Bitter Angel

by Megan Hand

  “Okay,” I asked, making a point, “and while my she-wolf friends are on the prowl, what will the spoken-for wolf do?”

  Surprisingly, they each grabbed one of my hands and held tight.

  “No worries,” Nilah said, dismissing my comment. “Shes before hes.”

  Her total confidence in the lackluster-but-more-classy girl version of “bros before hoes” made me laugh.

  Heather backed her up. “We would never leave you behind, or we wouldn’t have asked you to come.”

  I tipped my head in an unconvinced manner, but my friends’ giddy moods were not going to be shaken by my ho-hum attitude.

  Thank goodness the waiter returned with our dinner. I buried my irritation in a mouthful of chicken pasta something or other. As I sucked up the length of a shockingly tasty noodle, my only hope was that I would still remember my name in the morning.

  Friday, 11:17 p.m.

  That was what the red digital clock read on the taxi’s dash.

  We had just left our pre-party club and were on our way into The Clove. I’d only been there once before, and I had to admit it was pretty swanky. With glass-topped bars, plush hideaways for elite customers, and congested dance floors, it certainly felt like the place to be. Once through the bouncer checkpoint, Nilah, who was attached to Heather, who was attached to me, led our chick-trio to a bar that was up a half-flight of stairs. This bar was less crowded and easier to get instant service.

  Since her father was famous for spoiling his one and only daughter, Nilah passed the bartender a credit card and winked in her special way as she informed him to keep an open tab for whatever we wanted. I couldn’t complain, seeing as my poor college butt only had twenty-seven dollars and zero cents to my name. Nilah might be a brat, but at least she was a generous one.

  My hips swayed instinctively to whatever severe hip-hop beat was throbbing through the tightly pressed sweaty bodies as Heather pushed a shot into my hand.

  “What’s this?” I liked to be sure that whatever I was about to poison myself with at least tasted good. I, unfortunately, was not a cheap beer kind of girl. I’d gotten my fair share of lectures over that one.

  “Washington Apple,” Heather yelled over the commotion.

  “Cool.” I held up the shot glass as the three of us clinked, hollering to what would hopefully be a spectacular drunken night, and we downed the shot.

  Since we had saved our alcohol limit for this place, we each did one more, and then we backed off for a little while, nursing something weaker. My body felt hot and loose, my head swollen with the beginnings of a good buzz. Nilah and Heather were pointing around the room, appraising their man-meat options on the dance floor. I stirred the ice in my glass with my straw and sipped lazily.

  Assessment over, their attention landed back on me.

  Heather tipped the bottom of my glass, yelling, “Come on! There are some good ones down there. Don’t want‘em getting snatched up.”

  Quickly choking down my Sex on the Beach—I’d ordered it as a joke, saying it’d be the only sex I was getting tonight—I set the empty glass on the bar. They each grabbed one of my hands as they did at the restaurant and hauled me down the half-flight of stairs into the middle of an overly crowded platform.

  Lights sparkled and shimmered from the high ceiling, illuminating only certain areas. We were at the bottom. All around me I could see people on a higher level, pressing against the metal railings but not seeming to notice as they moved and touched each other in suggestive, lustful ways.

  I felt muddled and dreamy. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly intoxicating, leaving me no choice but to move, move, move without thinking or caring. The music pulsed in my ears, hummed through my arms and legs, and tingled at my hips. The alcohol did its job by numbing everything else, including all coherent thought.

  Lightweight much?

  At first, we did our girly thing like we always did. Even though there were three of us, we giftedly managed to dance with and around each other, leaving no one out for more than a few seconds. One thing we equally had in common was our rhythmic abilities. We could all dance—and very well, I might add.

  Too quickly, some guy—thankfully good-looking—came up behind Nilah and put his hands on her hips like he’d known her for years, like she belonged to him. As if he also belonged to her, she slid her hand behind her, up his arm, and around his neck. They moved in perfect tempo together.

  Another guy tugged on Heather’s arm and pulled her toward him. Without breaking stride, she yanked me over while I was still within reach and pulled me close in front of her, sandwiching herself between me and the stranger. She was staying true to our other girl rule—no one gets left behind.

