I stand there for a couple of seconds, holding my breath. It’s not until I see the last of his bodyguards disappear into the crowd with him that I finally allow myself to breathe again and head back to my table.
“The food here was incredible, and for the first time in my life, I’m ready to turn in,” Nick jokes.
All of us start to get up, gathering all of our belongings.
“You guys don’t think the night is over now, do you? Because the party is just getting started,” Nancy reveals.
“What are you talking about?” Sam asked.
Nancy quickly takes out her mirror to check her makeup, applying more lipstick. “We’re going to Dungeon here in Delfino’s. It’s a night club, come on.”
Placing the top on her lipstick and stuffing it back in her bag. She turns towards a set of double doors hidden in the back of the restaurant.
“Dungeon? What the heck is she talking about?” Jonathan whispers in my ear.
“I don’t know. But I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” I say, walking through the double doors.
Let the party begin.
AFTER WALKING THROUGH THE DOUBLE doors, we enter into a hallway where everything is made of stone. The walls are filled with torches to light the path. For a while, all I can hear are my own footsteps. We reach the end of the hall, where loud music is booming, and enter the nightclub. The whole place is packed with people on the dance floor. Some people are up top in the VIP section, dancing or lounging around.
“Hey, let’s get some drinks, and then we can dance,” Nancy yells over the music.
We push our way through the thick crowd until we make it to the bar.
While everyone else orders, I try and hang back; tonight, I don’t plan to drink and repeat last night. Sam notices and pats me on the shoulder, lifting her drink in the air. “Do you want a drink?” she whispers in my ear.
I shake my head, “No, I’m good.”
“What? No! You have to have a drink with all of us. It’s our last time partying together,” Nick shouts as he puts his drink in the air.
“SHOTS!”
I look over at Nancy, because I know that was her. She begins to chant the word, and soon Sam and Nick are joining in. I glance over at Jonathan, and he smirks at me while reaching for his shot glass.
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Sighing, I give in and order two shots. Taking a deep breath, we count to three and down them fast. Before I can even shake them off, Nick grabs my hand and pulls me onto the dance floor. I look over and see both Sam and Nancy pulling Jonathan to dance, too. Turning back to Nick, I let go and get into the groove, moving my hips to the beat.
An hour passes by before I finally need to take a break, and I signal to my friends that I’m leaving.
“Here, take this,” Nancy hands me the black envelope. “Use this to get into VIP.”
I move in the direction of the stairs, and after handing over the black envelope, I go up to the top and select an open spot overlooking my friends.
Getting comfortable on the couch, I smile down at my friends, watching them have a good time. A waiter comes over to take my drink order when I catch a familiar face. The one face I didn’t expect to see here tonight: Nancy’s boyfriend, Alex.
He catches me looking at him and gives me a gigantic smile, waving his hand at me. I’m about to pretend I don’t see him when the person sitting beside him looks over at me, and my mouth hangs open. Alex is talking to the man that I ran into earlier today. Neither one of us breaks eye contact until Alex moves into my vision line, saying goodbye and making his way over to me.
Alex throws out his arms like he’s going to give me a hug, and I move swiftly out of his way.
“What are you doing here?” I say, glaring at him as I cross my arms.
He sits and signals for one of the waiters to come over. “I was able to end my last meeting early and come here to celebrate with you guys. I figured you all would still be here partying.” Turning to the waiter, he orders a bottle of champagne.
I take that moment to glance over at the stranger seeing if he’s still staring at me. Our eyes connect, and slowly Alex’s voice and the club music fade into the background so that it feels like it’s only us here in the building. I adjust my position and face Alex so that I’m not tempted to look over at the other man once more.
Clearing my throat, I take a sip of my drink. “How come you didn’t come to graduation? You knew that today would mean a lot to Nancy.”
He runs his hand through his hair laughing as he answers me. “Look, Edith, I already talked to her about today. She understood that I had important meetings that I couldn’t get out of.”
I don’t believe that for one minute.
“I don’t know what she sees in you.”
He smiles and sits back, placing his arms on the couch like he’s the king. “One day, you will understand.” The waiter comes over with a champagne bottle, popping it open and pouring champagne into some wine glasses.
My friends appear and see Alex; they roll their eyes and move to sit beside me.
On the other hand, Nancy screams and runs over, jumping into his arms as he tries to say hello to everyone. She grabs his face and tells him that she missed him and begins to make out with him right in front of us.
All of us turn our heads, blocking them out.
“Man, I haven’t danced like that in a long time,” Nick says, grabbing one of the glasses. “I think the last time I danced was when we all had a dance party at my house. You guys remember our junior year?”
“Oh yeah, that was the night Edith went crazy and started dancing on tables,” Sam blurted out.
Jonathan laughs, “Oh my gosh. I remember that!”
I push Sam lightly, laughing as I recall that night. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That night I was just a little too free and happy over break.”
Nancy finally comes up for air after making-out with Alex. She wipes the lipstick off his lips and sits back in his lap, grinning like a fool who won the lottery.
