Chapter 7 #2
“I don’t—” Dez can’t find the words. She doesn’t know if she’s impressed or disturbed by this woman, but as Rafe holds her gaze and Esmeralda writhes in her periphery, Dez can’t deny that she’s turned on.
But her arousal isn’t clean and simple—it rarely is.
There’s something shameful to the feeling, like she shouldn’t be having it, not here, not tonight. And it turns her on a little more.
“And to think,” Rafe speaks when she doesn’t, “you were in the bathroom on the jet worrying about other people judging you.”
“I’m not judging,” Dez tries to insist. But is she?
“Sure, but you’d never be able to get up there and do that,” Rafe says, nodding in Esmeralda’s direction, her legs now locked around a laughing man’s waist. “Or will you prove me entirely wrong?”
Dez narrows her eyes at him. He’s so patronizing, so stupidly handsome. The way he’s talking to her, and the way Esmeralda singled her out in front of the whole bar, it’s humiliating. She doesn’t want to be here anymore. In fact, she never did.
“How do I get to the dorms?”
“You promised you’d stay for a drink.”
“I overestimated how much time I could spend with you before wanting to break something.”
His eyes widen, sparkle a little. “Your residence hall, the Towers, are just down the mountain.” He points toward the bar’s front door. “Can’t miss ’em.”
“And I’m …”
“Room 321. Hate to see you go. Probably won’t watch you leave in those pants.”
“Whatever. Thanks for the ride.” She pushes past Rafe, past Esmeralda’s table, out through the front door onto a frozen, empty porch.
She hisses at the cold, but at least her cheeks are hot from mortification.
She looks for a path, a trail, or at least a sign that will point her down to the heart of campus.
Room 321. A bed where she can close her eyes and try to become okay before tomorrow.
But there is no path, only a broad blanket of snow. Dez doesn’t even see any footprints leading up to the bar. She stares bewildered, into darkened whiteness, until a creaking sound draws her attention to the far side of the porch. She walks over and soon makes out an old decrepit ski lift.
It’s running. Whining and groaning as bare metal benches whip around the metal tower at a frightening speed.
The lift seems to lead down the mountain, which must be where the Towers are.
But Dez has never been on a ski lift, has no idea how to board.
And when she approaches the ledge she thinks one would have to stand on to catch a ride, just beyond it is the sheerest drop off a cliff whose bottom she can’t see.
She sways with vertigo and staggers back toward the entrance of the bar, coatless, shivering, and wearing a pelt of quickly melting snow.
Frustrated tears sting her eyes. She’s so tired.
So lost. So cold. She isn’t dressed to be out in this weather for longer than a second.
She takes out her phone. Still no service.
She paces the porch, pissed off at everything, especially herself.
“What am I doing?” she mutters, wrenching snow out of her shoes. “What is wrong with me?”
“Will … you … please,” a female voice pants from a shadowy corner of the porch, “shut … the fuck … up?”
Dez turns around, startled. She hadn’t realized she’d been speaking aloud. “Me?”
She squints into the darkness where she barely discerns two shifting shapes in the dark. Pressed against the railing like they’re … Oh, they’re fucking.
“Yeah, you, in the Burger King uniform,” the woman says, still out of breath. “You’re distracting Felipe, and when Felipe gets distracted, I can actually feel his dick shrivel up inside me. Do you think I like that, Burger King?”
“I’m guessing no,” Dez says. “And it’s Dairy Barn, not Burger King.”
“How about guessing your way off this porch?” the woman says. “Shit, I was this close. It’s not your fault, baby.”
Dez hears something that sounds like a spanking; then the woman’s voice sharpens into a shape.
She’s beguiling, a little bit younger than Dez, petite with dark skin and a high, dyed blond ponytail.
A veneer of wealth sparkles through her balayage, her microbladed brows, the rows of pavé diamond hoops running up the lengths of her ears.
She steps toward Dez, tugging a crushed red velvet dress down her slender hips.
Behind her, a Latin male model’s muscled shoulders ripple as he zips his pants. He looks Dez up and down.
“What’s that smell?” he says, handsome face pinching.
“Trans fat and desperation,” the woman in red velvet says. “The Dairy Barn.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Dez says. “I’m just looking for—”
“The first bus home? Good idea.” The woman lights a cigarette. “Name?”
“It’s Dez. Desdemona Rae. I just got here, and—”
“Fuck.” The woman closes her eyes. She takes a long, deep drag, holding it in her lungs an inconceivably long time. It seems like she’s trying not to lose her shit.
“What?” Dez says.
“You don’t make a great first impression. Did you know that? Now, go inside and leave us alone.”
“I just want to get down to the—”
“If you’re going to stay here yapping,” the man says, stepping toward her, “at least join us.” He holds out a huge meaty hand, as if Dez might take one step closer and just start fucking them both.
And that she takes as her cue to go. Her hand finds the bar’s front door. She needs that drink after all. Then she’ll make Rafe show her how to get down to campus and stay far away from these two.
She swings open the bar door—and steps right into Rafe’s arms.
“There she is.” He nods, closing the door behind her and giving her waist a squeeze. It’s been such a long and embarrassing five minutes that when he holds out a highball glass brimming with a pale green concoction, she almost tears up.
“Here’s your drink,” he says, then turns toward a woman in a gray hoodie with two strawberry-blond braids extending from beneath a black ski cap. “And here is the dullest new student I could find. Someone you won’t be so offended by.”
“You’re an asshole,” Dez says.
Rafe ignores her, turning to the woman. “What did you say your name was, honey?”
“Alice Quinn,” the girl says so softly Dez and Rafe both have to lean in to hear her.
“Dez, Alice, Alice, Dez,” Rafe says as Dez takes a sip of her drink. “Well, now that that’s done, I’m going to find some less suicidally depressing company. Excuse me.”
He slides over to the banquette where Esmeralda squeals, throwing her arms and legs around him.
Dez can’t help watching Rafe become absorbed by the crew at the banquette table.
He looks so entirely comfortable in all that gorgeous company, in the mostly naked woman’s embrace.
Envy courses through Dez. She isn’t sure at first who she envies more—Esmeralda with her long, oiled limbs splayed over Rafe, or Rafe for how easy life and pleasure seems to be for him.
And in her confusion, Dez drinks. She drinks the whole strange cocktail down, not realizing until the last sip that it’s the most unusual drink she’s ever tasted—crisp and bright like sage and sunlight—and the most intoxicating.
By the time she turns to Alice with a fuck-the-bastards shrug, her head is … swimming. Pleasantly, but still, should she have paced herself?
Or should she and Alice get another drink right now? Probably that.
She looks toward the bar. When was the last time she had anything to eat? What was in that cocktail that made it so delicious?
“Do I look as deer-in-the-headlights as you look right now?” Alice asks, her own wine unsipped.
“You do.” Dez nods but soon she has to stop because there seem to be two Alices.
“What should we do about it?” Alice asks.
Dez puts her hand on Alice’s shoulder and steers her toward the bar. “Let’s get another drink.”