Chapter 14 Chanel
Chanel
I was fifteen when I entered my first nightclub.
My father was the one who took me inside Club Sixty-Eight Hours before the official opening. He owned other nightclubs, but
he wanted this to be special, and like any good businessman who understands his target demographic, he sought out my opinions
on everything. What did the young people want these days? What was trendy? What wasn’t? He let me look around and took notes when I pointed out things that could be
improved. I loved that he took me seriously, that he cared enough about what I thought to let me decorate the place. He strung
up the painted lanterns I’d picked out from a catalog, moved the DJ booth when I asked him to, and cleared room in the back
for influencers to take photos under the neon signs.
It’s been almost a year since I last came, but everything is just as I remember.
I love it here.
I love how the blend of darkness and drunkenness around you takes the edge off your self-consciousness, and it doesn’t matter if you look a little stupid because everyone does.
The girl dancing next to me is going all out with the theatrics, one hand clutching her chest and the other raised over her forehead like she’s an actress in a Shakespearean tragedy, her eyes squeezed shut with emotion.
I keep an eye out for Ares as I let myself sway to the melody, slowing down my movements when the track switches to Eric Chou’s
“Unbreakable Love.”
And the room swells with noise, heat, energy. And the flickering dots of light in the ceiling expand into constellations.
And the music pulses in my ears like a heartbeat, alive and vivid and miraculous, and I hum to the chorus like it was written
just for me.
The DJ cycles through more songs, Jay Chou for the nostalgia kick and all the latest trending tracks on Douyin, and there’s
the fizzing sweetness of the cocktail on my tongue, the warmth of bodies moving next to mine, the cool sweat beading over
my forehead, and I’m wonderfully aware of myself in this moment. How I look from the outside. I’m eighteen, I’m beautiful,
I’m desirable, I might just be the best thing you’ll find tonight—
Then I see Ares with another girl on the dance floor.
It feels like someone’s poured freezing water over my body. My throat tightens as I watch them together. She’s pretty, but
she doesn’t look like his type. Still, he isn’t pulling away when her hands roam across his chest.
A bitter taste fills my mouth.
I’d suspected that Ares had come here tonight with a specific goal in mind, something related to the vision, but what if he’s actually just here for fun? To dance and hook up with strangers and get drunk off his face?
“Hey.” Some guy my age sidles up to me. Muscular, tanned, handsome in a predictable way. He’s blocking my view of Ares. “Have
we met before?”
I start to tell him no, I’m not interested, but then he steps forward and Ares looks over at just the right time. Our gazes
meet. I can’t clearly see his expression, but all that matters is that he’s looking.
The guy says something into my ear right as the bass drops, something I’m assuming is meant to be seductive but just sounds
like radishes.
“What?” I ask.
He tries again, straining his voice over the music. “Ravishing! You look absolutely ravishing! Like one of those—” He waves
his hands about, his face scrunching in concentration. “Artworks,” he concludes decisively, looking very proud of himself for thinking of it. “Those artworks you might find in one of those . . .
museums!”
“Thank you?”
Encouraged, he plods on with vigor. “And your hair! Your hair is marvelous hair. It’s so very curly and shiny and—”
“Let’s just dance,” I suggest, to spare the both of us, circling my arms around his neck as I move my hips.
It’s only because Ares is watching that I let the stranger kiss me, sloppy in a way that reminds me of how dogs lick their owners’ chins.
I keep my eyes open, my attention sliding right past the boy whose mouth is currently smushed against mine, his lashes fluttering with one-sided pleasure.
My gaze locks with Ares’s across the dance floor.
An electric shock zips up my spine. I deliberately arch my back, encouraging the boy to come closer, which he’s all too happy
to do. I don’t look away from Ares, and it doesn’t matter that we’re dancing yards away from each other, that someone else’s
hands are on my waist. It’s as if we’re the only ones here.
But then Ares seems to spot someone else on the other end of the club. He quickly untangles himself from the girl and begins
to push his way forward, his movements hurried. As I push off my overeager dance partner, I follow the direction of his gaze
and my heart stops.
It’s the man with the scar on his face. My mom’s old classmate.
The man from the vision.
Suddenly I get the strangest feeling of stepping outside my body, of seeing the three of us, me and Ares and the man, all
connected in inexplicable ways, as moving pieces on a timeline. What happens from here, how these pieces fit and clash, will
have unthinkable ripple effects on the future.