“We should totally have a repeat of that night tonight. I would love to see her let go and go crazy again. Maybe she’ll dance on top of the bar,” she shouts.
I throw my hands out, waving them back and forth. “Um, no. I’m fine. You guys go on and have all the fun tonight. I’ve had enough.” Grabbing my water off the table, I take a sip.
“Booo, you’re no fun,” Sam jokes.
I chuckle, shrugging my shoulders. Once the conversation has shifted off me, I sneak a peek over to see what mystery man is doing and find that he now has company.
A woman comes over and sits right beside him. She puts her hand on his leg, rubbing it back and forth before leaning in and whispering something into his ear. While she’s speaking to him, his eyes stay on me the entire time. He doesn’t seem the least bit interested in what she’s saying, which only irritates her. She places her hand on his face and tries to get him to look at her, but he grabs her hand, pushing it out of the way. He wraps his hand around her arm and yanks her to him. Whatever he was saying has this woman scared because she quickly grabs her things and moves away from him.
After watching her go, I look back at him and see that he’s still watching me. To say that I’m nervous is an understatement. I begin to rub my arm, trying to calm my nerves as I look anywhere else but at him.
“Who’s that man that keeps looking at you?” Nancy whispers in my ear, causing me to jump. I didn’t even see her move from Alex’s lap to come over and sit beside me.
I try and come up with a lie, but decide to just go with the truth. She’s going to find out about him anyways. “He’s just some man that I ran into tonight.”
“Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me this earlier? He looks like a fine specimen.” She leans forward and squints her eyes, trying to get a good look at him. “Maybe you should go over there and talk to him.”
“Um, no, thank you. I’m fine over here hanging with you guys.”
&n
bsp; “Edith, you really need to—”
Sam taps on her glass, cutting in on everyone’s conversations.
I take a deep breath, happy for the interruption, because I know once Nancy gets started, she won’t stop. She’s been wanting me to get back out there, and I want to, too, but I’m hesitant. It took me a while to heal from my last heartbreak. I can’t afford to have another.
“I want to make a toast.” She motions for all of us to stand up and gather around. “I’m usually not the one to give speeches in the group, because that’s Nick and Nancy’s job.” She gives both a side-eye as they raise their drinks in the air and yell out, “Yeah!”
“But I want to give it a shot. So, listen up: even though we’re graduates now and are going our separate ways. I want us all to make it our mission to be in each other’s lives. Planning trips every year if we have to, so that we can catch up and find out what we’ve all been up to lately.” Sensing that Sam’s about to cry, I move closer to comfort her, as she did for me when we were eating. I wrap my arm around her, squeezing her shoulder. “You guys are like my family, and we’ve been through so much together. I don’t want to lose that,” she sniffs, wiping underneath her eyes.
None of us say anything; we don’t need to. All of us feel the same way she does, so no words are needed. Putting our glasses down, we wrap ourselves in a group hug, with Sam in the middle.
“Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll always be in each other’s lives,” Jonathan tells her.
“I know, I know,” she replies, breaking away from us. “Okay, enough of that. Let’s all wipe our faces and grab our glasses, raising them in the air.” Following her instructions, we put our glasses in the air. “To us always staying a family, and to new beginnings. Let the crazy ride begin.”
We all cheer, taking a sip of our drinks before heading back down to the dance floor to continue dancing the night away together for one last time.
Groaning, I stretch out my body, releasing the tension in my muscles. Not having the energy or the desire to get up, I push myself up slowly, bumping into something hard. I open my eyes to see what it is, and find Sam’s foot right in my face.
“What the—”
I sit up, pushing her foot out of my face. She rolls over, smacking her lips, and snuggles deeper into her pillow. Both Sam and I are lying together on the couch, while Nick lies on a pallet right beside us. Jonathan slept in the pull-out chair in front of the TV. As for Nancy and Alex, those two are nowhere to be found, but that’s not surprising. Tossing the covers off, I see that I’m still wearing the same clothes from last night.
I tap Sam’s leg, waking her up. “Sam, come on, get up.”
It takes her a while, but she finally wakes up, giving me a lost look; it only takes her a couple of seconds before realizing that she’s not at home.
“Where am I?” she asks. She begins to get up, accidentally stepping on Nick and waking him up.
I don’t even need to look around to know where we are. “We stayed here at Nancy’s place last night.”
Searching for my things, I find my shoes on the coffee table. Putting them on, I hear my phone vibrate in my purse, and I reach for it, checking my messages. I have two missed calls from my mother.
“What time is it?” Nick askes.
Checking the time, I’m an hour late, I was supposed to meet my mother for breakfast this morning. “Oh, crap. It’s ten-thirty. I have to go.”
As quickly as I can, I move around the room, checking to make sure that I have everything.
“Oh, no. I still have to finish packing up everything and shipping it off before I leave tomorrow,” Sam panics. Moving even faster than me, she gathers all of her things.
All of the commotion wakes Jonathan up.
