by Tay Marley
“I had fun last night.” He winked. “You guessed right, Maxon. She’s flexible.”
“Woah!” Maxon, one of the linebackers, gasped. “What?!”
Maxon and Austin slapped each other’s backs, cackling and carrying on like idiots while my eyes stayed locked on Drayton’s. I swear that I saw a pang of regret flash through his deep-green irises. It didn’t last for more than a moment before his gorgeous features returned to stone cold.
“And I was right,” I snapped. “You are disappointing.”
I threw the cash at him and turned around. That was not the same person I had talked to last night, and it disappointed me to feel so let down. If that was how he wanted to behave, then so be it. There was no love lost, but I wanted nothing to do with someone so two faced. As I returned to the squad, I noticed Emily watching us, a disapproving scowl on her face. Drayton wasn’t worth the hassle that she would give me if she thought that I was moving in on her man.
After a long and tiring practice that I was certain was ten times more intense than usual due to the chip on Emily’s shoulder, I wandered out of the girl’s locker room and into the gym foyer, where Drayton was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room.
“Dallas.” He started toward me but I ignored him and headed straight outside and down the concrete steps.
I didn’t make it far before he caught up and planted himself in front of me. “I shouldn’t have said that.” He put his hands on my shoulders and gazed down at me from his full height.
“Please don’t speak to me”—I shrugged him off—“ever again.”
“I feel like a dick.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I told them that it wasn’t true. I swear I set them straight.”
“Thanks, but I still don’t want to talk to you. I’m not interested in being friends with someone who can’t be the same person all of the time. And I’m also not interested in getting kicked off the cheer squad by Emily.”
“She wouldn’t do that. She can’t.”
“Have you met your ex?” I shook my head and waved a sharp, dismissive hand. “Like I said, Drayton, I don’t want anything to do with you. Last night was nice, and I thought there was more to you than a hollow and shallow person. But I guess not. Good-bye.”
I stepped around him but he grabbed my wrist, forcing me to turn around. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Come on, what can I say or do?”
“If you don’t know the answer to that”—I pulled my wrist back—“then there really is no hope for you.”
I turned around and left, and didn’t look back when he called. Luckily, the rest of the afternoon went on as usual. No one whispered or looked at me as if they had found out that I was a quarterback-snatching pothead. I guess Drayton had stuck to his word and squashed any gossip. Gabby didn’t mention it in English, and she would no doubt have heard if it had spread. I was relieved when I slid into her hot car that afternoon.
“Hello, hello.” She grinned and started the car. I immediately rolled the window down. “We were going to talk about the weekend when I called last night, but we talked about Drayton instead.”
“Waste of breath that was,” I mumbled. Gabby looked at me funny. “Nothing. What are we doing this weekend?”
“We’re going to Cripple Creek. There’s a sixteen-plus club opening. We can’t drink, obvs, but there is dancing, and we can pre-game at your house.”
Putting my feet on the dash, I sighed. It wouldn’t be my first choice of how to spend the night. But whatever. “How are we going to get there? It’s an hour and a half drive.”
“Bus?”
“How about getting home? The bus doesn’t run that late.”
“Bus there, Uber home?” Gabby said.
“That’ll be an expensive Uber.”
“Split the fare?”
“Sure. Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Gabby was there for me when I needed her, so I was there for her too. There was no chance that her pals from the library would ever join her out and about; I’d asked them once before.
“I’ll come over at around three,” she said. “Remember, if my mom asks, we’re spending the night working on that English assignment on the earliest libraries and their histories.”
“Natch. At this point, I’m aware that I can’t tell your mom what we’re doing, Gabs. Relax.”
Gabby lived with her mom, and she had never met her father. He and Camilla had been in a casual arrangement when Gabrielle was conceived, and he wasn’t prepared to become a father at nineteen. Gabby no longer spared him a second thought—she used to wish that she had her dad around, but the older she got, the more she came to realize that she didn’t need one. However, being alone meant that Camilla took on the role of both mom and dad, and she took it seriously. She was strict.
