Chapter 5
Austin Rivers: A Day in His Life!
“Can you get me a drink?”
Krissy Seaborn’s soft lips are against my ear, and I hardly hear her over Amii Stewart.
I hesitate, glancing around the club. The studio set us up in a roped off VIP area.
It’s close enough to the dance floor to watch, but far enough that no one’s dancing on us.
A bulky, shirtless bartender in tight, silver shorts served us our drinks a while ago.
I’m not sure if that was arranged or where he’s gone now.
“What do you want?” I lean close so she can hear me, and she squeezes my thigh. It makes me grit my teeth.
“Vodka tonic,” she says coyly, as if that’s supposed to mean something.
Maybe it’s a test. A tabloid back in LA printed a blurb about Krissy and me at Flipper’s.
It was true only in that we were both there at the same time and left around the same time, but not together.
I would’ve been a lot angrier about it, but ever since the show ended, and all the teen mags dropped me from their covers, I’ve been needing publicity.
She’s already had a couple of drinks, so maybe she’s loosened up. I thought I made it clear I wasn’t interested. She’s gorgeous, and even though we just got done filming a movie together, I really don’t know Krissy Seaborn that well.
I don’t want to leave the relative safety of the black velvet sofa.
When we entered the corridor, I looked up at the crystal chandelier shaking from the beat of the music.
The closer we got to the dance floor, the more the air smelled like sex, sweat, and some expensive concoction of cologne and cocaine.
Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air, columns of light glowed, and the first thing I saw were two men in drag behind them, unabashedly dry humping to orgasm.
I reluctantly get up from the sofa and head to the bar. It’s not an easy trip because of all the people, and they recognize me. I feel uneasy. Almost ashamed. The studio execs sent me and Krissy to New York City to promote our movie, Roller Rink, and it’s not doing so hot.
Our agents thought being seen at Studio 54 while we were here might help.
The place hasn’t been open long, but a crowd had gathered when we got here at eleven thirty.
People pressed through, trying to get inside, waving fifties and hundreds in the faces of the owners.
Our agents must have talked to them, because we were escorted in immediately and shown to our spot.
“You going to get out there and dance sometime tonight?” I turn and see the bartender in silver shorts leaning over the bar top, grinning at me.
I smile at him. “Vodka tonic and a whiskey. Neat.”
As he makes the drinks, I glance at the crowded dance floor, the vertical lights, and a couple dancing together.
They’re both wearing bright, sequined dresses, and only one of them is a man.
I shift my gaze past them to another couple dancing nearby.
The guy has his back to me, and his silky shirt is pin-striped in blue and gold.
He’s a good dancer. The woman he’s with is facing me.
She looks an awful lot like Shelley Adams, who played my older sister on Love Thy Neighbor.
It’s hard to tell with the lights and from this angle.
They switch places. Her back turns to me, and I can see the guy. I can see him clear as day. All my muscles clench and my heart beats faster.
“Here ya go.”
I turn to the bartender who’s leaning over the bar top again with the drinks in front of him. When I reach for them, he places one of his hands on mine. “Save a dance for me?”
I study his face. He’s probably a good five or six years older than me. It doesn’t bother me at all, but does he know who I am? Or it he just a flirt? It worries me that I can’t tell anymore.
“Maybe,” I answer him and walk off with the drinks.
I look at the dance floor again, but I don’t see the couple anymore. My mind must be playing tricks.
In the last couple of seasons of the show, Shelley wasn’t around much.
She was older than me, so after she got her high school diploma, she enrolled at UCLA.
The producers made it so her character, Judy, was also attending college.
Shelley pretty much left the show at that point.
I haven’t seen her in a while, and I don’t know what she’d be doing in New York.
When I get back to Krissy, she’s not alone. A couple of Osmonds and a Jackson are sitting with her. I say hello as I hand Krissy her drink, and we chat for a few minutes when I hear my name. I turn and see Shelley behind the velvet rope.
So, it really is her. I smile. “Hey, Shelley. I thought that was you.”
Then I see who’s hand she’s holding.
My smile disappears.
He doesn’t look surprised to see me. He never seems surprised, actually. He always looks at everyone and everything as if it bores him. What in the ever-loving fuck is Harvey Laden doing here? I can’t even go to New York to get away from him. Maybe he’s moving here. That would be a dream come true.
