Broken Pasts(20)

“Grow-down?” I asked.

“Yeah, grow-down. You know how people are always telling everyone around them to grow-up? Well, f*ck them. Grow-down a little. Have some fun. You've been through way too much shit in your life, Theresa. Drink the drink, dance with me, and don't care that anybody's looking. You owe yourself that.” I stared at her and picked up the shot glass, lifted it to my lips and drank.

***

Sometime later (I don't know how long because I was slightly intoxicated), the girls and I stumbled out of the club in a giggling, sweaty heap, melding into the throng of twenty-somethings like we belonged there. We made our way down the street, heels clutched in our hands and the world at our fingertips. It felt good.

“This is fun,” I told the blonde woman in the neon green dress. She was at least ten years older than me and her outfit had half as much fabric. For a brief moment, I was envious. She was actually managing to pull it off.

“I told you,” Jamie said as we crossed the street without looking. Didn't matter anyway. There was a throng of people around us, enjoying the night and the street signs that glimmered like some kind of dystopian skyline, winking color from every window, every awning. “You need to get out more.”

“Let's go see a movie,” one of the other women said. “The new one with that skinny bitch in the leather, the one that fights fairies.”

“The Creature Killer?” I asked with a laugh and a hiccup.

“Yeah,” she said as I blinked at her and struggled to remember her name. Mina? Mira? Mya? “That chick is totally hot.”

“Oh my god,” Jamie drawled as we stumbled towards the movie theater. “You like girls?”

“God yes,” Mina-Mira-Mya said. “Don't you?” The group burst into spontaneous laughter that I found myself surprised to be a part of. I was one part ecstatic and one part ashamed. I'm stumbling down the street drunk. With no shoes. I'm thirty-two years old. What the hell is wrong with me?

I didn't care.

“Pit stop,” one of the women called out. “Pit stop! Just before the theater! I need another drink if I'm going to stay buzzed for the movie.”

“How about this one?” Mina-Mira-Mya asked as she pointed at a massive line beside the brown building next to us. The people in line looked like Gods, beautiful, chiseled, perfect. No way we were getting in anytime soon. Still, I was in no shape to argue. I stumbled after my friends and paused at the velvet ropes feeling like an extra in a movie. Only difference was that the bodyguard was a woman with a face full of piercings instead of a big, bulky man who could probably take on the Hulk.

“Hey there,” Jamie said and without another word, she leaned over and kissed the chick on the lips. I gasped, but the bouncer smiled. Even more so when Jamie pulled down her dress and flashed her … breasts.

“Oh my god!” I exclaimed which got everyone giggling again. “What about Joel?” Nobody was listening to me. The velvet ropes were already being lifted and we were being ushered into a throbbing throng of young people that swept us up and knocked us around with their thrusting hips. At first, I was horrified, but then I found my way over to the bar and downed some kind of blue colored drink that tasted like kiwi. That was it for me. After that, I might as well have been floating in space for all that it mattered. I was grinding and shaking my thing with a boy that I was ashamed to say that I found attractive. At least he had a stamp on his hand telling me he was no younger than twenty-one. It was just enough of a relief that I managed to relax, put my hands on his hips and close my eyes, moving to the music in a way I hadn't thought possible. What about Gary? my mind asked me while I sweated and breathed and lived. It was exhilarating, really, although I had a feeling that this was going to be my last girls' night for a good long while. It was as exhausting as it was exciting, and I already feel myself tiring, dreaming of goose down pillows and fluffy comforters.

And Nathaniel Sutherland.

Oh god.

Those emerald eyes, that chocolate hair, that perfect suit, that wicked smile.

I groaned. Out loud. In the middle of a throng of people. Luckily (or not?) I wasn't alone. People were shouting and moaning all around me, signing song lyrics I didn't know, making out with partners they didn't know. I pushed away from my boy toy and stepped back, right into a girl with a sequined dress and then turned and made a beeline for the bathroom. When I got there, I skipped right past the line and stumbled over to a sink, splashed cold water on my face and tried to breathe. My head was spinning like crazy and I was having a hard time keeping my thoughts straight. Not that that was a bad thing. Sometimes my thoughts were my own worst enemy. Still, I had to keep some wits about me before I started having wet dreams on the dance floor and ended up bumping into Gary.