But if both Ares and the man are present at the fire in the vision, then the man could be an accomplice of his. Maybe, I realize
with a lurch of horror, tonight is meant to be the night where they plan it out together. I have to stop Ares from reaching him. Need to distract him, somehow—
An idea springs into my mind.
Acting drunk is a subtle, sophisticated art that, like any other art, requires practice and dedication.
It’s difficult to get right. You either risk overdoing it, slurring your words too much and tripping all over the place and completely embarrassing yourself, or not doing it with enough conviction, in which case you might as well not do it at all.
The first time I’d ever gotten drunk, it had been a deliberate choice, just to see what I was like. I’d made sure I was in
a safe, controlled setting—at home, with nobody else around, god forbid I made a fool of myself with any eyewitnesses. I’d
broken out an old bottle of my mom’s pinot grigio from the cabinet, poured too much of it into a Swarovski toasting flute,
plopped onto the couch, and downed it like it was grape soda.
I recorded myself the whole time, and when I sobered up, I played it back, watching it closely like an audition tape for a
dream role.
So I know exactly how to act now, pretending to drink from the little red cups the nightclub waitresses are offering, stumbling
across the dance floor to Ares.
“Hello,” I slur, blocking his way. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Ares’s eyes flicker from me to the man at the back of the club. “I don’t have time to talk—”
“What, you’re leaving already?” I pretend to take another long swig from the cup, even though my lips are pressed tight, allowing
only a thin trickle of wine down my throat. “But I just got here.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” he says, his jaw hard. “Aren’t you already here with someone?”
Right on cue, the guy from earlier finds his way to me. His large hand grips my waist roughly, pulling me to his side. Ares’s
eyes narrow.
“What are you doing?” the guy says. “Let’s keep dancing.”
I blink. Smile at him, even though I want to gag. “Yeah, okay. Let’s dance. I love dancing.”
His hand inches up my rib cage. “You sober?”
“Yeah,” I say, giggling. “Super sober. Super super sober. I have amazing alcohol tolerance. Could have, like, ten of these
cups—” I hold it up like it’s a trophy. “Ten of these, and not feel a thing!”
The guy’s eyes gleam. “Okay, good—”
“Dude, she clearly isn’t sober,” Ares snaps.
“She just said that she is,” the guy says. His hand is still moving over my body, and beneath my performance, I feel the first
prickling of fear, the urge to slap his hot, heavy hand away. When his fingers slide even higher up my waist, I stiffen, fighting
to keep the fear from my face.
Ares’s eyes whip from my expression, then darken as they focus on where this man has grabbed me.
In a flash, Ares seizes the guy’s wrist, yanking it away from me, and shoves him back so far that he almost crashes into the
people dancing behind him.
I stare, stunned, my heart beating too fast. I feel for a moment actually drunk, like everything is tilting upside down and
spinning away from me, out of control, like maybe this isn’t real. Because my impulse is to go to Ares. Stay close to him.
Turn to him for safety, when I should know for a fact that he’s the most dangerous person in this club, in this whole city,
even.
“What the fuck, man?” the guy yelps. But maybe he sees the threat blazing in Ares’s face, because he doesn’t try to approach
me again. Just shoots Ares a glare and slinks off into the crowd.
Ares whirls back to face me, and I try to adjust my expression, to affect nonchalance. “Is this how you always act when you’re out?”
I shrug. “Thought you said it has nothing to do with you.”
He releases a low breath. Searches over my shoulder, his features tight with concentration, his brows furrowed. “Where is
he?” he mutters.
“Isn’t it such a coincidence that we’re both here,” I say cheerily, pulling his attention back to me, just in case the man he’s looking for
hasn’t gone far enough away yet.
“Is it really a coincidence?” Ares asks.
“What do you mean?”
Smooth as shadow, he surges forward, trapping me in place. My body is suddenly frozen, my breaths constricted. “You know,
Chanel, I’m starting to think you want something from me,” he says, his voice like silk, the warmth of it bare inches from
my cheek, everything about this moment terrible and forbidden and obscene.
“I—” The word rises and dies on my tongue.
I’d promised myself this wouldn’t happen. I’d been determined not to let him affect me.
But no amount of self-awareness or self-control could possibly protect me from Ares’s proximity: his face, lovely and hypnotic,