Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(75)

More nodding and some cheers. The crowd’s happy, we’re happy. We aren’t the only ones who threw a pre-party. “All right! Let’s do it! Where’s my whistle girl?”

Somehow, Bridget has the whistle. The first row of takers pays their money and gets down on their knees.

“Hands behind your backs!” Bridget yells.

I tuck my fingers into my back pockets, just so I won’t be tempted.

Krishna winks at me.

“Suck them down, girls!” Bridget cries, and blows the whistle.

I dip my head. It’s awkward just getting my head down to the level of the tracks, and I have to open my jaw wide to fit my mouth around the shot glass. Wide enough to make it ache. As I sit up, something flashes in my peripheral vision, a camera or a flashlight or just light gleaming off the tracks.

I see myself from the outside. Head thrown back. Eyes closed. A parody of exploitation.

The shot slides down my throat—Baileys, Kahlúa, whipped cream. Burning and cold at once, foreign and alarming. I stifle my gag reflex. My eyes tear up. It’s impossible not to remember hands in my hair, pulling too hard. Nate’s dick shoved farther down my throat than I wanted it, and this same sensation right at the borderline of gagging.

It’s not funny. It’s not.

But when I swallow and lift my head, nobody’s got their hands on me. I have Quinn on my right. Bridget with her whistle, smiling. Krishna across from me with whipped cream all over the front of his black jacket, wheezing with laughter. “That is f*cking gross,” he says.

“You lose!” Quinn taunts. “Back of the line.”

It’s the strangest thing, because I’m not drunk, and I’m not traumatized, and I’m not crazy.

I’m not a dumb cunt.

I’m not a slut, I’m not frigid, I’m not a disappointment.

I’m just a girl who did a shot off the train tracks, high-fiving her friends, savoring the warmth spreading down her throat and into her stomach.

It’s stupid. But I’m okay. I’m actually kind of happy.

The next couple of shots are guys I don’t know. I get the second one down but choke on the third, and that guy waves off the money when I try to give it back. I let him buy another round even though he’s not supposed to. He chokes and dribbles whitish-yellow fluid all over his chin, which is sufficiently disgusting that we both bust up laughing. “I’m Aaron,” he says, offering me his hand.

I take it. It’s sticky. “Caroline.”

He smiles. “I know.”

I decide what he means is exactly what he said. He knows my name. Nothing worse than that.

“Maybe I’ll see you at the party later,” he tells me when he gets up, damp patches on the knees of his jeans.

Maybe he will.

There’s another guy. After him, the thighs that plunk down in front of me belong to Scott.

Rugby Scott.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

“Fancy seeing you here.”

I laugh at that. Actually, I kind of snort. I’ve had … uh-oh. Some drinks. Five. Or six? They’re not very big. Quinn taught us to make them with a lot of whipped cream and not so much of the hard stuff, because a few years ago one of the ruggers had to go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. We’re supposed to get rotated out every so often, but I’m still fine. I’m better than fine.

“Did you think you wouldn’t see me?”

“Um …” His eyes flick to mine. “Does that question have a right answer?”

“Pay up, people!” Bridget shouts. Scott extends his hand, a ten-dollar bill sticking out between his fingers.

“Where am I supposed to put this?”

I’ve got money sticking out of my pocket, and the twenty plastered to my neck is poking me in my ear. I look heavenward, feigning exasperation. “Anywhere you want, big boy.”

That cracks us both up.

He puts it in my pocket.

I wonder if he’s been drinking, too.

I wonder why he’s here. If he came thinking he’d see me. If he was looking forward to it.

One of the players sets a shot in front of me and plunks another down in front of Scott.

Bridget blows the whistle. “DRINK!”

I open my jaw wide. Put my head down, suck up my shot, knock it back. My eyes don’t sting anymore. My lips are sticky and sweet, my hands cold from being out of my pockets so long. Scott gets his shot down, too, and pulls another ten from his wallet.

“I’m supposed to do this again now?” he asks.

“You’re allowed.”

“Oh, it’s a privilege.”

I beam at him. “It’s definitely a privilege. And it’s for a good cause.”

This time, he tucks the money in my coat. It’s zipped up to my scarf, so when he wraps his fingers around the collar, just for a second, he’s touching a perfectly innocent bit of chest real estate about five inches north of my boobs. And even that through a couple of layers of clothing.

But our eyes meet, and I know what he did, and so does he.

Whistle. “DRINK!”

This one goes down funny. I start to choke, and I have to grip the train track for a second, cold iron through brown leather, sucking air into my nose. In my peripheral vision, I notice a disturbance. Movement. A ripple of aggression.