The lack of parental authority in my household meant that Nathan and I were both free to come and go as we pleased. Nathan did his best to enforce some rules, but he was often out himself, sleeping his way across Castle Rock, and he knew that I wasn’t all that social.
“Let’s go shopping on Saturday?” Gabby parked the car in my driveway, leaving the engine running as she bounced with excitement in her seat.
“Sure,” I said. “Come over in the morning instead of three, then, okay? Then we’ve got enough time.”
“Yes!” She clapped her hands. “I can’t wait.”
Chapter 4
By Saturday morning my muscles ached, my stress levels were at an unhealthy level, and my mental capacity for airhead athletes had been exhausted. School, cheer practice, and working at the diner after school was a lot, and I’d forgotten how few hours were actually in a day.
It was nine in the morning and I’d showered, dressed, and made a coffee, all thanks to Gabby, who’d arrived in my bedroom at an ungodly hour of the morning, running on the energy of some otherworldly source. She and Nathan sat beside each other on the living-room side of the breakfast bar, sharing the Denver Post—Nathan was immersed in the sports section—while I stood in front of the sink and attempted to wake up with the aid of caffeine.
“What are you girls doing today?” Nathan asked.
“We’re going shopping.” Gabby turned the page, no doubt in search of local pop-up bookstores, and earned a curt glance from Nathan. She gave me a questioning look—she wasn’t sure whether or not to add that we were shopping for outfits for that night.
“We’re going into Cripple Creek tonight.” I sipped the coffee. “What are you doing?“
“The club opening for kids?” He sounded like an old man disapproving of the wild youth.
“Yes. It’s called Illusion.” I turned to the kitchen window and watched the neighbor’s kids bike up and down the road. Hattie, an elderly woman who worked at the diner with me, was across the street watering the dry strip of grass in front of her pavement. Basically, I was avoiding the stare from Nathan that was practically burning a hole in the side of my head.
“How are you getting there?”
“We’re taking the bus,” Gabby said casually.
“The bus?” Nathan looked between the two of us as though we’d lost it. “No way, you can’t take the bus at night. I’ll drive.”
“Nathan, it’s an hour and a half out of town. The bus will be fine.” I rinsed my cup and walked toward the breakfast bar, leaning on it with flat hands. “We’re getting an Uber home.”
“Shut up.” He stood and pointed an authoritative finger at me. “I’ll drive because you obviously want to drink before you go. And that’s fine, but be careful. Real careful. Get an Uber home, whatever. But no bus. Weirdos live on that bus at night. It’s not safe.”
“All right.” I smiled and wrapped my long hair into a topknot. “Thanks.”
“I’ve got to go.” He marched over to the front door and plucked the keys from their hook. “I’ve got practice as usual
and then a date tonight. I’ll be back later to give you a ride before I go out.”
Nathan and I shared our little Toyota Corolla. I used it for school and work. He carpooled during the week and then had it the rest of the time because I was either with Gabby or at home. It worked for us. He was relieved when we got it back from the shop two days ago, just in time for his weekend.
Later that afternoon, Gabby and I returned home with a new outfit each, excitement about the evening ahead, and an UberX booked for two in the morning. I hoped that the night wouldn’t be a dive, and we wouldn’t want to leave earlier.
Gabby and I lounged around the house for a few hours, having something to eat and drinking a few beers before getting ready. The kitchen was a mess after I made two enormous BLTs.
“If I eat these carbs,”—Gabby pointed an aggressive finger at the sandwich—“I’m going to bloat. The dress that I’m wearing is tight. That’s a problem.”
“Eat it, Gabs. Or we’re not going.”
“You sound like my mother.”
I laughed and bit into my own sandwich. “That’s an unhealthy mindset. Eat the BLT.”
Whenever she went out on an empty stomach, Gabby turned into a class A booze bunny and got drunk faster than the alcoholic aunt at an open-bar wedding. Despite her protests, she ate because she knew that I was right.
