Sway (2 page)

Half of her ensemble screams innocent. The other half screams I’m Not Buying It. Who comes to a bar in a fuzzy pink coat, bare legs, and four inch spikes in late November?

The girl hooks the jacket around the back of her seat and sits down. Four chairs dot the table in a full moon-shape, and just as I spot her similarly clad companions, they sit down with her in a quadruple ring. Spray tans, lotions, and beauty products practically hover over them like a halo. I would roll my eyes, but it seems like a thing only a chick would do. Besides, something about the blonde draws me in, like she’s familiar somehow.

Aware that Scott is rounding up the rest of our group, I press my back into the bar. Bad idea or not, I change my mind about leaving. Something tells me to stay.

I stare at her as the familiar pressing feeling starts in my head. It moves to my neck, then works its way to my heart. It’s the heart that tells me I’m doing the right thing. I’m supposed to stay. Not sure for how long—maybe just an hour—but I know I can’t leave.

I ask for another water, a somewhat disappointing order considering the scent of whiskey hovers all around me.

Kate

“Confessions on a Dance Floor”

—Madonna

I
f scientists ran an infrared germ test on this room, there probably wouldn’t be a clean spot anywhere from floor to ceiling. That’s what I’m thinking as I gingerly pull back my chair and sit down, aware that tonight, I’m the only one who doesn’t know what she’s doing. I’m also aware that I could really use a Handi Wipe. Apparently seedy taverns are a rite of passage—something every twenty-one-year old must do to be declared an official adult, along with getting out-of-your-mind drunk and hooking up with a stranger. It’s the hooking up that has me scared, if only for my friends. I have no plans to follow their lead.

“It’s like, eighty degrees in here, Kate. How can you possibly be cold?” This comes from Lucy, my best friend since eighth grade and the only girl in Oklahoma who can wear a bikini in sub-zero temperatures without as much as a shudder. I’m not kidding. Last year at this time, we both participated in the seventh annual Polar Plunge—a local event held on Hefner Lake that benefits cancer research. The idea is to plunge into icy, usually snow-topped water—in nothing more than a bikini—swim to a pre-placed buoy a few yards out, then jump out and rush into the pre-heated towels held up by volunteers. Lucy did all that, except for the towel. While I was plagued with uncontrollable convulsions for the next half-hour, she spent every minute of that time parading through the crowd completely unaffected. Granted, the television cameras probably helped, but the girl didn’t have a spot of goose flesh on her. I’ve hated her ever since, except for the obnoxious fact that I love her like a sister.

“There’s snow right outside the door, Lucy. Of course I’m cold. I don’t know why you picked tonight to go out when I could be at home under a blanket right now.”

“She picked tonight because no self-respecting twenty-one-year-old should spend her birthday watching
Friends
reruns,” Iris, our friend since the beginning of the semester, says. “It’s lame, Kate. L-A-M-E.”

“You know what else is lame? Sitting here with you guys when there are a dozen men here waiting to make my acquaintance,” Ashley says with a flip of her hair. With silky blonde locks and legs that stretch for miles, she’s the type who will have a guy on her arm in seconds. We’ve timed this before. Her record is eight.

Not one to miss an opportunity staring her in the face, Iris hops up and rushes after her. Following Ashley around is a sure-fire way to find a last-minute hook up.

Not that I know this. If given a choice, I would much rather be watching
Friends
right now. I don’t mind admitting it. Just not out loud.

I sigh and look around the bar, trying not to grimace at the horrible band playing near the back of the room. The members look punk-rock underground with a hint of psycho—all spike haired with scary-looking piercings. But the sound quickly unravels their tough-as-nails image. With their high-pitched whine and upbeat rhythm, they resemble early Hall and Oats…if Hall and Oats added a background singer who screamed random, bizarre lyrics.
Death to Nemo! Slice the carrot!
Maybe these aren’t the actual words coming from the screamer’s mouth, but that’s what they sound like. The band is awful. Grating. Desperate to convey a Straight from Hell image that isn’t quite working.

