“Vale Westerly would die right about now, don’t you think?” She waggles her eyebrows at me and the cloud of black curls around her head wiggle too.
“No. I don’t think.” I smack my lips together. I didn’t think. I mean I may have thought about it when I was younger. Changing my hair to red in order to draw his attention. Because that’s what teenagers with a crush on a boy do when they haven’t worked out who they are yet. But tonight when I was getting ready, all I was thinking was that girls just wanna have fun. Besides, Vale Westerly is two thousand odd miles away. He’s never going to see me this way.
Or anyway but as his friend’s kid sister. I know this much is true.
“I’m just saying if he was here he would be all over that.” She takes my lipstick and glosses her own pout.
“I never understood it.” I rest my hip against the counter while I wait for her to finish. A girl behind me jostles me, trying to jockey herself closer to the mirrors. “I get that most people are biologically attracted to a certain look, or pheromone, or feature and that makes sense from a genetic standpoint. But this isn’t about procreation. This is either obsession or avoidance. I don’t know which one.”
“Okay, smarty pants. Enough with the big words, and the scientific dissection of the dill pickle.” She hands me back my lipstick. “It’s time to put him behind you. Move on.”
“I don’t know how to,” I admit. “I thought I was over him. I thought after I dated Jeremy in college that I clearly wasn’t still stuck on him. If I could date and lose my virginity to someone else then it had to be just a silly little crush, right? I convinced myself.”
“That’s called self-preservation, Lilly Pilly. Perhaps even common sense. There was no point pining over him then. There is no point now.”
“I know that.” I sigh. The whole thing gives me heartburn.
I’m jostled again by another girl, trying to push her way closer to the mirrors. “Excuse me.”
“Sorry.” I give Kiki a wide eyed woops look. Grabbing her hand, I dash out of the bathroom and into the main bar.
It’s toe to toe packed. People in power suits and shoulder pads and neon tutus are everywhere. Girls in high cut leotards and leg warmers dance on the ends of the stage where a DJ is mixing. Whitney Houston is singing about wanting to dance with somebody.
We snake our way through the crowd to the closest bar. It’s lit up with neon lights, and two shirtless bartenders are throwing bottles around à la Cocktail. A movie Hud only made me watch twenty or so times while he learned to juggle bottles of spirits in our grandparents’ lounge room.
“This is better than Line ‘Em Up at home.” Kiki squeezes my hand. “The guys are hot and strangers. If I wasn’t in love with Dal. You know what? You’re going to have to flirt with them for me.”
I could. It would be fun. Purely from the standpoint that there’s no one here to tell me to behave myself or treat me like I’m a kid who will get herself into trouble at any moment without some big strong man to keep an eye on me. Like Vale did with that guy at the end of the bar that last night I saw him. I should have been mad at him, but I wasn’t, because I thought… I don’t know what I thought. That maybe I wasn’t all alone in my emotions. He was so jumpy and off-kilter.
“I don’t know how to get over him, Keeks. I want to. What is wrong with me that I still look at him and my lady biscuit weeps tears of joy at how gorgeous and sexy he is?”
“Your lady biscuit,” she spits the word out as though she’s grossed out, “is weeping because it hasn’t been touched in four years. It has nothing to do with that particular dill pickle.”
“I touch myself regularly,” I argue. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“Mmhmm.” She moves closer to the bar as the bartender makes his way toward us. “But do you know where your clitoris is? Because, girl, you are uptight.”
“Of course I do,” I scoff. I can get myself off. Does she think I would have survived being single this long if I couldn’t reach the holy land of the orgasm on my own? What I feel for Vale isn’t just attraction or sexual frustration. If it was that would make life a helluva lot easier.
“Perhaps you should let someone else look for it anyway.” She nudges me in the ribs as the bartender finally reaches us.
He asks us what we want with a small smirk and a long gaze that takes me in from the top of my teased hair to the point where the glossy wooden surface blocks his view.
Kiki grins at me slyly while I order Panty Droppers and tequila with lemon and salt. Only one shot each since I’m meeting the Cap soon.
“You should get under someone new,” she tells me as close to my ear as possible in the lowest voice she can manage in this overly loud venue. “Him for instance. He’s super-hot. Those arms…”
“They’re pretty spectacular.” Biceps for days. Pretty ink runs over the smooth surfaces. But they’re not as pretty as Vale’s roses. They don’t make my mouth water or my brain replay the fantasy of having them wrapped around me.
“He’d be a great dickstraction,” she says.
I shake my head. That’s not me. Besides the guy works for my brother’s friends. I might be able to have fun here, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if I tried to hook up with one of the bartenders Hud would find out. It wouldn’t surprise me if everyone who works for the Line ‘Em Up brand doesn’t know to keep an eye out for Hudson Kelly’s little sister. “I tried that and now I have a new friend I’m meeting tonight. I’m just going to stick with the plan. Wait out the awkwardness with Vale and concentrate on my career.”
“Are you sure?” she asks as the bartender places our drinks in front of us. The usual mandatory condom is attached to the bottom of the glass, because my Line ‘Em Up boys are nothing if not thoughtful and have carried on the tradition in every venue.
The bartender’s eyes are the darkest shade of hazel I’ve ever seen. Orange and green flecks turn them amber. As he adds our tequila shots and salt and lemon, he gives me that look, like he knows we’re talking about him and he doesn’t mind at all.
He maintains contact longer than is necessary when I hand him my card so he can charge it. Normally, I’d pay cash, but I want to see if he reacts. He double checks the name on the card twice as he rings me up. Glances at me for a second and then nods. I can visibly see him internally distancing himself in the way he angles his body away from me.
“That is one of the many reasons I can’t,” I tell Kiki. The funny thing is my brother is a freaking teeny bopping girl. He’s not scary. He’s a little crazy when he wants to be. While I blurt out my thoughts, he runs with his ideas and some of those ideas should never make it free from the synapse on which it was firing. But he’s hardly terrifying enough to cause grown men to back the truck up and leave me alone.
“I want to have a drink and a dance before the Cap gets here.” Because whether I like it or not, I’m nervous about meeting him and I need to burn off some of the energy that is making me practically bounce out of my skin. I lick the back of my hand and lay down a line of salt before handing the shaker to Kiki.