While I cleaned up the kitchen, we chatted about school and our classes, and the miserable teachers we loathed and the brilliant ones that we loved. Neither of us had much love for math. Chemistry and biology could be fun on the odd occasion that we did practicals rather than bookwork. Gabby loved English. It was her favorite subject. It was my weakest one, and I’d talked her into doing my reading responses on more than one occasion because of the simple fact that she’d pick up a book and read it without even knowing what it was about. She had a major chip on her shoulder about the fact that she wasn’t in economics with Drayton and me, though. Who knew what she thought she was missing.
“In econ you get to sit in class with him and stare at him and—”
“That looks amazing,” I said, breaking in.
She wore a dark-green body-con dress, and I was attempting to distract her. Her warm brown skin had seen the sun over summer and her tan had given her an extra bronze glow that looked exceptional with her dress. Her figure was incredible—long legs and a slender frame. I don’t think she realized how envious I was of her natural dancer’s body. I was comfortable with the curves that God gave me but I wouldn’t have objected to a little more height. I was about half a head shorter than Gabrielle, and that was when she wasn’t wearing heels.
“Thanks!” she gushed, flattening the front of the dress in the mirror that hung on the inside of the closet door.
She popped in her contacts and ditched her glasses for the night. My little wireless speaker blasted “Youngblood” by 5 Seconds of Summer while we made up our faces in separate mirrors. Gabby sat in front of the closet door while I sat with a compact on the double bed. We sang loudly and swung our hips back and forth to the beat after we finished our makeup. It took me a fraction longer to get ready, because when I heard music, I let it carry me, moving my limbs with the beat and feeling the rhythm. There was no greater feeling than dancing as the rest of the world fell away.
“I don’t know why you’re so against clubbing,” Gabby said as she slid into her strappy heels. “You love to dance.”
“I’m not against clubbing,” I told her and found my own pair of velvet black platforms. “I’m more against the sweaty, drunk, messy sea of bodies that gyrate all over you.”
I took one final look in the mirror. My dress was a little shorter than Gabby’s. It was a rose-gold color with a plunging neckline and pinched waist. The material was velvet and flattering. My sun-kissed tan gave me warmth where I’d usually be a little paler. I felt good, which was a promising sign, and I found myself smiling as I heard Nathan call from the living room. My long blonde hair cascaded in soft curls down my back, my eyelids were winged with a soft sprinkle of bronze shadow, and a nude lip finished off my look.
“All right, let’s go.”
Illusion was exactly as I’d expected it to be. When we finally made it in after standing in the line for about an hour, we entered to find a nightlife atmosphere, dark and loud with artificial smoke floating through the air, with bright flashing lights casting down from the ceiling to illuminate the large crowd in the middle of the floor. The space was huge, and about ten feet up the sides of the walls were platforms where more people were dancing, some spraying water from plastic guns down into the mass of bodies. The stage at the back of the room housed more dancers and a huge DJ booth with an enthusiastic girl inside it, pumping up the entire crowd.
“This place is awesome.” Gabby gripped my arm with excitement, shouting over the Calvin Harris remix blasting so loudly I could feel my skin rippling.
She was drunk. I was drunk. We’d subtly shared a bottle of bourbon in the backseat of the car for the hour and a half it took Nathan to drive us here. It was one that I’d hidden under the seat since Nathan’s twenty-fifth birthday at the beginning of July.
“It’s pretty great,” I shouted.
Suddenly, a tall, dark stranger appeared in front of us. He had shoulder-length hair in a half-up, half-down bun, a lanky figure, and sharp features. His eyes focused on Gabby as he leaned in with excitement.
“Gabby Laurel?”
“Yes! Tim, right? I haven’t seen you in forever!” Gabby turned to me and shouted next to my ear, “Tim was my Spanish tutor at school a few years ago. He was a senior.”