Kind of like me in this ridiculously short dress. An hour ago, Lucy yanked it out of her closet and shoved it over my head, practically ripping me out of my sweatpants while she worked. I didn’t ask if she’d washed it since her last wearing—Lucy already thinks I’m a germaphobe, which I’m totally not unless you count hating to touch things that have been previously touched by others. Instead, I reluctantly let her dress me. The sweatpants are still lying on my bedroom floor, calling to me, begging to be worn. Lucy would kill me if I tried. I tug on the hem of the world’s most uncomfortable dress, hoping nothing is showing that shouldn’t be.

I blink and look away from the band, taking in the ridiculously dim lighting. It’s so dark in here, I can barely see my friend’s faces. How will I possibly order off a menu? Scanning the table for one, I see nothing but paper coasters in front of me. Empty paper coasters, since no one has been by to take our drink orders.

Lucy doesn’t seem the least bit concerned as she smirks across the table from me. “Well, I guess we need to find someone to help warm you up. Someone you can climb under a blanket with before the night is over.” Her gaze sweeps the bar, then snaps in a double take at something behind me. A slow smile drags her lips upward. I’ve seen that smile a million times before. She’s spotted something she wants, something she will soon describe as…

“Yummy. That guy is hot,” she says. “The one standing over at the—don’t look now, Kate! At least wait for me to give you the signal.”

But I don’t. I whip my head around before I can stop it, a compass pointing in a direction that may or may not lead toward a wrong turn. He leans against the bar a few yards away, one foot crossed over another, close enough to make my staring obvious. Low slung jeans encircle his hips, held in place by a studded leather belt. A chain hangs from it, disappearing mysteriously inside his left pocket as though it might connect to knife, a gun, a wallet…depending on how on-the-edge the guy lives. Everything about his image screams danger. Good danger. The kind of danger that might make a good girl like me consider sharing her blanket tonight. A tight black t-shirt defines the most amazing muscles, easy to see, despite the pale blue button-up shirt hanging loosely at his sides. A hint of a tattoo peeks out at his collarbone, black and gray and feathering upward. And his hair…his perfect chestnut hair. It’s messy in the best imaginable way, the way I’ve seen in magazines, in hit movies, on Abercrombie billboards hovering over the middle of Times Square.

I’ve been to Times Square only once.

But I’ve never forgotten the billboards.

Still, there’s something about the guy that unnerves me. It isn’t the outfit. Or the image—because he’s beautiful. He doesn’t seem menacing or threatening, despite the rough exterior. In fact, if the guy standing next to him is any indication, he seems almost…normal.

Open.

Too open.

He’s been staring at me the whole time.

I raise one side of my mouth in half-hearted acknowledgement and turn back to Lucy, wishing for a glass of water to quench my suddenly dry throat. As if conjured up by pixie dust, a waitress appears and begins dispensing glasses. One for me, one for Lucy, one for Ashley, and one for Iris, whose chairs still sit empty. I give a once-over to the room and spot them next to the stage. Here barely ten minutes, and they’ve already found dates. Leaving me and Lucy alone at a table with four cups of water, two empty chairs, one giant headache, and a hot guy still staring at me. I chance a tiny glance at him just to be sure.

I’m right. Happy Birthday to me.

Caleb

“If I Never See Your Face Again”

—Maroon 5

A
s a kid, I spent hours dreaming about what I would be when I grew up, childish dreams that involved jumping off buildings or driving fast cars or moving to the speed of sound while wearing only a Speedo and a cape. After I saw the movie
Rocky
, I dreamed of being a boxer, of taking down all my enemies with a hard jab of my fist and a clean swipe to the legs.

On my first day of elementary school, the kid next to me punched me in the nose for breaking his pencil. That day, I discovered that getting hit hurts.

I also discovered that even if you don’t instigate a fight, you still might be labeled a troublemaker. And once that label sticks, it takes years to peel it off.

More often than not, it’s too much trouble to try.

In the ten minutes she’s been here, I’ve already changed my mind about the blonde. My first I’m Not Buying It impression was totally inaccurate. The girl is innocent. Quite possibly naive. In my twenty-four years of living—eleven of which would make even the most compassionate nun question my ability to be redeemed—I’ve discovered that usually the two are one and the same.