  We danced for a few songs before Heather squeezed my shoulder and signaled me to the bar. Nilah was still in her own world, so we let her be. The guy that Heather had been dancing with was throwing a couple rumpled bills at the bartender, then he turned toward us with five shot glasses.

  He smiled an innocent yet devilish grin. With curly blond hair and a baby face, he looked no older than eighteen, but obviously he had to be twenty-one. Or he had to have a fake ID like we did. Maybe he was eighteen. Coming close, he swept a gaze over us, now that he could see our faces. “You two from around here?”

  Heather was doing her flirty lean-in-and-open-eyes-real-wide thing. In high school, it had always driven the boys wild. “No, we go to Waterson Row.”

  He frowned.

  She laughed. “Exactly. Probably never heard of it.”

  “It’s an hour and a half northeast,” I offered.

  Even in the dim light, I could see the hunger in his eyes for both of us. The way he was grinning set off a faint warning in my brain. Something was a little predatory about this guy.

  Leaning against the bar, he looked past us and winked. “Trigger,” he shouted as he pinched two shot glasses together and slid them our way.

  Heather and I glanced back at the same time to see a tall, gawky kid getting up from his seat a few feet away.

  “I’m H, by the way,” the guy said, pointing a hand to his burly chest.

  The kid came to stand next to him, and H—what the hell kind a name is that, anyway?—put an arm around him. “And this is Trigger.”

  Wait a minute. I raised a hand. “So you’re H? As in the letter from the alphabet?” My voice was punctuated with attitude, my specialty.

  He shrugged good-naturedly. “Our frat goes by nicknames. We go to UT.”

  “Oh cool,” Heather cooed, pointing a demure French-manicured hand to herself. “I’m Heather, and this is my roommate and best friend, Lila.”

  “Nice.” He grinned and did a little nod. “You girls driving back tonight?”

  Heather coyly shook her head. “Nope. We got a hotel. It’s our other roommate’s birthday.”

  H cocked his head. “Is she as hot as you?”

  Heather giggled.

  “You girls got boyfriends?”

  This dude doesn’t waste time.

  Heather jerked a thumb in my direction. “She does, but I’m as free as a hundred dollar bill.”

  God. I rolled my eyes. I never did understand that stupid joke she and Nilah had come up with a few years back, but it always worked. I’d bet a hundred dollars H was picturing her naked right now.

  My gaze flickered to the silent geek next to him. I was finding it hard to believe that H would let this nerdy kid anywhere near his frat. It was obvious Trigger was uncomfortable in his own skin with his thumbs jammed in his pockets and eyes darting about anxiously. He was wearing a designer outfit, and his hair was nicely tousled, but I’d bet another hundred bucks that H or someone else beautified him for the evening. He didn’t have bad skin, and he wasn’t grotesque or anything, but he had Potential 40-Year-Old Virgin invisibly tattooed on his forehead.

  Heather asked H another question, but I was too busy watching Trigger’s gaze bounce from everyone to us, then to everyone, and then back to us. He could barely look me in the
eye.

  Bored and lonely, my mind wandered back to Jay. I was really regretting letting Nilah talk me into leaving my cell back at the hotel. She’d only brought hers for emergencies. Birthday girl’s rules.

  “Something wrong?”

  Trigger’s words caught me off-guard and snapped me out of my daydream. I frowned. “No.”

  He was looking at me with pure hatred, and I flinched, that warning signal flashing brighter. The guy didn’t even know me. Crossing my arms, I leaned my weight to the other foot as H gave the shots another nudge. He handed Trigger one and took one for himself. I didn’t know who the fifth shot was for.

  Holding his up, he spoke. “This one is to two of the cutest girls we’ve ever seen here.”

  I stifled a gag, studying Heather out of the corner of my eye as she swallowed hers. With only a tiny grimace, she slammed the glass on the counter and held mine up to me. H had taken his, and Trigger was wrinkling his nose at the dark liquid.

  I curled my lip up for a second, but just the fact that I could process so much of what was going on told me that my buzz was wearing off. Here was a free shot. Once again, it was hard to turn down free. Maybe I didn’t want to remember this night after all.

