Chapter 51 Sloane
Sloane
“Who Wants Tequila, Assholes?”
Since Alaska invited me to this thing, I’ve been imagining a gaggle of women reluctantly beautifying each other like sad geishas, so that a horde of unwashed men can take their fill of them.
The scene that greets me inside the girls’ building is about as far from that as you can get. It’s more like a sorority party.
“Shots! Shots! Shots!” A group of girls is gathered around a marble island in a very expensive-looking kitchen, clapping like idiots as a brunette girl with her hair in rollers free-pours Patron into shot glasses like her other job is bartender at Coyote fucking Ugly.
“Who’s got the lime?” she shouts, casting heavily mascaraed eyes around the group. She sees me—I know she does—but her gaze passes straight over me like I don’t exist. “C’mon, girls. Line ’em up! Line ’em up!”
The girls—there are seven of them—lick salt from their wrists, down the shots, pinch wedges of lime into their mouths, then start giggling all over again.
“So you decided to grace us with your presence after all, then?” The cool voice comes from behind me: Alaska.
She stalks into the room with a glass of red wine carelessly cupped in her hand.
She’s wearing more clothes than the other girls—a tight black dress that barely covers her ass and shows off an awful lot of cleavage.
The other women are all in booty shorts and tanks, like they’re having a freaking sleepover.
So far, none of them have turned out to be my sister.
“Yeah, well, you said to come, right?” I’ve never felt so out of place. The girl who poured the shots may have ignored me a moment ago, but it seems Alaska’s presence has electrified the group, and now everyone is suddenly interested in the stranger who’s invading their space.
Alaska sniffs, looking down her nose at my jeans and T-shirt as she sips delicately from her wine. “I did. But then, I assumed you’d be too busy with Zee to grace us with your presence.”
Seven pairs of ears perk up at this comment. One girl—a short blonde with innocent blue eyes and not-so-innocent fake tits—squeaks like a mouse. She hurries over, clasping her hands and bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Did you just say Zee? Like, as in Zeth?”
She looks starstruck. Like the grumpy bastard who stormed out on me earlier is some kind of rock god whom she’ll do anything, just anything, to meet.
Alaska raises narrow eyebrows in a bored fashion.
She takes another sip of her red. “Yes. Like, as in Zeth.” She mimics the girls broad Cali accent, but the blonde is too excited to notice.
Alaska doesn’t seem impressed by Zeth’s presence at all. The other girls all exchange excited glances, though. One of them even grabs hold of another girl’s arm, apparently unable to contain herself.
What. The. Hell?
A cold realization washes through me, chilling me to the bone.
Oh, God. He’s been here before. He and Jacob know each other well.
I showed up halfway through one of Zeth’s own “events.” How did I not consider this?
He’s probably slept with some of the girls here.
Hell, he could have slept with all of them.
As reactions go, I’m not proud of the way I handle this thought. Once the dizziness and the mouth sweats calm down and I know I’m not going to throw up, I smile weakly at the blond woman who’s just spoken to me.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I asked if he’s coming here tonight? I want to get a look at him. Georgia says he’s fucking massive!”
“Uh…”
Another girl with brunette ringlets steps into the conversation. “I heard that he’s got gnarly face tattoos. Is that true?”
I inch backward, trying to put a little space between me and the other women. They’re approaching as a pack now. A hungry one. “No, why the hell would he have—”
“And what about his dick? You came here with him, right? You’re his girl. You must have seen it. How big is he? I heard he fucked a girl so hard that he put her in the hospital. Split her right open or something.”
“No, dude. That was Rebel.” The girl with the rollers joins the debate, correcting the other girl’s wild statement. “Zeth’s the one who let that homeless girl move in with him, remember? Benji told us.”
The bouncy blonde widens her eyes at me. “Ooooh, you were homeless? What was that like?”
“Uh, I wasn’t ho—”
“But you do live with him, right?”
Alaska casually puts her wineglass down and clears her throat.
All talking in the room ceases. With a dismissive clap of her hands, she takes control of matters.
“Naomi wasn’t homeless. She does not live with Zeth.
Zeth is massive. His dick is pretty fucking big, but not the biggest dick in the world.
And now it’s time for you all to shut the hell up.
” She looks sideways at me through partially narrowed eyes, not even trying to hide her displeasure.
