Chapter 2 #2
“You and I both know I could take this bartender home if I wanted to.”
“So do it,” he challenges.
I snort. “And leave you to enjoy the VIP table I got for us all on your own? Get real. Maybe at the end of the night.”
“Hey, guys,” the bartender in question greets cheerfully, making Finn waggle his eyebrows and me sigh. “What can I get for you?”
“I’ll take a rum and Coke and something called a cosmopolitan.
” I gesture toward Finn, and he shakes his head at my “off switch,” as he calls it.
Once I get what I want out of certain women, I dip.
She came to wait on us. I placed my order.
That’s all I needed, really, since I don’t have the time or energy to hang on her periphery until closing just to take her home.
“You order your shit, dude. I gotta take a quick piss, but I’ll be back to help you carry. ”
The bartender’s smile deflates considerably at both my cold shoulder and my secondary, very obviously girlie drink, but I bump Finn on the shoulder and beat feet anyway. It’s not my job to cushion the blow of reality for everyone I come into contact with. Fuck me, that’d be tiring.
I make quick work of the bathroom and flirt harmlessly with a few dancing ladies on the way back to Finn, and then we carry our drinks to our booth. Finn’s eyes are both shrewd and disgusted, and honestly, I take that as the highest compliment.
Dudes like Finn are simple. They’re biological. They’re the type that imprint like fucking werewolves and then roar at anything that comes within five feet of their woman. I’m more complex—universally attuned. I use what I’m given and move with the tide, you know?
I pass Julia’s drink to her and set mine on the table, before making her scoot to give me room. She laughs as I continue to shove at her until she’s crowded into the back, and then she punches me in the shoulder to make me quit.
“God, you’re such an ogre, Acer,” she huffs, but she also laughs.
I wink at her and look out at the club before us.
“Gah, this feels so good!” I exclaim, rubbing my hands together.
Red velvet ropes are stretched out in front of us to block off the steps to the dance floor, effectively keeping us out of the hustle and bustle.
This is our first real group outing since the tumultuous end to last semester, and I figured paying for VIP would hedge our bets for a fantastic fucking time.
Plus, my dad left behind a credit card for “emergencies” while they’re away in the Bahamas with my brother, and showing Scottie a good time after all she’s been through is of the highest urgency.
Our good friend Scottie wasn’t always in a wheelchair. When we all started Dickson at the beginning of freshman year, she was a star athlete on the prestigious Dragons’ cheerleading squad. To say life handed her a bag of shit a few months ago would be putting it mildly.
“The gang is back together!”
“Four friends walk into a bar…” Scottie adds, sipping the drink Finn and I just delivered through a tiny black cocktail straw. I pick up my own rum and Coke to do the same. “And then one more rolls in.”
Blake stutters, Julia squeaks, and I dump the liquid from my drink right back into my glass to keep from spewing it everywhere as my eyes shoot to Finn. Jokes about paralysis are touchy—even if you’re the one without use of your legs.
Finn guffaws, devolving into hysterics rarely seen from the straight-faced friend of mine, and I do my best to lean in to the awkwardness. If I’m anything, it’s wildly inappropriate and bold when everyone else is timid.
“Oh, come on,” Scottie says, reaching over to shove Blake in the shoulder. “Lighten up and take the joke. Please. For the love of God. I need everyone to be normal.”
She’s not completely off base in assuming we’ve been uptight, but I don’t know why she’d think it’s because of her. Her boyfriend’s main hobby is carrying a stick in his ass.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s had reason, but I’ve been surgically removing the damn thing all year long. Scottie in a wheelchair is nothing in the buzzkill department compared to Finn’s proclivity for wanting to kill everyone.
“You’re right,” Blake agrees. “Sorry, Scottie. I’ll lighten up.”
“Thank God.” She sighs dramatically. “I was starting to worry that pod people had invaded your bodies and turned your likable, playful personality into a typical jock.”
“Ouch.” Blake laughs. “Low blow on the sports, babe.”
She wags a finger. “You remember who I used to date. Other than you, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for muscle-bound lovers of pigskin.”
“That’s because Dane was a douche burger,” Blake remarks before Finn can stand up and flip the table for old times’ sake.
I swear, my buddy Finn Hayes has been hard at work beating the shit out of that kid Scottie was dating when we first arrived at Dickson last August for going on eleven months now.
I’m glad Dane the Douche finally got kicked off campus for good since I missed the opportunity to invest in stock for that New-Skin shit you put on torn-up hands—and for Finn’s and Scottie’s sakes, of course, since he was a tormenting asshole. “It had nothing to do with football.”
