Until Now (22 page)

“Are you okay?” Abby asked. “You seem kind of…manic.”

“I’m fine,” I said, gulping down my third White Russian. “I’m great. I just need another drink.”

“Wow. I’m still working on my first one. Either I need to catch up or you need to slow down.”

In response, I grabbed her arm and towed her toward the bar. Fusion was packed solid again, bodies stacked at least five-deep around the bar. As usual, Abby and I picked a group of men to wait next to and quickly got maneuvered forward, enduring a few stealthy gropes as the price of cutting in line. When we got to the front, I reached into my bra for some cash. My short white dress was too tight for pockets, and I’d left both my purse and cell phone at home. Ryan had texted a couple of times earlier, when I was getting ready to go out, but I hadn’t even picked up my phone. I couldn’t even
think
about him right now without picturing him with Chelsea, let alone talk to him about her. Besides, there was nothing left to say.

But clearly it stayed on my mind, because half an hour and two drinks later, I found myself turning to Abby—
Abby
, who’d never had a serious boyfriend in her life and measured a guy’s worth by the firmness of his six-pack—for relationship advice.

“You wanna know what I think?” she shouted in my ear as we leaned against the railing that separated the bar area from the dance floor. I’d just finished telling her the short version of my relationship with Ryan and about our conversation in the bookstore earlier.

“That’s why I asked.” I drained my glass and glanced around for somewhere to set it down. Finding no suitable spot, I held on to it and waited for Abby’s words of wisdom.

“I think,” she said, laying a hand on her bulging cleavage like she was about to deliver a speech, “that getting involved with someone like that was a huge mistake. A kid? An ex-wife? That’s way too heavy, honey. You need…you need a
fun
guy.”

“A fungi?” I said, giggling. The vodka had hit me all at once, spreading a pool of warmth into my bloodstream. “I need a mushroom?”

She gave me a confused look. “No, a
fun
guy
. Someone with no attachments. Like you.”

Like me
. I peered into the pulsating crowd in front of me. There were plenty of guys like that here tonight, but for some reason, I didn’t want any of them. I’d always been the type to gravitate toward the fun, uncomplicated guys, the ones who wanted a casual fling with no strings attached. And when I got tired of being with one guy, I’d just move on to the next one, and then the next, because I’d never met anyone worth hanging on to. Someone who thought
I
was worth it too.

Until now.

“Abby,” I said, all traces of humor gone. “I think he’s still in love with her. His ex-wife. I think I’m going to lose him.”

She studied me for a moment, perplexed. I was killing her buzz, for sure. “Oh, man,” she said, pulling me in for a sloppy drunk hug. “This guy really got to you, didn’t he? You have it
bad
.” She clucked in sympathy. “This is exactly why I’m anti-commitment, you know. Love is way too complicated.”

That last comment was probably the most sensible thing she’d ever said.

“Now
this
is more like it.”

Abby and I stopped hugging and spun around to see Damien standing there, leering. Cody was next to him, his glassy eyes glued to me like I was a cheeseburger and he’d been on a no-meat diet for weeks.

“Carry on,” Damien said, motioning to the empty space between us.

Abby laughed and gave him a shove. As she did this, I caught a glimpse of a familiar blaze of red hair beyond Cody’s shoulder, heading toward the dance floor. My heart thumped. It was Nicole’s girlfriend, Mariah, and—I realized a beat later—she was attached by the hand to Nicole herself.
Fuck
. I ducked in front of Cody’s broad chest before either of them saw me.

“Oh, so now you want to act friendly?” he asked, mistaking my attempt to hide for a sudden burst of affection. I didn’t set him straight.

“I need a drink refill.” I took off toward the bar, not caring if any of them followed me. I just wanted to get away from the dance area and Nicole’s eagle eye.

“What’s with you?” Cody asked when he caught up with me at the bar. “Your boyfriend just walk in or something?”

“No, just his sister,” I muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” I extracted another twenty from my bra and leaned against the surface of the bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention. Cody fell in beside me, eyeing the twenty dollar bill in my hand like he was jealous of where it had been.

“So you changed your mind, huh?” he said after we’d finally ordered. “About the whole ‘off-limits’ bullshit you tried to sell me?”

The bartender slammed our drinks on the bar and I grabbed mine, immediately fitting the straw between my teeth. “I didn’t try to
sell
you anything,” I said as we shoved away from the bar, drinks held protectively to avoid spillage. “And I didn’t change my mind either.”

His fingers closed around my arm and he turned me until we were facing each other. “Why are you here then?”

I blinked up at him. He was taller than Ryan, and wider, but his formidable size didn’t make me feel any safer. If anything, it made me feel more exposed. “To dance,” I replied, because I didn’t want to tell him the real reason I’d come here tonight—to forget.

“Well,” he said, then guzzled the rest of his beer like a frat boy. “Let’s dance then.” He glanced around us like he was checking for witnesses too, then hooked an arm around my waist and started steering me toward the dance floor area. I dug in my heels and grabbed a fistful of his shirt, stopping him.

“Wait,” I said, my gaze flicking toward the dancers. Nicole and Mariah were likely still out there. “I want to finish my drink first.”

He looked down at my hand, still knotted in his shirt, and smiled. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

I quickly let go and shifted away from his arm. His expression darkened and he moved in close again, his fingers trailing down my side. There was a wall of people behind me, blocking me from escaping, so I did the only thing I could do in that moment—I gulped down my drink as fast as I could and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

As we shouldered our way to the dance area, my eyes darted all around, landing on face after glistening face, but I couldn’t spot Nicole and Mariah anywhere. They could have been at the bar, or in the bathroom, due back any minute. But right now they were nowhere in sight, which made the dance floor the safest place to be.

