by KB Anne
She shrugs. “I don’t think they’d like it very much.”
“They don’t need to know.”
“True,” she says carefully. “And for right now, I don’t want them to.”
“I can definitely help with keeping secrets.”
“That I do know.”
“You’re pretty good at keeping secrets too.”
She pulls back. “Pretty good?”
I grin. “Excellent. Incredible. The Bestest. The ultimate secret keeper.”
“Yeah,” she says smiling, “that sounds about right.”
“Ryan asked what you’re doing after the game tonight.”
She smiles. “Really? He did?”
“I bet he wants you to go to the football bonfire.”
She smiles her wide, toothy grin. “Should I? I mean, should I go? I could say Bible study went late. I could also say some troubled youth needed some religious guidance.”
I wink. “That’s the perk of having me as your best friend.”
She pulls me into a hug. “There are a lot more perks than that.”
“Can’t. Breathe. Lizzie,” I mumble.
Breas wraps his arms around us. “What’s this love fest going on? May I join in?”
We both stiffen and pull away.
He releases Lizzie, but he keeps his hand possessively on my back.
“Do you mind?” I growl.
He cups my ass cheek and squeezes. “Not at all.”
I grab Lizzie’s hand and pull her along. “See you at the game. We need to go home and get ready.”
“Goodbye, love. I look forward to the after-party or some alone time under the bleachers.”
“Me too,” I shout over my shoulder. “See you later.”
“Did you change your mind? Are you going?” she whispers in my ear.
“No way. Any chance of me going disappeared the moment that Irish ding-dong pinched my bum.”
I make no mention of the kiss. There are some secrets even best friends don’t need to share.
14
Gone Clubbing
The bouncer gives my ID a quick once-over before giving me a long once-over. I’ve been through this evaluation before. I pull my shoulders back, not in an effort to look taller, mind you, because even if I was tortured on one of those stretching devices from the old Vincent Price movies, I’d only gain another inch, maybe two at best. No, I lift to emphasize a woman’s best weapon, at least in the eyes of a horny male bouncer—although it works with horny female bouncers too. He waves his meaty hook at me to enter as he slips my ID inside my cleavage.
I lied to Lizzie. I feel bad about that, but I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea whether Dead Bastards was playing tonight. I just knew that I couldn’t be in Vernal Falls with Breas, because I might do something I might regret. A whole lot of somethings. I’d rather be in the South Side at Metropol and do anything I want with anyone and everyone I want without any regret.
Dieter eyes me as I slide onto a barstool. “I thought I told you to take a break for a while.”
“I’ve been gone a month. According to Webster’s dictionary, that’s a long break.”
He pours me a neon blue drink. “They aren’t playing tonight.”
“I know. I didn’t come for them.”
He pushes the drink over to me. “Why did you come?”
“The intellectual conversation, of course.” I wink as I suck down half the glass.
“You’re only getting two of those tonight, so you better slow down.”
I knock back the rest of the drink. “If that’s the case, I better finish them now and ride it.”
He shakes his head as he refills my drink. “Make sure it’s the only thing you ride.”
I pull my hand to my chest and gasp. “Dieter, I’m shocked by your accusations.”
He waves me off. “Get out of here, kid. But I’m warning you, I’m keeping my eyes on you.”
I wink at him as I pull down my sleeve to reveal my triskele tattoo. “Do you like?”
He scratches his tatted forearm. “You are seriously going to be the death of me. I’m like twice your age. It’s not going to happen.”
“Never know.” I wink and finish the rest of my second drink.
“I do know, and that’s your last one.”
“Sure, sure.”
As the drinks swirl around inside me, I slip in and out of the dancers making my way to the stage. I don’t like to dance until I see the singer and band. For all I care, the members could be green ogres or Satan’s spawn babies, but the image of them sweating to music they believe in makes the entire experience real.
I am all about being real.
The music is loud and industrial, just how I like it. It’s the reason why I come here. Well, one of the reasons. The beat makes me want to kick and throw my arms out. So, I do. I thrash. I mosh. I believe right along with them.
Smoke machines lay a haze so thick I can’t make out the stage or the singers or the other dancers. The entire dance floor becomes otherworldly, and I go all otherworldly with it.
I am all about otherworldly.
Sometime during my kicking and thrashing, I notice someone kicking and thrashing with me. This isn’t new. I’ve had many dancers join in with me. Some male. Some female. The results always the same—the two of us being real together.
But the heat. I’ve never felt that kind of heat before. It’s all-consuming. It’s stifling. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced. Hands rub the outsides of my thighs. I lose sense of myself as I fall into this new rhythm. When he starts sucking on my neck, I let him. It’s all part of the experience. And when I start sucking his neck, he lets me. It’s part of the experience too. The moment our lips touch, we explode. Primal instinct takes over.
I wonder briefly if Dieter slipped something into my drink, though he never has before. And at this point, I don’t care, because I am only aware of the fire this person has ignited. He makes me feel more real than I have ever felt.
