Authors: Monica Alexander
I dug out some funky jewelry and spent twenty minutes copying the instructions in
Glamour
on how to create smoky eyes. For good measure, I added some sheer lip gloss. A look in the mirror told me I looked much different than usual but not really bad-ass.
I lo
oked more like Kristin Bell
playing a bad girl in a movie.
Oh well, not much I could do about that.
At eight, I
nervously
knocked on Chase’s bedroom door.
“En
ter,” he called out, so I did.
He was just shutt
ing the window as I walked in.
From the look, and smell of things, he’d been smoking.
Seeing my face, he methodically produced a bottle of Febreeze a
nd sprayed it around the room.
My brother was nothing if not an expert in disguising what he did.
He shot me a lazy smile. “You ready to get wasted,” he said, and I could tell he was mocking me.
“Screw you,” I said, bringing us back to the reality of our relationship.
“Ah, see, you really are a bitch at heart,” he said, as he checked his reflection in the mirror, arranging a few of his carefully place
d spikes to look more natural.
I had troub
le countering his comment, as his assessment of me was sort of what I’d been aiming for as of late.
“You want a shot?” Chase asked, gesturing to the bottles of vodka, whiskey and tequila lined up on his dresser. It looked like he’d already had a shot or two that night.
I shook my head. “No thanks. I think I’ll stick with beer.”
Chase rolled his eyes as he poured some whiskey into the shot glass and threw it back without a second thought. I shivered involuntarily just watching him. He gave me a look that told me how juvenile he thought I was being. I just wasn’t a big drinker
, and I’d never tried anything stronger than beer
.
I watched him
mess with his hair for a few more seconds
before he finally
turned to me with a look that s
aid he was
ready to go.
I appraised my brother’s overall look as he walked toward me, noticing for the millionth time how very different we were.
Chase
had the bad boy look down pat.
He
had on
torn and faded
jeans
,
a dark gray Diesel t-shirt with some obscure design on the front
and black
Converse sneakers.
H
is
dark hair
a
nd dark, thick lashes complimented
his olive skin
, and his eyebrow ring
glinted in the light from the lamp on the dresser.
On his left wrist was a black leather cuff with flat silver studs
,
and he had a plain silve
r ring on this thumb.
He
looked like a bad-ass.
I just looked like I was trying too hard.
As Chase
passed by me, I saw him
again
assess
my look.
He was
probably thinking G
od
knows what
about me
but
didn’t say anything
directly
.
I
chose t
he brief look he shot me
over picking his brain.
I knew
the kind of verbal sparing match we could get into over something trivial
like a comment about my outfit and thought
I should probably steer clear of picking fights with the guy who was giving me a ride to a
place I was not familiar with.
I planned on coming
home later, so I would need him
at the end of the night
.
Instead, I followed him silently downstairs, past Keely who was watching TV and waiting for some
guy named Matt to pick her up.
She’d met him on the beach the day b
efore, and they were going out.
I waved to her
as we left, receiving a puzzled look in return
as she took in who I was with.
I just shrugged in response, figuring I could explain later.
I continued to follow Chase thinking we’d be taking my car, but he walked right past it, down to the end of the driveway.
“Where are we going?” I asked, hurrying
to keep up with him.
“To meet Moll
y,” he said, as if I knew
who Molly was.
“Who?”
“Just this girl I met. She’s cool.
We’re meeting her at her house.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering if my brother was hooking up with this Molly
chick
.
It turned out
that Molly’s
huge beach
house was just
down
the road
from ours.
Molly herself was waiting o
n the
vast
porch when we walked up.
As soon as she saw Chase, she got up from where she was sitting on the steps and came toward us,
kissing
my brother
on both cheeks
when she reached him.
I tried not to stare, but it was
hard.
Molly was gorgeous in an unconventional, hypnotic sort o
f way.
From far aw
ay, it looked like she had blond
highlights, in her straight, shoulder-length
hair
, but when she got closer, I could see that the top half of her hair was platinum blonde where
as
the
underneath part was a deep purple
.
Her bangs were cut in a jagged sort of way that made her look edgy, h
er
violet
eyes were lined in thick black eye liner and her lips
were
stained a dark red.
She had a ri
ng on the right
side of her lower lip
and a small diamond
stud
on the left
side of her nose that sparkled in the overhe
ad light from the street lamp.
She was wearing a mid-drift bearing
black tank top, a plaid
pleated mini-skirt and platform black boo
ts that laced up to her knees. She’d pretty much achieved
the look
I’d been going for but never would have been able to pull off.
