The alcohol wasn’t doing its job properly; I needed it to numb the pain that still stabbed me in the chest every time I thought about Blake.
And David had yet to arrive, even though Lex swore that he would be there. All in all, it was a shitty night, and thanks to all the pizza I’d had, the alcohol wasn’t really affecting any part of my brain, not yet.
“Hey there.” A tall Asian girl raked me over with interest. She looked like a Victoria’s Secret model. “Do I know you?”
“Everyone knows me” had once been my line.
Tonight? “Nope.” I offered a polite smile and sidestepped her, making my way back to the bar.
“Jack on the rocks. Make it a triple,” I called out to my new best friend, the one who’d help me get drunk and forget the fact that at this very moment David probably had his pathetic hands all over Blake’s body.
Damn Lex. Tonight was going to be a dead end.
I was far from drunk. Only one way to rectify that.
I lifted my glass into the air. I was just about to take a sip when, through the bottom of my ice-filled glass, I saw a tall figure make his way through the crowd.
David.
I lowered my glass, eyes zeroed in on whoever he was with. Because it sure as hell wasn’t Blake. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. It was too soon. She could be a friend, or even a girlfriend of another team member. Athletes hung out together all the time, so it wouldn’t be a stretch.
He laughed loudly, already sounding drunk, then lowered his head to hers . . . and kissed her sloppily on the mouth.
Whoa. Not a friend.
My grin widened as he kissed her harder and then grabbed her short prostitute-looking friend and kissed her as well.
The short chick was wearing a painted-on fuchsia dress that any hooker could buy for five dollars and a line of coke.
“Come here, bitches!” he yelled, slurring a bit, then rocking his sad Jolly Green Giant body toward girl one while girl two smacked him from behind. The crowded dance floor made way for them. Fascinated, I watched. He couldn’t dance worth shit, but clearly he was too plastered to care.
“Like I said,” Lex said from behind me, seeming to appear out of thin air. “God complex.”
“Happens to the best of them,” I said, feeling smugger by the minute.
“And the worst.” Lex winced and shook his head in disapproval as David started swiveling his hips and thrusting back and forth.
“Hell, he must be shit in bed, if the man can’t even move to the beat.” Lex shivered. “I actually feel sorry for the drunk girls.”
“Right?” I turned around and started making my way back toward the bar. Lex followed.
“Hey.” I motioned for the bartender to come over.
“Don’t like your drink?”
“Drink’s great.” I slid him $200 cash. “But I have a job for you.”
He looked down, covered the cash with his hand, and said, “What do you need?”
“See Jolly Green Giant over there?” I pointed. “I want to know what he orders, who pays, the story on the chicks. And give him at least four drinks on the house so that you loosen up his lips a bit, got it?”
“Cool.” The bartender stuffed the bills in his back pocket.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so. Try to keep them here. If they end up partying hard, I’ll pay the entire tab, whatever it takes.”
“I’ll try, man.”
“Classic move.” Lex sipped his drink. “I think our work is done here. I’ll catch you at home. Just make sure she doesn’t scream too loud, cool?”
I rolled my eyes, trying to ignore the rapid beating in my chest. If she came home? Hell, if she came home, I was just going to tie her to my bed so she never left again.
I fired off a quick text to Blake, asking her where she was and letting her know that if she didn’t get her cute ass downtown, I was going to sing drunken opera outside her window until four in the morning.
And when she still didn’t respond, I lied and told her I needed a ride and asked if it was normal to see Pinocchio after doing ’shrooms.
My phone lit up within a minute.
And just like that.
I was back in the game.
“You don’t look high as a kite.” Blake scowled, slamming the car door behind her and pulling down the gray knit dress so it covered her ass. It barely did, by the way, and I offered up a prayer of thanks. I tried to appear inebriated, which was difficult, considering I wanted to kiss her and actually hit her lips, not pretend to miss and make love to the damn telephone pole.
“I’m high.” I nodded. “Superhigh. Hey, want a drink?”
“No,” she said, seething, and slapped my hand. “I don’t want a drink. I’m not your girlfriend anymore, remember? And the only girl you’re friends with tried to kill you in your sleep.”
“Gabs exaggerates that story every time she tells it. I wasn’t asleep, I was faking it.”
“So the knife wound was faked too? And the blood?”