“Okay, that’s enough,” someone says, tugging me away from my partner.
Fortunately, my partner moves with me, his lips sealed to mine. To deny me him would be a terrible punishment.
Scott pries me away from two slivers of meaty flesh that burn in the best of ways. “Gi, let’s go.”
“Leave me alone,” I growl, pushing in my partner’s direction, but all I find is empty space. I lift my lips in hope that they will no longer remain single, but my partner doesn’t answer the call. I squint through the haze, but I don’t see him anywhere. Not that I have any idea what he looks like, but I know what his lips taste like. I will kiss everyone in the club to find him. Although with my present company, that would be impossible. Reality fucking sucks.
“He’s gone,” I say.
“Good, now let’s go,” Scott says.
I try to fight him off, but all the fire left me with my partner’s disappearance. He loosens his grip, and I drop to the floor.
“Ryan, a little help here. Gigi, why do you do this to yourself?”
I can’t answer even if I wanted to. Something happened tonight. That’s all I know.
Something happened.
15
Knockout Hookups
“What happened to her?” Lizzie asks.
“I don’t know, but she hasn’t opened her eyes for two days,” Scott whispers.
“I should have gone with her. I could have stopped her from taking whatever it was she took,” she whispers.
“You know you couldn’t have stopped her,” Ryan says. “It’s not your fault.”
She sniffles. An image of them embracing warms me. They both deserve to be happy. They both deserve to be loved. Neither one of them deserves to deal with my shit. No one does.
“Ryan’s right,” Scott says. “She does what she wants, when she wants. No one can stop her. I blame her mom.”
“Why?” Lizzie asks.
“She abandoned her. Gigi’s never gotten over it.”
“Your mom’s not around either,” Ryan says.
“I know, but I have my dad and Gram and, I don’t know, people handle loss differently.”
“Very,” Ryan whispers.
I stretch in bed but don’t open my eyes. The room falls silent. They don’t need to know I overheard their conversation, but I want them to stop talking. It’s one thing when strangers make fun of your life and your mom and the way you look. It’s quite another to hear friends you trust talk about you. They didn’t say anything bad, but the truth isn’t easy to hear either.
And to answer their question, I don’t know why I do the things I do. Blaming my mom would be a cop-out. She’s been gone so long I don’t know what it even feels like to have one. And it’s not Gram’s fault. She’s done the best she can with the granddaughter she’s been given.
The mistakes I’ve made, the mistakes I make, are all my own. But Friday night I didn’t take anything. I drank two blue shooters, and Dieter made sure none of the other bartenders gave me anything else. But something did happen. The flash of heat. The explosion of contact. I never saw his face, but no amount of alcohol can make me forget the fire he ignited. Two days of recovery is well worth whatever that something was, and let me tell you, I need more of it. A whole lot of it.
“We should go camping,” Ryan says.
“Camping?” Lizzie and Scott repeat, but what they really want to say is, “Where did that come from?”
“Yeah, the four of us. Maybe Breas too. It’ll be fun.”
I open my eyes. “Camping with Breas will not be fun.”
“Well, if it isn’t Sleeping Beauty,” Scott says.
“Can barely sleep with all of you yapping. What’s with camping?”
Ryan sits down on the edge of my bed. “I thought it would be fun to camp. We could go Saturday night.”
Scott flicks a bouncy ball up into the air. “Where do you want to go?”
“I was thinking the trail on the far side of Radley Pond. There’s supposed to be an old farmhouse out in the middle of the woods. We could go find it.”
I tug on my blanket. Ryan’s giant body pulled it off when he sat down.
“I didn’t realize the city boy was a big camper.”
His cheeks grow pink. He glances at Lizzie and looks away. “Well, I’ve always wanted to, and I figured now’s as good a time as any.”
“I don’t know if my parents will let me,” Lizzie says.
She glances at me. Sleepovers are not allowed with non-JWs, especially sleepovers with boys who might compromise her believed “purity.”
“I’ll have to ask Gram,” I say. “She’s super protective.”
Ryan frowns at me. “You sneak out all the time. Doesn’t she notice when you’re gone?”
“Not that I want to give away secrets, but I sneak out after she’s asleep, and I sneak back in before she wakes up.”
“I’m pretty sure she knows about your midnight raids,” Scott says.
“Well, we’ll see what she says. If she says yes, Lizzie, you can tell your parents your Bible study group is going on an all-night mission retreat. Gram can be your backup in case they call.”
“Do you think Gram would do that?” she asks.
“Do you think I would do what?” Gram says, shuffling into the room.
I smile at her sweetly. I don’t know why I bother. She always knows I want something then, because it’s completely out of character.
“Gram, am I allowed to go camping next weekend with Scott, Ryan, and Lizzie?”
“What about Breas?”
“Gram, give it a rest. It’s not going to happen.”
She crosses her arms. “You’re allowed to go, and Lizzie, I will cover for you if you invite Breas.”
