Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
RACHEL
“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” my best friend says as she shakes her head at me while cackling like a banshee.
Here we are, getting ready to hit the Limelight in NYC for the last time as college kids. Well, not kids, as both of us are twenty-three years old. However, we graduate tomorrow, so that’s why it’s our last time as college students.
“I’m telling you, Clara,” I shake my head back at her and paste a wicked smile on my face.
“One night with me, and George Michael will be as straight as it could be! He just hasn’t met a woman like me who will turn his world upside down.
” I know I’m kidding myself, gay is gay, and you can’t make someone into something they’re not.
But ever since the day this hunk of a man came on the scene almost ten years ago, although he hasn’t said it out loud just yet, we all know.
“Look, if it were possible, I’m sure it would be you, but it’s absolutely not!
” She laughs as she looks in the little mirror, curling her eyelashes once again.
She’s dressed in a lime green shirt and tight as hell biker shorts, followed up with lime green socks and high Doc Martens.
I’m a bit in awe of her outfit as I look down at my own.
Me, I’m donning a hot pink and bright green tube top and a hot pink mini, along with my own Docs in bright green with pink wigwams. I love this current fashion trend and can’t see that it will go away anytime soon. At least I hope it won’t, it makes everyone look bright and shiny.
Clara has been my best friend since the womb. Her mom and mine planned their pregnancies together, and she and her twin brother were born just two days after me. Since that day, we’ve been completely inseparable.
Her twin, Clark, has always wanted to be part of the clique, but it's a girls’ club, come on now!
We included him when we were younger and didn’t know any better, but as soon as we became twins, he was just an overbearing brother, and we had to make him get his own friends.
And I have to tell you, thank fucking goodness we did.
Because I don’t know that I’d be able to keep my hands and other parts of myself off of him.
Ever since high school, when we all began maturing into the people we are today, he became hot as all fucking hell.
And let’s not talk about when we started college.
He morphed into this man with all the muscles and curves and bulges in all the right places.
He has turned out to be the real star of my wet dreams, but I could never share that with Clara. It would only betray our friendship.
“Rachel,” Clara whisper-shouts. “Are you daydreaming about Georgie boy again?”
I shake my head from the real thoughts going through my head and glance over at Clara.
I see so much of Clark in her, but the differences are even more apparent, which is a slight relief.
Clara is tiny in stature, like me. We’re both two inches over five feet with thin waists.
While Clara’s figure is proportionate, with a perfect ass and tits, I have an ass that bounces and boobs that make Dolly look tiny.
It’s a family curse, and sometimes I wish my girls wouldn’t enter the room even before my hair.
That said, I grab my can of Freeze-It Spray off my vanity and attempt to poof my hair a little higher.
A spray here and a squirt there, and I think I have my hair as high as it can be.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother because at the end of the night, or early morning to be honest, it will be flat as hell all over again, and I’ll be sticky as hell from the sweat and spray.
I shrug to myself, it’s well worth it to look this good at the beginning of the evening.
It’ll get us some free drinks, and maybe even free admission if the bouncer at the door likes us enough.
My parents tell us that one day, we’ll be responsible for ruining the atmosphere with all the hairspray we use, but what the hell do they know about fashion and looking good?
Clara stands up and checks her butt in the mirror, doing a little shimmy that makes the legs of her shorts ride up a little higher.
“Okay, Rachel, are you ready to make questionable choices and immortal memories?” She grins, grabbing her faux leather lime green purse that is shaped like a frog. Of course it is, Clara never does anything basic.
“As long as none of those choices include winding up in a jail cell or getting a regrettable tattoo, I’m in,” I say, laughing at myself and spraying one final mist cloud above my head like a glamorous mushroom cloud of Freeze-It.
We head out into the sticky New York night, our Docs clunking against the pavement like we own the town.
The Limelight looms ahead like a gothic church of sin, pulsing with bass and neon, the stained-glass windows casting a kaleidoscopic glow onto the street.