Sure enough, as I’m sizing her up, Trouble in a dark red shirt walks up behind her and rakes over her legs, zeroing in a little too long on her barely-there skirt. I watch with a mix of fascination and disgust. Fascination, because the guy is so dang confident. Disgust, because even though he carries a beer and wobbles sideways, I’ve been here long enough to know he hasn’t had a drink all night.

Falsely inebriated and cocky, an often lethal combination. I, of all people, know this.

I’m contemplating intercepting this little exchange until the guy gets stopped by a genuinely drunk buddy who shouts something about needing another drink and “why the heck aren’t you out here dancing with us, Man?” Except the friend doesn’t say heck. He doesn’t say hell either. Use your imagination.

The girl in the puffy pink coat still doesn’t notice the two guys behind her, just sips her water and swings a toned leg back and forth to the music. The sound is generally unpleasant, verging on outrageous. A couple of the band members need to take more lessons or stop playing altogether, particularly the guitarist who wouldn’t know rhythm if it pounded a beat straight into his brain. I’m surprised the girl likes it. Then again, I’ve been surprised by a lot lately.

The guy starts moving again just as Scott bumps me from the side.

“Caleb, we have a problem,” he says in his overly excited, anxious way. This would worry me, except this is how Scott talks all the time. High pitched and nervous, as though something is chasing him, as though he is one breath away from an anxiety attack. I’ve seen him have one once—when the stock market took a dive last year and took most of his penny-stock earnings with it. Twelve hundred dollars, but you might have thought it was twelve million. He didn’t stop wringing his hands for a solid week. Didn’t stop talking about it for another two. When it comes to Scott, he’s more fifty-year-old man than twenty-two year old computer genius slash financial planner.

Still, he keeps the books for us at work, and makes sure everything follows the letter of the law. That’s why I like him—he’s straight and narrow in all the places I’m twisted and mangled.

“What is it?” I ask him.

The hand-wringing commences. “Well, it seems Kimball took the whole ‘coming to the bar and mingling with the locals’ thing a bit too seriously, and…”

“And…?” My stomach plummets, as though it knows Scott’s next words before my ears do.

“He’s drunk. And not just a little.”

I take a few steps away from the bar, thinking about the trouble I’m going to be in tomorrow. Sure, every one of these men is of age, every one of them is old enough to make their own decisions and live with the consequences, but I’m in charge. It’s my butt on the line if something goes wrong.

“Where is he?”

“In the men’s room, hugging the toilet.”

“How did he get drunk?”

“I believe he consumed too much alcohol.” Most people would say Scott deadpanned the words, but the guy wouldn’t know a joke if it fell on his tongue.

I roll my eyes. Chick thing to do or not, it’s the only appropriate response. “I get that he drank too much, but why? I specifically remember telling you guys not to order anything.”

“I know, but it seems that someone bet him in a game of pool…”

For the love of Mary and Joseph—gambling and drinking. I’ll be lucky if I have a job left tomorrow. I push through the bathroom door and catch sight of a moaning Kimball, lying in a puddle of his own vomit while Matt works to clean the mess up. He’s going about it all wrong and making everything worse, but I say nothing. Bending down, I meet Kimball at eye level.

“What part of ‘don’t drink anything’ did you not understand?” Sympathy, I’ve discovered, is something I’m fresh out of.

I’m greeted with an even louder moan and a lunge for the toilet. Knowing he’s about three inches off the mark, I take the back of his head and pull it forward, trying to be gentle. But if I hurt him a little, I really don’t feel bad about it. Kimball purges, this time landing on the target. The smell of puke hovers in the air like a cloud of sulfur. It might make me sick if I wasn’t so used to it.

“Feeling better?” I say as Kimball leans back, eyeing me like a puppy in trouble. I feel like whacking his nose with a newspaper.

“A little.” His lips are green around the edges.

“Good enough to stand up? We need to get you home.”

He nods and tries to lift himself up, but falls back down in a heap. I sigh and grab him under his armpits, lifting at the waist. The only thing worse than a severely drunk guy is a severely drunk guy who’s never been drunk before. Kimball is completely out of his element. This hangover might last for days.

“Was it worth it?” I ask, a little louder than necessary, but I figure it’s my job to drive the pain home. Maybe he’ll think twice next time.