Nancy comes out of her bedroom with Alex; both are fully dressed. They pause in the hallway to share a deep kiss before saying goodbye to each other. Once he’s gone, she turns and looks at all of us.
“Good morning, everyone,” she sings, walking to the coffee maker.
No one answers her. We’re focused on finding our things so we can leave.
“Don’t all speak at once,” she says sarcastically.
“Sorry, Nancy, we’re all just now noticing the time, and we have to get ready to go,” Jonathan explains as he grabs his keys.
I pull on my coat, walk into the kitchen, and pour myself a cup of coffee to go. “Good morning, Nancy.”
“At least someone isn’t rude,” she smirks behind the rim of her cup. She leans against the counter, watching all of us. “Well, well, well, I’ll have to say so myself that last night was a total success, from the looks of it. You guys look like you need some serious sleep,” she chuckles.
Everyone laughs and gives Nancy her props. Last night will go down in history for us as one of the nights we’ll never forget. We were only supposed to dance to a couple of more songs last night and then head out. But the DJ started playing all our favorite songs, and we ended up staying until it was time for the club to close. Even when we did leave and made it back to Nancy’s place, we were all too tired to drive ourselves home, so we all crashed at her place.
“Man, Nancy, you outdid yourself last night. I didn’t think you could pull it off, but you proved me wrong. We may have to let you plan the next one,” Jonathan praises.
“Yeah, just make sure it’s something like this. Don’t start planning something crazy or we’re not coming,” Nick jokes as we laugh.
Once our laughter stops, the room grows quiet as reality settles in; this will be the last time we’re in the same room together for a while. Nick looks over at me, sees the tears begin to fall down my face, and wraps me in a big hug. Another set of arms wraps around me, and before I know it, we’re doing another group hug, but this time saying goodbye.
I’m really going to miss my friends.
Breaking apart, I look over at Sam. “You make sure that you call me while you’re abroad as much as you can, okay?”
She smiles, nodding her head. “You got it.”
“Yeah, make sure you hit all of us up while you are away,” Nick states.
She laughs, wiping her tears like the rest of us.
“I don’t mean to end this moment we’re all having, but Nick and I have to head out. We have some packing to do ourselves before New York. But we will make sure that we see you and Nancy before we go.” Jonathan hugs and kisses Sam on the cheek, as well as Nancy and I. Nick, comes up behind him and does the same.
“Yeah, I should go too.” Sam grabs her cup of coffee and hugs everyone, following Nick and Jonathan out the door.
I walk to the door with Nancy right behind me.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to meet up with my mother. I was supposed to have breakfast with her earlier this morning, and I missed it. So, we are just going to have to catch lunch together.”
“Ooh, if your mother makes her famous dessert, make sure you save me some, and I’ll come to get it later.” She stands by the door as I make my way to my car.
Opening my door, I throw my stuff inside. “I’ll try and remember,” I say.
She goes to shut the door before quickly opening it back up. “Oh, I almost forgot. Let me know how things go with you and mystery man.”
Pausing, I get back out of my car.
“Wait, what are you talking about? What mystery man?”
“You know who I’m talking about.” She starts to close her door. “I have this crazy feeling that he’ll be getting in touch with you soon.” She doesn’t wait for me to respond as she shuts the door, leaving me confused.
There is no way that I’ll be hearing from him. I didn’t build the courage to go over and speak with him last night for us to be able to exchange numbers. Not having time to ponder, I hop into my car and drive off. I’ll worry about her comment later.
WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I would always go into the garage and watch my mother paint different portraits for hours. It was our way of bonding. She would even allow me
to help her sometimes. However, once my dad died, my mom lost the desire to paint. She ended up having to sell every one of her paintings and some of the stuff in our home to keep us afloat until she found a well-paying job. When I went off to college, I thought she would pick up painting again. But she hadn’t touched a single brush, and I knew it was because she was still missing my father.
Pulling up to my mother’s house, I catch sight of some changes she’s made since the last time I was here. She’s added some flowers around the front door and repainted the house with a greyish color. I open the front door and see that she’s bought all new furniture for the living room and built a patio in the backyard with a garden.
“MOM!” I yell, looking everywhere for her.
“Out here, sweetie,” she answers.
I follow her voice into the garage.
“What are you doing in the garage?” I ask.
I walk into the garage and stand there in shock.
No way!
The whole room looks like a museum filled with different paintings. They all tell a story of my childhood with my parents. She painted what our old house used to look like before she changed everything. There’s even a painting of our whole family when we went on a trip to the lake one weekend.
“Mom, what’s all this?” I wave my hand around the room, pointing out the paintings.
She looks over at me, wiping her hands on her clothes.
“Do you like them? When you left after winter break, I got an itch to paint.” She smiles at me. “I haven’t had that since your father.”
“This is—” I walk over to get a closer look at the picture she’s currently working on. “—amazing. I want one.”
“You can have whichever one you’d like,” she says sweetly.
Roses Are Red (Edith's Fatal Love Trilogy Book 1) Page 3