My body relaxed and let the vodka take over, and after a while I lost all sense of time. Abby was there at one point and then disappeared again. Songs blended into each other, becoming one long, never-ending beat. Cody’s voice was close in my ear, murmuring things he wanted to do to me, and with me, and where. As he spoke, images of Ryan flashed through my head, intrusive and vivid and consuming. And suddenly, the spicy scent of Cody’s cologne—combined with the mist of beer and sweat surrounding us—hit my nostrils all at once, making my stomach churn.

“Let go of me,” I said, twisting myself free. I pushed through the mob, searching for an opening, desperate for a gulp of fresh air. And water. I needed water.

“Hey.” Cody caught up to me at the edge of the dance floor and seized my arm, pulling me the rest of the way out. He stopped in the first vacant spot we came across and scowled down at me, his eyes blazing. “You can’t keep walking away from me like that,” he said in a low voice.

I ripped my arm from his grasp and glared right back at him. “I can do whatever I want. I don’t owe you a damn thing.”

“Yeah? Well, I disagree.” He reached for me again but then froze, suddenly distracted by something behind me. I watched his eyes grow wide, and for one crazy moment I thought it was Nicole back there, ready to rupture my spleen. I turned around slowly, bracing myself, and before I even had time to register what was happening, my face, my hair, and the entire front of my dress was dripping with sticky, freezing cold liquid.

I gasped and staggered back into Cody. He stepped away from me quickly, his gaze locked on the pretty dark-haired girl in front of us. A girl whose murderous expression and now-empty glass told me that she was the reason I was now covered in vodka and orange juice.

“What the
fuck
, Cody?” the girl screamed. She flung one arm out toward me, almost clipping me in the chin. “I go outside for twenty fucking minutes and you’re all over
this
whore?”

Like most women, I didn’t take kindly to being called a whore, especially by someone I’d never seen before in my life. Fueled by vodka and the fact that I had a piece of pulp in my eye, I instinctively lunged toward her. Cody snapped out of his shock just in time to stick his arm out in front of me, holding me back. I realized then that he was dripping too, though I’d gotten the worst of it.

“Calm down,” he told the girl, who I’d ascertained was his girlfriend. Even with the sickly sweet smell of cheap orange juice in my nose, her perfume was easy to recognize. The same perfume that had been all over Cody’s shirt at Abby’s party a couple of months ago.

My stomach rolled again. I’d been “the other woman” a couple of times before, unknowingly, in high school. It made me feel like an asshole then, and it made me feel like an even bigger asshole now.

“Calm down?” the girl shrilled. “You want me to calm
down
? You son of a bitch.” She threw her empty glass at him and he ducked, causing it to sail over his head and hit some guy behind us before shattering on the floor. The growing mass of people who’d gathered around us, hoping for a girl fight, started cheering.

“Kiara, baby, please just listen to me,” Cody said, approaching her gingerly like she was a rabid animal about to attack. “I didn’t even do anything with her. I swear. It’s not what it looks like.”

Even
I
wanted to roll my eyes at that line. It didn’t fly with Kiara either. She threw herself toward Cody but was immediately yanked back by a tall, burly guy dressed in black who’d seemed to materialize out of nowhere. A bouncer. The crowd around us quickly dispersed.

“You, you, and you,” the bouncer yelled, pointing to Cody, Kiara, and me. “Get out.”

Kiara wriggled out of the bouncer’s grip, her eyes still on her boyfriend, who wouldn’t return her gaze. “I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m done.”

She stormed off toward the door, chin held high. Cody trailed after her, calling her name, while I stayed back with Mr. Bouncer and inspected the damage. The front of my white dress was soaked and stained orange, wet strings of hair hung in my face, and my skin was coated with a sticky film of juice. “Can I at least go to the bathroom first?” I asked.

The bouncer glowered at me. “Out, before I call the cops and have them remove you.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.”

Still suspicious, he escorted me to the door and watched me leave, making my humiliation complete. I’d never been kicked out of a club before. Then again, I’d only recently started going to them.

Cody and his girlfriend had moved their argument to the sidewalk outside. I hung back by the club entrance, trying to figure out some way to leave without them seeing me, but it was no use. The door shut behind me with a bang, and they both turned toward the noise. When Kiara saw me, she left Cody and walked toward me, her lip curled in disgust.

I braced myself for the second time, expecting another assault, but all she did was look at me and say, “I don’t know what kind of lies he told you, or what you believe, but take it from someone who’s put up with his shit for two years straight—the guy is a fucking loser. He had to drop out of college because he was high every day, he can’t hold a job, he’s a serial cheater, and he lives with his
parents
. You’re welcome to him, sweetie.”

She swivelled around and kept walking, leaving Cody and me and Fusion behind without a backward glance. At some point during the night it had started to rain, and for once there wasn’t a line-up of people outside, waiting to get in the club. It was just me, several smokers who’d braved the weather for their nicotine rush, and a very distressed Cody.

“Fuck,” he growled as he watched Kiara get away. “Fuck.”

He’d said the exact same thing, in that exact same way, when we were in Abby’s bathroom together and a text came in on his phone, interrupting us. Kiara was the “situation” he’d had to diffuse that night, obviously. Now, knowing he tried to hook up with me not only that night but several other nights as well—including tonight, at a club he’d gone to
with his girlfriend—
I couldn’t believe I’d ever considered seducing him once upon a time.

Or maybe I could believe it. He may have been a loser, but I wasn’t much better.

I stepped out into the rain and started walking, even though I had no idea where I was going or how I was getting home, and I’d left without telling Abby, and I was definitely too drunk to be wandering around the city alone. But I didn’t care. I wanted out of here
now
.