Now that she mentioned it, and I took a closer look, I realized that he did look familiar. He’d aged and now had longer hair and piercings in his lip, brow, and nose. He was cute, I supposed, and I didn’t miss the googly gaze that Gabby was giving him.
He subtly pulled a flask out of his pants pocket and grinned. “Do you guys want a drink?”
“Yes—” Gabby said.
“No,” I answered at the same time. “Don’t be dumb.” I nudged her and felt frustrated that I even had to tell her what the issue was with accepting a drink that was already open from a quasi stranger at a bar.
Gabby hesitated for a moment and stumbled as a group of girls pushed past us. Tim caught her around the waist.
“She’s had enough. We both have,” I said.
“Yeah,” Gabby giggled, wrapping her hands around Tim’s neck. “We could dance, though?”
“Love to.” He nodded.
“Come on.”
Gabby reached out and grabbed my hand, and I followed them, more than happy to assist her in getting there with a cute dude—just as long as she was safe about it. I felt like a bit of a third wheel from the heat radiating between the two of them as they ground against each other as we danced. Still, I was drunk enough to mask the bother. And the dance floor was so packed that no one would know I was alone. There were bodies all around me, hair whipping from all directions, heels occasionally stabbing my feet, and sweaty arms rubbing against mine.
Suddenly, when my hands were in the air and I was swinging my hips, a familiar, gorgeous, deep voice cut through the loud music, and I felt my mood plummet.
“Hey, Cheer.”
I turned around and came face to face with Drayton, looking spectacularly gorgeous in a pair of black jeans and a casual white V-neck T-shirt that showed off his sleeve tattoo and taut biceps, not to mention the arm veins. Oh Lord, the arm veins.
“Why can’t you leave me alone?” I asked.
“This is my friend, Josh.” He ignored what I said and pointed at the plastered guy—or I assumed he was drunk from the way he swayed and the fact that his eyes couldn’t focus—standing next to him. He was a little shorter than Drayton—still tall, just shorter. He had a nice slim, toned build and slicked-back dark-blond hair.
“Hey, Josh.” I smil
ed as Tim’s arm suddenly came around in front of my face, offering the flask again. I shook my head and pushed his arm back behind me, all the while watching Drayton give him a hateful scowl over my shoulder. I turned to Josh and smiled. “Look, if you’re anything like Drayton, then I have nothing to say to you. But if you’re a decent person, then it’s a pleasure.”
Josh slowly nodded with uncertainty as Drayton rolled his eyes. “Ignore her,” he told him, his devastating gaze piercing me. “She’s kind of unreasonable and rude.”
“Excuse me? You are ruining my night.”
It was no secret that alcohol could often have quite a negative effect on me. I’d been known to get irrational, unreasonable—as Drayton so bluntly implied—and rather difficult. I shouted. Got mad. I knew it. But I couldn’t stop it. He riled me up so damn much.
“I’m going to dance,” I shouted again and ignored how his gaze settled on my chest before casting down to my legs. He wasn’t subtle in the slightest, and I hated how it made me feel. “You need to leave me alone. Because you’re two faced, and I have no tolerance tonight. Screw you and piss off.”
I turned around and had the pleasure of an immediate distraction because Tim and Gabby had their tongues halfway down each other’s throats. Good for her. She deserved to have some fun. I peeped over my shoulder as I began to dance and noticed that Drayton had disappeared. It wasn’t like I wanted him to hang around. Because I didn’t—at all.
Two hours later, I winced at the guy who had been dancing on me for the last half-hour. He was great to begin with, cute smile, great hair, nice arms, until I noticed he smelled like urine. I’d been hoping that it was someone else. But it was him. For sure. I spotted Gabby and Tim beside the water station, still swapping spit.
I leaned in to Stank, whose name I didn’t know, and attempted not to inhale. “I’m going to . . . not dance with you anymore.” I didn’t bother coming up with a tactful excuse because honestly, if this guy exercised so little personal hygiene that he smelled like a toilet bowl, then he didn’t deserve tact.