I suck air between my teeth. “Gram, are you actually encouraging me to have a sleepover with a boy in the woods?”
“Aren’t Scott and Ryan boys?”
I glance at Scott. I glance at Ryan. “No. I’ve never made out with either one of them, nor do I want to.”
A collective gasp fills the room, followed by the four of them asking the same questions.
“You made out with Breas?”
“When did this happen?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why don’t you want to make out with me?” (Well, the last question was from Ryan, and that was really motivated by ego.)
I raise my hands. “Stop. I don’t kiss and tell.”
Collective frowns follow.
“All right, all right, sometimes I kiss and tell, but I don’t really want to talk about kissing Breas. It was a moment of weakness that will not be repeated. Now, if you don’t mind,” I say, sweeping my hands out across the room, “everyone out except for Lizzie. I want to talk to her, girl to girl.”
Breas strolls into the room. “I’d like to get in on that action.”
Gram crosses her arms. Now, he’s done it. Now, she will see him for the oversexed Irishman he is.
“Alloo, Rose,” he says, smiling that smile that drops flies.
“Breas, remember you are a guest, and she is still my granddaughter. You are to behave accordingly.”
He and Gram share a knowing look, the type she and I share when we communicate more in silence than in words.
I don’t like it. Not one bit.
And what did she mean by “still?” As in, I won’t be for long? Even if he and I were a couple, I would still be her granddaughter. I doubt anyone can dispute the biological evidence. Nothing says family like DNA.
“I merely wanted to check on Gigi’s safety. I understand she had relations with another male at a club and wound up incapacitated for two days.”
“He and I did not ‘have relations.’ And he didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want to have done.”
Lizzie blushes, Scott clucks his tongue, and Ryan winks.
Gram wags her finger at me. “I am still your grandmother, and while under my roof, you will not sneak out again.”
I flutter my eyelids and dip my forehead low, knowing full well I can’t pull off bashful, but why not at least make an attempt? “Am I allowed to go camping with everyone? I mean, I don’t want to upset Ryan or Scott.”
The boys groan beside me.
Breas straightens his relaxed posture. “Camping? I love camping.”
I cross my arms. “You’re not invited.”
Ryan wraps an arm around Breas’s shoulder. “Sure you are, laddie. Especially if you agree to kick for us on a real football team.”
Breas smiles. He thinks he’s won everything. Me included.
He doesn’t realize that someone stole me right out from under him. I don’t know who that someone is, but I will find him. The Irish dingdong can count on it.
16
Spell Work with BFFs
Lizzie scoots next to me in the bed. “So, what is this mystery subject you can only talk to me about?”
Ryan and especially Scott weren’t very happy about being excluded from our conversation. They moaned and groaned until Lizzie physically pushed them out of the room.
Breas didn’t need any assistance in leaving. He’s not a part of the sacred circle, and he never will be—no matter how many times I accidentally kiss him.
“Can you get my army backpack out of the back of the closet?”
“Sure.” She slips off the bed and climbs into the closet, digging through the pile of dirty clothes to get to the back of it.
“Look in the far-right corner.”
She crawls all the way in, disappearing into the corner that runs the length of the attic stairs. I hear her rummaging around until she yells, “Found it.”
She reappears a few seconds later with backpack in tow and plops it on my lap.
I pull my silver bullet key chain out of my pocket and use one of the keys to unlock the padlock on the backpack. I don’t know when I got the silver bullet, but I always carry it with me alongside my mace. It’s my good-luck charm.
“You locked it?” she whispers. She peeks behind her to make sure the door is closed. Whenever I lock a bag it usually means it’s something that Gram, Uncle Mark, or really any adult (especially anyone with a badge and armed with the ability to make an arrest) can’t see.
* * *
I nod as I place the lock on the nightstand.
“What is it?”
“Patience.”
I pull out three cans of spray paint and place them alongside the lock.
Lizzie clicks her tongue. Sometimes it’s endearing and sometimes it’s judgmental. “You restocked? I thought we decided you were going to stop your graffiti addiction.”
“It’s street art, and the world needs more of it, but that’s not what I wanted to show you.”
I reach back into my bag. My hands tingle when they make contact with the book. I clench my jaw to ward off the mild electric current. There’s definitely some creepy paranormal crap going down with it.
“I’ve been meaning to show you this, but between Breas and the unplanned suspension, my plans were rearranged.”
Ignoring the book in my hands, she says to me, “Did you really kiss him?”
I fall back into the memory of it. The sensation of when our lips met. His tongue slipping into my mouth. But that’s all I remember. I blacked out. I could have slept with him for all I know, though I’m sure he would have bragged about it if we did.
“Momentary lapse of reason.”
“More like insidious need to jump him,” she grins, her eyebrows dancing. “What was he like?”
I bunch my forehead at her.
“His kisses, I mean.”
I shrug, thinking about my Friday night. “I’ve had better.”
“Really? Because I imagine he’s very experienced.”
“And you would know this how?”
