raver kid had gotten ahold of the lights and was high as fuck.

  Like me.

  I had popped enough uppers in the limo to feel them taking effect already, as well as some ecstasy, and I was ready to party. I needed to get on the dance floor, but I also needed to take in everything. All the sights, the smell of coconut and pineapple drinks, the feel of the soft carpet that was supposed to be like sand that my shoes practically sank into, they were all mine to experience, to enjoy.

  Hanging from the ceilings were large scrolls showing waves with surfers inside and all though the scrolls were of pictures, unmoving, the way they moved in the air of the club, billowing and swaying, made it look like the surfers were really moving. The red carpet had been replaced by one that was an appropriately sandy color, and part of me wished my outfit was more tropical, but it didn’t matter because I was still dressed to kill.

  Or at least maim.

  I was glad I’d gotten to know DeAndre better over text and Facebook IMs, as well as a bit in the limo on the way to Club Grit. Every time we talked about something, it was like we had the same mind! He liked all the things I liked and hated all the things I hated. It was awesome. We liked the same music, the same movies, all that good stuff, and I thought maybe he’d be the one I’d not only take home, but start to date. Who needed that what’s his name, Skylar?—who was I kidding, I couldn’t forget that name if I tried (and I was trying, trust me)—, when I had a hot athletic frat boy on my arm, the kind of guy that could grind with me in front of my sorority sisters and make them jealous instead of make a fool of himself like so many guys our age.

  Rebounds had their perks.

  But, as I danced with DeAndre, something else clicked.

  Skylar did something stupid on our coffee date. He told me what he hated.

  The only thing that Skylar hated more than the pounding music of the nightclub was the girls.

  Although he knew that they were all over eighteen, or else they wouldn’t have been able to get into the club, he also knew that for many of them, this was their first year of independence, living away from home, and that they were pushing their limits. They were drinking too much too fast, dancing with the kind of guys he knew had bad reputations, and just making the kind of choices he wouldn’t want anyone he cared about doing.

  One of his cousins was young, like the girls gyrating on the dance floor, and in college thousands of miles away, and he’d warned her to stay away from the nightclub life too. She’d only find trou
ble, not true love like many of the girls on the dance floor were looking for, and there were better ways of finding validation.

  I don’t know why he’d shared this if he hadn’t planned on pursuing me seriously. Maybe he wanted to vent. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t listen and that it’d be a good way to pass the time. While it was true I didn’t catch most of what he said, honestly too #excited, #nervous, #enthralled, #enchanted to function, I had caught that part, his weakness. However, those words had given me power.

  DeAndre went up with me to the VIP to play a drinking game. I knew I was too nervous right now, wondering where Skylar was and what he was doing. Part of me wished he wasn’t working that night, that maybe he’d taken the night off and that I would just have to have fun with DeAndre and not have some crazy revenge scheme. The other part, the dark part of me, that I didn’t show to anyone? The part that was more like Kim than I pretended?

  That part of me wanted to make him see what he was losing out on, what he could have had but had pushed away. I would basically fuck DeAndre on the dance floor, with our clothes on, but I’d make a show out of it, the kind that would leave Skylar wanting and needing the way he’d left me after that Friday night in the VIP and that Sunday at Starbucks.