“Maysie says you’re coming this time, Riley. You wanna catch a ride with us?” Jordan asked, tucking his hand into Maysie’s jean pocket, making her giggle.
“I’m cool. I’ll follow you there. You know I like to have my own wheels. Plus, I’ve seen the trailer for the Jordan/Maysie porn show. I could do without the full feature,” I joked. Jordan laughed and Maysie flushed in embarrassment.
I walked out of the bar, trying not to care that Damien and Jaz were noticeably missing. I hated that it hurt. That I had been brought so low by the one person I had trusted with my heart. Damien Green was a big pile of suck.
“Time to let your hair down, Riley. Fun is definitely on the agenda,” Jordan said as I unlocked my car. I pumped my fist in the air and let out a whoop.
“Hell to the yeah!” I hollered. Jordan didn’t miss the heavily laced sarcasm, thus warranting an affectionate smack on the back of the head for yours truly.
“Do you need me to kick his ass, Ri? I will you know. Just say the word and Damien’s face will get up close and personal with Mr. I-Will-Break-Your-Nose.” Jordan held up his fist and smacked it into his palm in a feigned threatening gesture.
Maysie and I laughed. Jordan was a good guy. And I was lucky to have such great friends willing to commit assault and battery on my behalf. It really did give a girl the case of the tingles.
I held up my own fist and shook it. “I think Miss I-Will-Mess-You-Up has first dibs.” Jordan grinned and bumped my knuckles with his.
“Well if she needs backup, let this guy know,” he told me as he pulled Maysie towards his monstrosity of a truck. Getting into my car and turning on my music, I felt just a tiny bit better.
Dear god on everything that is holy, please don’t let me strangle this guy! I gnashed my teeth together, feeling the overwhelming urge to smack the crap out of Maysie for dragging me to the seventh level of hell with her.
Sure, this may be her thing. She played the part of rock star girlfriend really well. And more power to her. But she had gotten a wild hair up her ass thinking I needed to party, enjoy my youth, blah blah blah. And I had, in a moment of institutional crazies, agreed.
So here I was, surrounding myself with drunken jackasses as they tried to rub against each other (or me if I wasn’t paying attention) in some sort of scary mating ritual. Sorry, I missed that episode of Wild Planet. I know I had intended to let my dormant bad girl out to play but instead this whole scene had her in permanent hiding.
“Don’t you think?”
Huh?
I blinked in exaggerated slowness, making it clear that I hadn’t heard a damn thing he had said. He being none other than Garrett Bellows.
Garrett wasn’t put off by my blatant disinterest. I think the dude could talk to a brick wall. I was just surprised he had chosen to share his sparkling wit with me. Though it could be the fact that I was the one person in the room who couldn’t give a shit about anything he had to say. It was sort of like how cats always gravitated toward the one person who hated them the most. It was some sort of passive aggressive mind fuck. Oh you don’t like me? Well now I’m going to be all up in your face.
And like flies to garbage, Garrett had circled around me all evening until he had finally cornered me. It was as though he had been lying in wait for his chance to bore me to death. We had been engaged in a one-sided conversation for the past fifteen minutes. One-sided meaning that he was talking and I couldn’t care less. I had tuned out around the time he started waxing poetic about surfing at night during some trip to Hawaii last year.