Finn nods and winks at Blake. “I shoulda killed that kid.”
Yep. So close to the table-flipping.
I reach around Julia and pat Finn on the chest. “No, no. You got in enough trouble with that tool as it is. No need to spend life in prison, buddy.”
“You would’ve gotten me out, Acer. Just last week, you told me your dad has a separate lawyer on retainer for whatever trouble Gunnar gets into,” Finn says confidently, drinking from his glass of ice and brown liquid, his handsome, edgy fucking eyes running roughshod all over my sensibilities.
He’s right. I’d do anything for him, even when he’s grumbly.
We have a bond, a kismet, a wholly symbiotic, fated-but-platonic love story.
“Just when you think a guy likes you for you…” I joke. “You find out he’s only with you for what you put out.”
Blake rolls his eyes and laughs.
“What are you drinking, Scottie?” Julia asks cheerfully from beside me.
“It’s…oh… Well, it’s a virgin Dirty Shirley,” Scottie admits. “I’m still not big on alcohol.”
“What?” I ask, shocked. “Finn told me virgin was just part of the name. You’re not drinking?”
“Neither am I,” Finn admits softly, putting his glass to his lips. “This is just soda.”
“What!” I exclaim, my arm flying out to the side as I inspect the traitor’s glass a little more carefully.
“I’m not drinking either,” Julia says then, nodding toward her untouched cosmopolitan and grabbing my forearm. She looks up at me through her long-as-fuck lashes as she rubs a hand over her stomach. “I can’t.”
I don’t know what the fuck she’s doing or if she’s gassy or something, but when she keeps rubbing at her stomach, my own pitches to the side. She’s not saying she’s baking a fucking kid, is she? Surely I’m fucking mishearing things because of some earwax-buildup bullshit.
My dad had earwax buildup five years ago, and it drove my mom fucking nuts.
He couldn’t hear for shit. Well, it’s either that or he lied about the whole thing and spent two months acting like he couldn’t hear anything my mom was telling him.
Truthfully, knowing my prank-loving father, it could go either way.
“You’re…you’re pregnant?” Scottie asks, her voice jilted. Immediately, my hopes of clogged ears are dashed, and a red mist vaporizes my lungs.
What…the…fuck. Last I checked, housing a kid in your uterus requires a cock and balls or a turkey baster, and the idea of either one in Julia’s tunnel is making me feel like cosplaying my good buddy Finnley for a little while.
Murder. Mayhem. Lots and lots of bleeding bodies.
“Jules…”
She purses her lips and then licks them dramatically. “Yes. I’m…”
“Who the hell’s baby is it?” I scream, the question bursting from my lungs like a Jack jumping from his box.
This is…unbelievable. Inconceivable. Just…
not possible. Julia Brooks has been my best friend my entire life.
We’ve grown up together, leaned on each other, been the one thing we could count on for as long as I can remember.
She’s beautiful and smart and…way too fucking single to be pregnant. I’d know if some fucker slipped her the greasy knob. I’d know.
Right?
Right??
“Ace—” Julia starts, but I can’t fucking breathe. This VIP booth is suddenly the size of an anthill, and I am King Kong. I need space. I need air. I need answers.
“Whose is it, Julia? Because I’ll fucking kill him myself.”
Scottie leans toward Blake, but I barely hear her as she asks. “Is it just me, or has this night had a lot of talk of killing?”
My eyes are too clogged, my vision too red.
“Who, Jules? Tell me who. I swear to fucking everything, I will strangle whatever motherfucker—”
“Oh my God, Acer, relax!” Julia snaps, finally breaking character and sucking in her stomach. “I’m just kidding! I’m not pregnant!”
“You’re not?” My whole body shakes, sweat beading on my forehead and forcing me to wipe at it. “You’re not pregnant?”
Julia rolls her eyes like she didn’t just scramble my insides like motherfucking eggs. Hell, with the way I’m feeling, I’m certain she added an entire bottle of hot sauce on those fuckers.
“Of course I’m not freaking pregnant, Ace,” she responds through an oblivious snort. “I’m on birth control.”
Fucking birth control. Birth control.
Of course, Ace. I’m still sleeping with all these no-good fucks, but I’m protected.
I know Julia isn’t a virgin—I was there for the aftermath of senior prom and Tommy Gerkin’s little dick—but fuck me, she’s not a sleep-around type of girl.
She’s not even a date-around or hookup kind of girl, and the mere idea of her having sex with rando college dudes makes me want to puke.
Or break shit. Maybe both. I tug at the collar of my shirt.
It’s hot, and I can’t swallow. For some reason, my tongue won’t allow it.