Dark Dreams
Page 6
Chapter Four
Chelsey
When I pulled up to Susan’s house and she got into the passenger side of my car, I smiled wryly. “Not dressing up, huh?”
Tossing her light brown hair, she grinned. “If we’re going to be ‘undercover’, I figured I’d better play the part.”
“We’re not actually ‘undercover’,” I said. “We’re just… investigating.”
She pouted. “Yeah, but it’s more fun pretending that we’re ‘undercover’.”
“Well, I guess in a way we are ‘under-cover’,” I replied in amusement. “I mean we’ll be using fake I.D.s.”
“Which reminds me...” She unzipped her black purse. “Here,” she said, handing me a Montana state driver’s license. “This is you.”
I looked at the picture and my eyes widened. “This says I’m five foot eight.”
She bit her lower lip. “You didn’t happen to wear heels, did you?”
“Even with heels I’m not even close. Dang it.” I tapped my forehead against the steering wheel a couple of times. “Susan,” I said, turning to her. “I hope to God we don’t get arrested for this. My parents would kill me!”
“Relax; they’re not even going to look at your height or weight. All they care about is the year on the license.”
“Let’s hope so.” I looked at the girl in the photo again. I had to admit, she did look similar to me. Sighing, I slipped the I.D. into the front pocket of my jeans. “I just hope they don’t quiz me or anything.”
“You worry too much. Trust me, they won’t.”
I pulled out of her driveway. “Famous last words.”
Giggling, she flipped down the visor and applied lip gloss. She rubbed her lips together and then flipped the visor back up. “You’re so paranoid.”
“You should be, too. We’re breaking the law, and obviously, if we get caught, we’re screwed.”
“Nah,” she said, slipping the tube of lip gloss back into her purse. “We won’t. Nothing interesting ever happens to me. The highlight of my day is counting my tips after I’m done working.”
“I wouldn’t call going to jail interesting.”
“You know what I mean. There is nothing exciting about my life. At least, not at the moment. My job is boring, my clothes are boring, and my love life is also freaken’ boring.”
It was like déjà vu. I’d pretty much told my mother the same thing earlier.
“Your clothes aren’t boring,” I replied, glancing at her sparkly silver sweater and black skirt.
She smirked. “Yeah, it’s because I borrowed the outfit from my forty-year-old mother. How lame is that?”
I laughed. “Well, your mom has great taste in clothes.”
“She’s single. Single women usually do.”
“You’re single, what’s your excuse?” I teased.
She slugged me playfully. “Bitch.”
“I’m just giving you crap. I’m wearing jeans and a plain old sweater. It’s not exactly exciting either.”
“You’re pretty, though,” she replied. “You could wear anything and the guys wouldn’t notice because of those eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yeah. You’ve got cat-eyes.”
“Really?” I asked, glancing at them in the rearview mirror.
“I’ve told you a million times, your eyes are wicked.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “Although I have to admit, ever since Billy Santino said that my eyes freaked him out in the fourth grade, I’ve been kind of self-conscious about them.”
She snorted. “Please…Billy Santino had a crush on you since the first grade. Your eyes didn’t freak him out, girlfriend. He just had it bad for you. Always did.”
I had to stop my jaw from dropping. Billy had actually turned out to be pretty hot. Well, annoying as all hell, but definitely drool-worthy. “What? How do you know that?”
“Because he told me. Told me he’d always wanted to ‘tap Chelsey’s ass’.”
“Tap my ass?” I burst out laughing. “You’re kidding me?”
“I know… what a pig, huh?”
“I’d say, but seriously, I had no idea he was interested in me.”
“That’s because he thought you hated him,” she replied. “I talked to him at the diner about a year ago and he told me that you used to glare at him all the time in the halls at your school.”
I snorted. “I’m sure I did, because of the comment he’d made about my eyes!”
She laughed.
“Anyway, I would have never gone out with him. Heck, he cheated on Sandy Mayer during the last two years of high school, when they were dating.”
“Did he really? Well, if I remember she was a royal bitch. She probably deserved it.”
“Nobody deserves it,” I said, although Sandy had been a real snob and we’d never actually gotten along.
Maybe it was because she knew her boyfriend wanted to tap my ass, I thought, stifling a giggle.
“They were made for each other,” she said. “They’ll probably get married, have babies, and he’ll cheat on her with bathroom whores at Teddy’s, when he’s supposed to be working late.”
Teddy’s was a seedy strip joint, just outside of Beaver Creek, and known for having broken up a lot of marriages. Rumor had it that many of the strippers would do anything for a twenty, and the place was always packed.
“Yeah, I’ll bet you’re right there,” I replied, pushing Billy out of my mind. I turned on the radio and scrolled through the stations until I found a new song by Maroon Five that I really liked.
Susan reached over, turned it up louder, and began singing with Adam Levine. “He’s so hot,” she said, as the song ended. “I need to buy one of his CDs.”
“Yeah, I love his voice. Uh, here we are,” I said, pulling into the parking lot of the nightclub. I’d driven by it a couple of times on my way to Susan’s, but hadn’t given the place much thought until the last few hours. Now that the mirrored building was lit up with strobe and fluorescent lighting, it was pretty impressive, especially for such a small town in the middle of Montana. “Looks pretty… swanky.”
Susan fluffed her hair as we parked. “I heard this place gets nuts after midnight.”
I turned off the engine. “Since it’s one of the only clubs around, that doesn’t surprise me.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed her purse. “You ready?”
“I guess so.” I looked at the building again and a knot formed in the pit of my stomach. “You sure we won’t get caught?”
She opened the car door and got out. “Just act confident and you’ll be fine. Come on.”
I slid out of the car and locked the doors. “Okay,” I replied, trying not to chicken-out. She’d obviously done something like this before at other bars, so she knew what she was doing.
Clutching my purse tightly, we walked to the front door and found that there wasn’t a line yet.
“Slow night?” asked Susan, handing the bouncer her I.D.
“It’s early,” he replied, looking at the fraudulent card.
“True. I know it gets pretty crazy here at night.”
He didn’t reply.
I stared at him nervously as he looked over her fake I.D. His nametag read “Honi”, and he was bald with a spider web tattoo that wrapped around his neck, and had muscles the size of coconuts on each arm. When he looked up, his dark eyes went directly to mine.
I smiled innocently.
“You’re next, Cupcake,” he said, handing Susan back her I.D.
Cupcake?
I cleared my throat and handed him the I.D, our fingers brushing. His skin was unnaturally cool, even for October and the brief contact gave me the chills.
He smiled, a big, toothy grin. “You nervous?” he asked, his eyes glittering in the darkness.
“No,” I answered, trying to look confident, although I was almost peeing my pants.
He glanced down at the I.D. and then back at me. “Your I.D.
doesn’t do you justice, Cupcake.” He smiled and handed me back the I.D. “You’re much better looking in person.”
“Uh, thanks,” I replied, my face turning two shades of pink.
“You two, behave,” he said. “Or we’ll have to get the whips out, and you don’t want that.”
My eyes widened. “Whips?”
He chuckled and looked at Susan. “She always this gullible?”
Susan smirked. “Only after dark.”
His face became serious. “That’s when you have to be the most careful,” he said. “Especially in this place. Pomaika`i, ladies.”
My eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
“Good luck.”
His words made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “Oh.”
“Uh, thanks,” replied Susan, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.
I glanced over my shoulder and noticed that he was still watching us.