“Took you fucking long enough. Everyone else already left,
” Molly said
to Chase
in a surprisingly British accent.
The she di
rected her attention to me.
“
Hi!
I’m Molly.”
She extended her hand to shake mine which felt incredibly formal for the way she was dressed.
I took it hesitantly and ended up g
iving her a weak finger shake.
“I’m Emily.”
“Ah, the elusive Emily,” she said, and I didn’t know what to think, but I didn’t have time to ask either, because she turne
d her attention back to Chase. “I’m not fucking kidding.
I’ve been wa
iting for like twenty minutes.
I’m almost completely out of cigarettes.
I’ve been chain-smoking like a fucking fiend.
”
“Sorr
y,” Cha
se said, “I had to do
something before we left.”
“
I can see that, and apparently you’ve forgotten
your manners.”
I wasn’t really sure what they were talking about, so I just stayed quiet and watched, pretty convinced that if my brother wasn’t sleeping wi
th this girl, he was going to.
Sh
e was just his type, or what I had always imagined his type to be
, and they definitely seemed to be flirting with each other, even if it wasn’t the kind of flirting I was used to
.
“Ah, but I’m not,” he said, producing something from h
is pocket that I couldn’t see.
“For you.”
Moll
y’s eyes lit up when
she saw it.
I watc
hed her take it from his hand.
Then he handed her a lighter, and I knew what
she’d gotten so excited about.
She stood there for a moment, the joint between her lips, and I watched her expertly light it, take a long, full drag, hold her breath and exhale all at once, before smiling and passing the joint to Chase.
He took a drag and passed it back to her.
“You really have
forgotten your manners, Chase.
Emily didn’t get any.”
“Emily doesn’t smoke,” Chase said, at the same time I sai
d, “Oh, thanks, but I’m good.”
I’d wanted to save fac
e and not look like a total loser
in front of this girl, but Chase had just ruined that for me.
“Oh
, that’s cool,” she said,
taking the joint from him
.
“More for us.”
They started walking then, so I sort of fell into step behind them, wondering again what I was getting myself into.
A few blocks later, we turned left down a path that cut thr
ough a grouping of pine trees.
Not
a
big fan of nature, I wondered how long I’d have to rough it when suddenly the trees clea
red and the beach was upon us.
About fifty yards away w
as group of about thirty people
scattered around
a
large, blazi
ng bonfire
.
Realizing how hard it was to walk in the sand in flip flops, I quickly took off my shoes and ran a few steps to catch up with Chase and Molly who, despite their inebriated status
es
, w
ere surprisingly fast walkers.
Molly’s boots never slowed her down one step.
As soon as we made it to the bonfire, Molly took off toward a group of people she knew, waving wildl
y in response to their shouts at her.
I noticed the same tall, lanky guy I’d seen on the beach, give her a hug.
Then
I was left alone with my brother who was surveying the area, no doubt looking for the keg.
He spotted it on the other side of the bonfire and started walking, not bothering to check that I was still behind him. In fact, he hadn’t said a word to me since we’d met up with Molly.
I scrambled to catch up to
him, not wanting to be left alone at a party that was quite obviously not my scene.
Chase
silently filled a cup of beer and handed it to me before filling one of his own.
“So
what’s up with Molly?” I asked, trying to engage him in some kind of conversation.
He turned around to face m
e, a serious look on his face.
“She’s a friend,” he said, not going into any
more detail than that.
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“No.”
“Are you going to sleep with her?”
“
No.”
“Do you like her?”
Chase put his
hand up, looking exasperated.
“Em, this isn’t
Sex and the City,
and
I’m not one of your sorority sisters
who has nothing better do than talk about
who likes who an
d who’s hot and who’s a bitch.
If you’re going to hang with me, you need to take it down a notch.”
I stared at him, not knowing for sure what he meant
, but I knew he was insulting me, just like he’d done in the car when the conversation had turned girly
.
“Take a drink,” he
said. “Relax.
Be quiet.”
I glared at him, scrunching up my nose slightly, before I put the cup to my lips and proceeded to down
the entire
beer out of aggravation that he was tr
eating me like I was an idiot. I would prove him wrong.
I could hang with him and his friends.
Or, maybe I couldn’t
.
In surveying the
crowd, I saw that I was def
initely
in
the minority.
I had no
piercings,
no tattoos
, my hair was a normal color,
and
I
didn’t look like I’d ju
st crawled out of a nightclub.
I was definitely not with people
who were
like me.
“Alright,” Chase said, taking my cu
p and handing me his full one.
“No
w
do it again, and you might prove to me that you can actually hang.”
He was taunting me, which just urged me to show him I could keep up.