I looked up into the mirror and found that my carefully coiffed do had come undone. Dark tendrils were dripping down the sides of my face, teasing my shoulders and kissing the line of cleavage above my dark dress. My lipstick was smeared just a bit on my chin and my eyeshadow had bleed down my cheeks just enough that I looked like a burglar instead of a girl on the town. I cleaned up as best I could and stumbled back out of the bathroom and over to the bar.

“Water, please,” I said as I watched the bartender's brows raise. Apparently that was an odd request this side of town.

“What are you doing?” Jamie asked as she found me a few minutes later, nursing some sparkling water, no ice, no straw, no umbrella. I glared at the bartender's back. “You're missing out! There's an informal dance competition going on near the entrance.”

“No thanks,” I told her as I cupped my glass with shaking hands and closed my eyes against the dull beat of the bass. “I think I need to take a time out.”

“Why?” Jamie asked as if she thought I was crazy. “Aren't you having fun?”

“I am, I just … ” Nathaniel's handsome face flashed in my mind for a moment. His sexy lips were turned down at the corners, and his eyes were sad. “I just can't lose myself, not completely. Remember, I've got a stalker on my tail and I told my bodyguards to take a night off. Besides, I'm drunk enough as it is. What more do you want from me?” Jamie shook her head and held out her hand for mine.

“I want Theresa McMaster to be happy.”

“But – ” I wanted to protest, to tell her that I was fine, but was I? My heart thumped in my chest as I stared into my friend's eyes and found that the music was falling away around me, leaving room for my thoughts and a niggling, little voice that told me I was most certainly not. But why? What was holding me back? Me? I kind of knew in the back of my mind that I was three shots and two mixed drinks away from blacking out, that now wasn't really the moment to analyze my life, but that's not how revelations work. They come when you least expect them, when you don't want them, when you're doing anything and everything in your power to get away from them. “Me, too,” I said simply. Jamie smiled and pulled me off the stool and into the mass of people, into the pulsing heartbeat of the club where hopes and dreams were out on everyone's sleeves, bared for the world to see. Or maybe that was the alcohol talking. Either way, I let myself melt into them once again. I danced and I smiled and I laughed and then, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I whirled around, convinced that the iron grip of the hand belonged to Gary Harper. I had this vague and rather creepy thought about him putting a knife through my ribs before I realized that the hand did not belong to Mr. Harper but rather to Mr. Sutherland.

“Oh?” I said, drunk as hell and confused as all get out. I mean, Nathaniel Sutherland was standing in the club in his dark suit with a sad smile on his face and a look that asked me if I was a crazy person.

“I just got Cedric's message,” he said, and he didn't have to shout to get his voice over the music. Nathaniel just had this strong, assertive tone that cut through everything and pierced me right to the heart. He might as well have said, I am going to kick Cedric's ass tomorrow. That's what it sounded like anyway.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as Jamie stepped up beside me and gawped. Apparently she was as surprised to see him as I was. Nathaniel took off his sunglasses and stuck them in his front pocket. He looked … odd … I couldn't tell if it was because he was the only person within a ten mile radius that was wearing an Armani suit or because he had a space bubble around him that nobody else in the club had managed to obtain. Something about Nathaniel was dangerous and sharp. People sensed that, no matter how intoxicated they were, and they stayed back. Just in case.

“I couldn't, in good conscious, leave a client unprotected,” he said, but those were just words. There was something else in his voice. Fear, I think it was. He was afraid that something was going to happen to me.

“I'm not Gillian,” I said and regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. I hadn't meant them to be rude. I was drunk, so sue me. It was just a fact. I wasn't his wife; I was a client. If I wanted to go out on the town without him or Cedric or whoever else, I had every right to. “Sorry.” Nathaniel smiled and crossed his hands in front of him with a sigh.