  Clinking my glass with Trigger’s, I clicked a smile back in place. “Cheers,” I told him.

  Whatever weird emotion that’d been there a moment ago was now gone and replaced by the tiniest smile as he finally tipped his shot back.

  The alcohol felt like pure fire, rotting hell fire. A reel of profanities clawed their way up my esophagus, but I kept them at bay. As the drink seared my throat, it just as quickly dissolved into my blood stream. I felt woozy almost instantly, and those warning signals blinked out. I shook my head in a quick motion. Trigger, still holding that barely there smile, took my glass with his and put them both on the bar.

  “Another round?” H asked.

  “Sure!” Heather hollered.

  She was most certainly feeling the effects of whatever this was. I really should’ve asked, but I’d always felt it was rude when someone you didn’t know bought the drinks. It seemed kind of backwards to all those Stranger Danger talks. It wasn’t like he could’ve slipped something in it. We had just watched the bartender fill them.

  After one more round, we were ready to go. Back to the dance floor, to Funky Town, or to the freaking North Pole, I didn’t care. I could barely feel my fingers and toes.

  Suddenly, Nilah and her guy showed up at our sides.

  The brunette she’d been dancing with slapped H’s hand. “Hey, man.” He grinned. “Save me some?”

  “Yup.” H handed him the fifth shot from the first round.

  “Thanks.” Nilah’s brunette downed it.

  “Nilah!” Heather hooted.

  “Hey, babies.” Nilah came up behind us and put her arms around our shoulders. “How hot is he?” she said just loud enough for us to hear. Considering the music’s deafening volume, she was pretty damn loud.

  “Oh my gosh, yes,” Heather agreed.

  “I would hope so,” I replied. “You were dry humping him rather thoroughly out there.”

  Blinking my eyes at him, I wondered if there were really two of him, confirmation that it was time for me to slow down on the alcohol.

  “Girls,” Nilah tugged on her guy’s shirt, “this is Brandon.”

  I laughed and snorted at the same time. “He has a real name?”

  Nilah gave me a dirty look, clearly not seeing the humor in my question. Brandon handed her a shot. H came for Heather at the same time Nilah and Brandon finished drinking. I couldn’t tell if they had one shot or two like we did.

  Nilah shrieked. “This is my favorite song!”

  Grabbing Brandon’s hand, she dragged him back through the crowd. Heather and H disappeared behind them. I was left alone with Tigger.

  Tigger?

  It took me a few seconds to remember his name. When I did, I caught his hand and wheeled him behind me. “Come on, Tiger.”

  Damn.

  It was hard to tell if I said it to be funny, flirty, or if I had really forgotten his name again. The rumbling of a laugh stirred its way up my throat as I turned. I twirled around him, knocking my hips against his, and his eyes went wide. Jay wasn’t the jealous type. I knew he wouldn’t mind. I just had to be careful of my alcohol intake so as to not do something that I wouldn’t remember, which had never happened to me before because I was always careful. Always…Okay, most of the time.

  Ten minutes later, I wasn’t so sure.

  We wiggled over near Heather, Nilah, and their guys. They were all doing some serious grinding. Nilah was three shakes away from making out with her dude while Heather seemed to be enjoying H’s slow fingers traveling up her sequined shirt.

  I turned back to my guy, who was doing something awkward with his hands while looking at Brandon and H for dance tips. I didn’t usually dance with guys this pathetic, but it was clear these three were a pack. Since I was the only one with a boyfriend, I took one for the team. Besides, my beer goggles had kicked in about fifteen minutes ago, and he was looking pretty good compared to the two turkeys my girls were with.

  Taking Tiger’s hands in mine, I butted up to his chest and placed his hands on my hips. At the very least, he could gain some moves tonight. One of my favorite trendy pop songs was blasting, bass notes shooting up my heels. Stuttering strobe lights made everything around me feel even more ethereal with all the colors of a blinking rainbow.

  It was hot in here, and we were starting to sweat, which made me pine for Jay all the more. I wished these were Jay’s hands on my body, not this weirdo’s. Being this drunk was not helping either.