It’s a church for the beautiful, the weird, the broken, and the untamable.
And tonight, we’ll be worshiping the music, the men, and the drinks, in that place.
The line isn’t too bad – graduation weekend means half the city’s fled to the Hamptons or the Jersey Shore. Clara throws her signature wink at the bouncer, and I lean forward, making my ample cleavage work in our favor.
He looks down with a grin and enjoys his view, then lifts the velvet rope. “Go on, girls,” he says with a wink of his own. “Don’t break too many hearts tonight.”
We quickly make our way inside, and I thank him with a little jostle of his junk. He laughs as I do so and turns to the next couple in line.
“Did you have to grab him?” Clara asks, pretending to be mortified at my brazenness.
“That was Luke, and he’s grabbed my ass before, so why can’t I return the favor?” I laugh my answer out to her. She just shakes her head, and we continue into the noise.
And just like that, the night takes on that otherworldly haze of strobe lights and synthetic beats. Bodies writhe together to the music, glitter flies through the air, the air smells like cigarettes, liquor, sweat, and the 80’s.
Two drinks in, Clara disappears into the crowd, chasing after the hottie she’s been dancing with who has glittery pecs and a cowboy hat. I laugh to myself and make my way toward the bar again, the bass thumping in time with my heartbeat.
Then I see him.
Clark.
He’s leaning against the bar as if he owns it, in tight black jeans, a white mesh shirt, and that damn smirk he always has when he knows he’s looking sexy as sin. What the hell is he even doing here? I wonder.
He sees me before I can turn on my heel and retreat, his smirk deepening as if he knows the thoughts rapidly playing in my head.
“Well, well,” he croons, pushing off the bar and stalking toward me. “Didn’t expect to see you here, all alone.”
I cross my arms, trying to play it cool, though my stomach and other lower parts are quivering like there are butterflies running all over me. “Clara’s around somewhere,” I reply as I motion toward the dance floor. “I’m not exactly flying solo.”
He nods, knowingly. “Yeah, saw her. She’s making out with a guy who looks like Prince, over by the cage dancers.” He shivers as though the image skeeves him out.
I roll my eyes, but I’m giggling. “Sounds about right.”
He steps closer, and the air between us shifts—charged, dangerous. My heart beats even faster, wondering. His eyes make a quick drop to my lips, then back up, like he’s dying for a taste. “You look…” he pauses, seemingly to gather his thoughts, “different tonight.”
“Different how?” I manage to squeak out, not recognizing my own voice.
“Like you’re not just pretending to be fearless. Like you really are.”
Something inside me falters. That thing I’ve kept buried, locked away for years, starts clawing to the surface. I want to say something clever, or laugh off, but instead, I look up at him and say the one thing I never thought I would.
“I think I’ve been pretending a lot more than you know,” I whisper, but the light in his eyes shows he heard what I said.
Clark blinks, clearing his facial expression. “Yeah?”
And then, maybe because it’s the last night of college, maybe because the future feels wide open and terrifying. Or maybe because I’m tired of dreaming about him and pretending not to care.
I lean in and kiss him.
Right there, in the middle of the dance floor.
Somehow, we seemed to make our way back onto it.
Tiffany is blasting through the speakers, telling us how we think we’re alone now, there are people surrounding us, bellowing out the lyrics.
His lips meet mine like a secret we’ve both kept for way too long.
We linger, enjoying each other’s taste and kiss like we’ve been doing this all our lives. When we pull away, we’re both breathless, still swaying close to one another to the beat. A move seemingly so natural.
“I guess this is finally happening,” he whispers as he nuzzles into my neck, spreading light kisses up to my earlobe.
“I guess it is,” I reply, my body alight with his nearness, sending goosebumps all over my skin.
And even though I have no idea what this means for Clara and me, or Clark and me, or the version of myself I’ve always shown the world and me, to have this tonight, it’s enough.
Tomorrow we graduate, but tonight…tonight, we live for the moment I never imagined would happen.