Four Doors Down(24)



Suddenly Charlie grips my hand and starts pulling me through the crowd, shoving people out of our way and tugging me to move faster. He doesn’t stop until we’ve reached the other side of the bar where it’s marginally quieter and then when he does it’s so sudden that I bang into the back of him. I look up at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong? We were supposed to wait over there for Sam and Chris.”

He smirks down at me and looks around him quickly.

Now I’m confused. Who was that girl? Why was he so eager to get away from the bar? And why is he looking at me like that? “Charlie, who was that girl?”

“Just some girl from my old school.”

“Your old school? So why didn’t you introduce me?”

“Because she’s a nobody. Just some bitchy gossip.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “You were worried about what she’d tell me?”

A slow smirk crosses his face and his eyes flash with amusement. “Becca, she knew me when I was just a pimply little kid, and if she told you all my secrets you might not let me do to you what I want to.”

“What? What do you want to do?” I’m confused and keep getting distracted by the people brushing past me. I glance behind me, trying to spot Sam in the crowd, but before I know what’s happening Charlie grabs my wrist and is pulling me into a hallway that looks like it leads to the bathrooms. Before we reach them, he pulls me down a hallway that leads off from the one we’re in and takes a sharp left and then a right so that we’re facing a dead end with just a fire exit at the end. Just when I think we’re about to go outside, he pushes me up into the corner and when I turn around, he’s stepped in front of me, blocking my view with his body only inches from mine.

My heart starts hammering in my chest, and when I look into his eyes, they’re already boring into mine, a glint of mischief in them. His hand drops down and brushes my bare thigh, just under the hem of the dress I wore especially for him. I hardly ever wear dresses, it’s not usually my style, but I wanted to look good for him, so I pulled on a midnight blue shift dress that skims the top of my thighs and matched it with black high-heeled boots. My breath hitches as his hand brushes the hair out of my face and my eyes dart behind him, looking at the dark hallway behind us.

He drops his head so that it’s level with mine, a small grin on his face, and his lips brush mine. I jerk my head away from him and shake my head slightly. “What if someone walks past?”

He grins at me and glances quickly behind him. There’s no one there, we are pretty sheltered here and unless you wanted to use the fire escape, then it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would come down here. He turns back to me and the look he gives me flips my stomach and I feel myself leaning into him despite my reservations.

“Thanks for the birthday present,” he whispers before covering my mouth with his, and then just like always, nothing else but Charlie matters. I’m totally consumed by him and forget about everything else. Just like always.




I wish I was still in that corner by the fire exit. We made out for a good ten minutes and I was ready to forget about the gig and get out of there, but then we heard over the speakers that The Red Rhinos were starting and Charlie pulled us back out into the main room. Although I tried to stop him and was trying to tug his arm back, he pulled us right into the middle of the crowd, getting practically to the front of the stage. He positioned me so that my back was up against his chest and although that was okay at first, making me feel semi-comfortable, the crowd around us soon started jumping to the rock songs the band is blasting out. I try to join in, but I don’t recognize the music and even in my heeled boots I still feel really small compared to those surrounding us. Pretty soon the whole area had turned into a mosh pit and when I look around, Charlie had been swept closer toward the stage.

My panic begins rising. I hate big crowds. Absolutely hate them. I hate being the center of attention in the middle of a crowd and I hate being surrounded by people in a confined space. I’m definitely claustrophobic, there’s no doubt about it. I shouldn’t have let Charlie pull me into the middle of all these people, but I’d wanted to please him and not make a fuss. Now I don’t know what to do.

I take a step to the side and get pushed back again; someone’s beer sloshes against my back and I feel a hand swipe at my legs. I have no idea if the hand swipe was intentional or not but it just raises my anxiety levels even higher and I start trying to inch my way out of the crowd.

“Excuse me,” I say, trying to weave my way out of the crowd but I can’t get anywhere. I look around and realize that I’m surrounded by guys. Drunk guys who are jumping up and down into each other as they sing along at the top of their voices. Someone pushes into me and I go flying into the guy beside me who pushes me away; I feel like a human pinball machine getting ricocheted in between them. This is a total nightmare and I can feel the panic start to peak within me, and I feel like the crowd is closing in on me.

Suddenly someone grabs my arms and pulls me hard out of the group. I’m pulled through the crowd until we break through to the end and reach the front of the club. That’s when I realize the guy who grabbed me is Luke Masters, a guy from school. He turns around to look at me, giving me a reassuring smile as he pulls me to the door that leads to the exit. As soon as we break free into the cool air, I breathe a sigh of relief, and Luke leads me over to some tables that are set up outside where people are standing and smoking. He sits me down on a chair and instructs me to stay there, and then he disappears for a couple of minutes before returning with a bottle of water for me. I guzzle the water greedily and eventually my breathing starts to return to normal. That was horrible, absolutely horrible.

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