“Regardless of what you have heard about Zee, he’s brought Naomi here as his partner, not as his blind. ”
A chorus of unhappy gasps go around the room. They all seem horrified by this information, and I’m standing here gaping like an idiot because I don’t even know what it means. “His blind?”
Alaska rolls her eyes. “Like in poker. In order to play, you have to bring something to the table. You have to buy your way into the game with a bet. A blind. We’re all blinds here, sweetheart.
We get passed around like delicious little canapés so our masters can enjoy the gifts brought along by the other guests. ”
“But… I’m Zeth’s partner, so I won’t be passed around?”
The girls hear the anxious note in my voice, and they don’t take it well.
“Trust me, honey. You’re the one who’s losing out,” Rollers says.
“We make ten grand a pop on a night like tomorrow. What do you get? Five hundred if you’re lucky.
I bet Zeth Mayfair’s not dropping serious coin on one skinny bitch. ”
“Zeth isn’t paying me anything.”
That stuns them all into silence. They look at each other, engaging in a silent conversation that I’m not party to.
Alaska shoots me a smug smile, collecting her glass again and tipping it in my direction.
“And didn’t I tell you not to be an asshole to them?
” She laughs at this, and then turns and leaves, singing under her breath.
It takes forever for the girls to get over the idea that I’m not a sex worker.
It takes even longer for them to forgive me for my disgusted tone when I’d told them that Zeth didn’t pay me for my services.
It’s only after the tequila starts flowing again that I convince any of them to talk to me, and that’s only by participating in three generously poured shots and whooping like a moron whenever they do.
I skipped this part of college for a reason.
I’m no good at being a girlie girl, and it shows.
It makes other girls nervous. Especially ones who paint each other’s toenails and squeeze each other’s boobs to check out their “work.” Rollers, whose real name is Dani, gets a good handful of mine before I realize what the hell is going on.
“Hmm. Real, huh? They’re nice. Good size. Not too small, although your silhouette would look much better if you went up a couple sizes.”
“Yeah, I didn’t look right in my clothes before I got these,” Sara, the girl who asked about Zeth first, says, cupping her giant double Fs.
They’re the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen.
I’m half tempted to tell her that she probably wasn’t dressing for her body type, but I bite my tongue.
That wouldn’t go down well. And besides, I’m not here to talk about plastic surgery or how to dress. I’m here to find out where Alexis is.
The grooming part of the night begins after the fourth shot of tequila.
Cosmetic kits come out, as big as workmen’s tool kits and just as heavy, and the girls begin to fuss over each other, giving advice on skin care and practicing the makeup they plan on wearing tomorrow night.
The event has been a secondary consideration, tucked away at the back of my mind, but now it comes roaring to the forefront.
An event. Like the one Zeth held. But this time, there won’t be any dark rooms to hide in.
I’m going to have to participate, out in the open…
and I’m going to have to make it look convincing, for both my and Zeth’s sakes.
Future Sloane can worry about that, though. I have to focus on the task at hand. I start with general questions, waiting for an in to discuss other matters.
“So, is it just you guys who live here? The place seems really big for just seven of you.”
“Oh no, there’s usually ten of us altogether,” Sara says.
“Kady’s gone into the city to get a nose job.
Jacob paid for that. Can you believe it?
He said it was putting people off and no one was gonna fuck her if she had a hooked old-man nose.
He shelled out for the whole thing. The surgeon.
The hotel. Expenses. Everything.” She sounds jealous.
I’m getting the feeling Sara had to fund her boob job personally.
“Anyway, one of the other girls, Chloe, went with her to keep her company. And Sophia’s the other girl.
She’s gone to meet with one of the groups of guys who are coming here tomorrow.
She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, I guess.
Chloe and Kady, too, although Kady won’t be working.
She’s gonna have two black eyes, I bet. Can you imagine how bad she’s—”
Sara keeps talking, talking, talking, not even pausing for breath, and I run through this new information in my mind.
Chloe, Kady, and Sophia. No Alexis. But then again, I know she’s here.
Zeth told me Michael took pictures of her before he got caught, so they must have changed her name or something.
She’s not Kady, that’s for sure. Alexis is even more fine-boned than I am.
No one would ever accuse her of having a hooked old-man nose.
That leaves Chloe and Sophia. My heart sinks when I realize I’m not going to see Alexis until tomorrow night now.
And what if I can’t even speak to her properly then? What if we’re surrounded by people all night long and the opportunity doesn’t present itself ? I’ll just have to make it happen. Come hell or high water, I am getting my sister out of there.