“I know, Damon,” she said, her voice smoky and disarming. “Amber.”
“No way that’s your name,” I said.
Her eyes glowed with mischief. “It is tonight.”
“Alright, Red,” I said. “Give me your best.”
She swirled the contents of her cup and handed it to me. I was game. I downed her drink, discovering that it was whiskey inside. Not bad. I was no stranger to mixing booze, though I didn’t have the palate to appreciate something like this. I was all about the ends, not so much about the means.
The grin on Red’s face matched the guy’s, and it almost filled the hollowness inside my chest. “Good?” she asked, her hand resting on her friend’s shoulder.
I shrugged. “I’m a simple guy.” My gaze went to the friend. He was handsome, pretty eyes and strong jaw, mustache and goatee framing full lips and making me wonder what it felt like to kiss someone with facial hair. It was probably like all kissing, fun for a moment, then irritating.
The drinks shelf was just behind the pair, and they scooted over as a willowy twink stepped up to serve himself. He wore a pink tank top that left little to the imagination, all slender and bony and deviously attractive. He turned with two paper cups in his hands, gaze dragging up my body until he reached my face and recognized me.
“It’s you,” he said.
I nodded. It sure was. “You saw me?”
“Only the locker room scenes,” he said. The lasers made his bleached hair glow in places, dark roots drinking the light beneath. He offered the drinks to the couple. They accepted without thinking. “Do you dance? I’m dying to see it. It’ll settle a bet.”
“A bet?” I asked.
“I bet myself that you’re just as good at dancing as you are a hockey player,” the twink said.
I barked a laugh. “When did you do that?”
“Just now,” he said. “Come on. Prove me right.”
“I was talking to these nice people here,” I said.
Amber tapped my shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere. Give the guy a spin.”
The twink didn’t wait for Amber to finish that sentence. He yanked me toward the dancing crowd, where the sound waves converged and made it nearly twice as loud as it was in the corner.
We had barely stepped into the crowd before I could feel slim fingers exploring the sides of my torso. Let him enjoy it. His hands dragged down to my waist, then lifted up, catching my shirt with them, untucking it, and baring my abs.
I was way too sober for much more than this, but it was just nice to be around people who didn’t care one way or the other. Nobody here cared about anything. Nobody gave a damn about how others saw them. They wanted raw fun, and they would take it. No hearts here would be broken tomorrow. Hardly any of us had a heart.
I sure didn’t.
But that didn’t stop it from sinking when the twink bumped into me and I opened my eyes, looking past his head as it leaned in to inhale the scent of my cologne. My gaze landed right on the round face of a summer from my past life.
I squeezed my eyes shut, clearing my mind. Ghosts. Imagination. He was in Chicago, collecting insects, dissecting creatures, and examining cells under a microscope.
But when I opened my eyes, he was still there, looking, an abyss opening in his dark eyes. The light of the reflector passed over his face again and again, flashing maddeningly fast, and Seth’s lips pressed together into a tight line.
I stood still, no longer breathing, no longer blinking, not even moving. I stared at him as a shadow passed over his cute, round face. The twink with bleached hair noticed something had gone wrong in his little seduction, cackled, and moved on like I was just a support pillar in the structure of the basement, there to occupy the space. He would be fine. We all would. That was what these parties were for. If you got hurt by someone’s rejection here, you were in the wrong place.
So what exactly was Seth doing in this dank, godforsaken basement?
I took a step toward him, thinking he would turn and walk away. As I took another step, he moved, but he moved toward me.
I regretted downing the beer and whiskey as I passed through the crowd of barely clothed bodies, hands moving over me in the ecstasy of dance, drugs, and alcohol. The flashlight grew crazier as the sounds merged into a screech of rising tension, a crescendo that drove the crowd to jump higher, heads held up and eyes closed. They seemed to part before me, carving a way between me and Seth, letting us come near one another.
When he was two feet away from me, we both stopped. My heart thundered as Seth’s mouth relaxed, and the corners of his lips trembled before he cracked a smile. “The devil himself,” he shouted over the music. I read his lips as much as I heard his voice. “I’m not even surprised to find you in this hellhole.”
“I’m surprised to find you,” I said. “What are you doing here?”