Shelley ducks under the rope to give me a hug. “What are you doing here? It’s been, like, a million years.”
“We came here to promote Roller Rink.” I gesture to Krissy beside me, and she says hello. “What are you doing here?”
Shelley glances at Harvey. “Just having some fun.”
I nod. “Cool.”
An awkward silence stretches. Shelley bites her lip and looks at Harvey again. “I think we’re gonna go dance some more. You should come.”
“I might later.”
I watch Shelley go to Harvey, take his hand, and go back to the dance floor. An odd feeling is in the pit of my stomach. A feeling that’s not too far removed from envy.
Krissy’s hand rests on my arm. “We should get out there at least once.”
I turn to her and her face is way too close. She’s already finished her drink, and I’ve hardly touched mine. I grab it and swallow it down, and the silver-shorts bartender is back to serve us with more in addition to some shots.
My head is swimming with dark liquor by the time I lead Krissy onto the dance floor, where Donna Summer is singing about how she feels love.
It’s jam-packed. As I dance with her, I wonder who I can ask for blow.
The beat thuds in my chest when I see Harvey again, but he’s not with Shelley anymore.
He’s with another girl I don’t recognize.
Did he just ditch her? I should kick him in the balls.
Or maybe she ditched him. Good for her.
His gaze meets mine over the girl’s head.
He might be drunk or high because his gaze seems hazy.
I haven’t seen him in… what, a couple of months?
My nearly drunk brain tries to remember.
It must have been at The Green Room, when we got into a shoving match that was broken up before it went too far.
I don’t know what we were fighting about, and I don’t know how the hell we both ended up here tonight.
It’s exhausting to go someplace and see his ridiculously perfect face giving me that indifferent stare.
A woman in nothing but a fishnet body suit says something in Krissy’s ear, then puts something on her tongue. She comes over to me and says into my ear, “Want to feel out of this world?”
She has a little pill. I open my mouth, and she puts it on my tongue. It has a sweet-bitter taste as it dissolves.
“What was that?” I ask Krissy.
“Something to make us feel good.” She grabs my hips and pulls me closer to her.
After a while, the combo of alcohol and the mystery pill has me feeling some kind of way.
It’s not a terrible feeling. My vision blurs at the edges as Krissy takes my hand.
She leads me off the dance floor, following behind some others.
The beat feels deeper and harder. I feel it in my feet and chest, as though it’s trying to conduct the beat of my heart.
I press my hand over my chest as I’m led down a black-painted hallway that smells of grass.
My vision blurs more as we go down steps into another hallway.
It feels like we’re moving in slow motion.
The scent of weed has been replaced with something else. I know what it is before I even see it.
In one corner, a group sits at small tables, watching and passing a bong.
In another corner, a woman is on a velvety beanbag chair enjoying a cocktail, with one leg thrown over the shoulder of the guy eating her out.
Beside them, separated by a partition, is a guy on a mattress getting nailed from behind by another guy wearing nothing but a big cone-shaped hat like a gnome.
Different music plays down here, and it sounds French.
It matches the lights, spinning colorful circles from the ceiling.
My head aches as Krissy tugs on my hand. “Come over here with me.” Her voice sounds like it’s coming through a tunnel.
She sits on a long sofa against a wall that feels like rubber. She’s not alone. Two other women sit there, patting the space between them.
I sit next to Krissy, and one of the women sits on my other side. Krissy gestures to her. “This is Pam. Let’s have some fun.”
Even though everything is hazy, I can tell Pam is a knockout. I think she’s older than me and Krissy. Maybe twenty-five. Her lips are glossy and so is her hair.
My only response is a shrug.
Krissy kisses me while Pam slides a hand over my shirt, undoing one of the buttons. Everything feels intense and distant at the same time. Krissy and I make out while Pam’s hand runs over my chest and down to my pants. I’m not hard at all. My body feels like a closed door, and I’m getting dizzier.
I open my eyes mid-kiss and look over Krissy’s shoulder to see the back of a familiar head.
On a mattress a few feet away, I notice hands with long red nails tangled in Harvey’s surfer-boy hair. He’s laying over whoever it is. He’s completely clothed, but one bare leg with painted toenails wraps around him. My cock twitches as my pants are being undone.