  Another song later, the delayed effect of those shots made me even more dizzy, hot, and disoriented. Turner was really getting good…or maybe I was just getting worse. I faced him and threw my hands in the air to the beat. He caressed my sides, slow and sensual. I couldn’t believe we were actually moving together. We’d found a rhythm.

  His hands slid dangerously close to my breasts, and I smartly pushed them away. That was Jay’s territory—no trespassers allowed—but he wasn’t deterred. His lips went to my neck. They were wet, inexperienced, and eager.

  My mind was begging me to register the warning signs, telling me to push him away again, but I couldn’t process anything beyond popping my hips to the left. To the right. Left, left, right, right.

  Just as I was crossing over into complete oblivion, forgetting altogether that this was another man, not Jay touching me, my stomach lurched. Not from disgust. Something was wrong. I stopped in my tracks and pushed my fingers to my belly. Tucker was staring at me.

  “You okay?” he shouted in my ear.

  No. I’m not.

  I shook my head and scanned the room quickly for the bathroom. A lit-up sign shone to my left. I zipped away, now holding my mouth. Praying, praying, praying I didn’t puke on someone’s shoes. At the door marked Women, the customary line of girls waiting to pee was mysteriously absent. It was my lucky night.

  The smell of air freshener and B.O. assaulted my nostrils. Of the two stalls, only one was taken. I shoved my way into the available stall and collapsed to the floor, folding my knees under me and holding my head over the bowl. Pushing away strands of matted, damp hair, I did my best to keep my head steady. It was throbbing, but there was no way in hell that I was putting my face on the toilet seat.

  Eventually, however, I had no choice but to wipe the seat with a wad of toilet paper so I could lay my head down. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but nothing was coming out. The churning in my stomach was getting worse.

  Shit. What is wrong with me? I never get sick. Did I really drink that much? No way. I know my limits.

  I swore again under my breath.

  I breathed deeply. In, out, in, out. I listened to the stall door next to me bang open…closed…open…closed. Heather and Nilah must’ve been too preoccupied to notice that I was gone. Otherwise, they’d have come for me
by now.

  Someone pounded on my door. Or was it just my brain stumbling around for an exit? Damn my hurting head.

  “You okay in there?” a girl asked, an unfamiliar voice.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I moaned, wondering at the same time why I’d never been bulimic. If I was, I would’ve just gagged myself and been done with it. It sounded stupid, but I would’ve done just about anything to relieve this nasty wooziness.

  After what felt like at least a half hour, maybe longer, I finally gave up. Carefully, I came to my hands and knees. When I’d assessed I wasn’t going to vomit on the floor, I stood up slowly. The nausea was still there, but it didn’t feel like I was going to carpet the gray tiles with my awesome no-seafood-just-chicken dinner.

  I washed my face and hands thoroughly with paper towels and soap and stumbled out the door. Mr. T was waiting against the wall with a strange blank look and a glass. It was quieter here, the walls thumping with a muted bass, so he didn’t have to yell.

  “I got you some water.”

  “Thanks,” I said, barely glancing at him. With one hand still at my stomach, I sipped while he watched me precariously. I took another breath and blew it out through circled lips. Leaning heavily against the wall, I told him, “I don’t know if I can go back out there.”

  “That’s okay. Your friends are waiting for us. We’re taking you to your hotel.”

  I tipped my head in confusion. “We…huh?”

  His bottom lip twisted, and he looked away. “We’re taking you to your hotel. Come on.”

  He took my arm and put a strong hand on my back. I was starting to wonder if maybe I did need that Stranger Danger talk again. We really didn’t know these guys. Then again, I guess this could count as the after party Nilah was hoping for.

  He steered me toward the front, halting at the end of the bar. “Drink a little more.”

  I lifted my half glass of water and took a few more sips before setting it down.

  Outside, the cool air blowing on my face calmed my stomach a notch. A giant shiny black SUV was idling at the curb. Exhaust puffed from the rear. The huge cab told me it had two rows of bench seats. T-man opened the back door and helped me up beside Heather and Nilah, who were both near unconscious.