Part 27
Alex already wanted to leave and they’d just walked into the club. The room was crowded and stuffy and worse than that, the looks she was getting from men as she walked into to the bar was making her incredibly uncomfortable.
She didn’t know if she could really blame them for leering though. The outfit she was wearing did make her look like a two-dollar hooker. Sarah, Andrea and Becca had raided their suitcases and between the three of them found an outfit for her. She’d had no intention of wearing the outfit but then Becca, traitor that she was, had used her unfortunately excellent persuasion skills to talk her into wearing it.
So here she was wearing a low-cut, red corset top with a very short jean skirt and high-heeled thong sandals. The girls had also curled her dark hair so that it fell in loose curls and made her makeup a little more dramatic than she was used to by giving her smoky eyes and glossy red lips.
She didn’t feel natural but it was kind of fun to dress up in a way that was completely unlike her usual self.
Becca came up from behind her and grabbed her hand. “Let’s dance,” she said before she pulled her onto the dance floor. Sarah and Andrea followed behind but as they reached the dance floor Alex noticed that Andrea was looking around rather intently as if she was looking for someone and then she remembered that Andrea’s friends were the ones that had gotten them onto the list.
Andrea caught Alex’s eye and gave her a bright smile before she joined them and started dancing too.
…
JC felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and frowned when he saw the sparkling smile of the girl who was touching him. He shrugged her hand off his person before settling back to his drink. She sidled up to him and put her hand back on his arm.
Slowly he lifted his face and caught her eye before he reached for her hand lightly and took it off his arm once more. “There’s not enough liquor in the world sweetheart,” he said before getting up and walking away.
Justin raised a brow at JC’s cold set down and almost grinned. That usually was his line. He saw the girl move towards him and he got up before she could get her claws on him. He’d have to find Lonnie or Mike or someone to remove her for the VIP area. He wasn’t sure how she’d even gotten in there.
He saw JC at the bar and walked over to him. “Wow, man. That was an assholish thing to say. I’m impressed.” He slapped JC on the back.
JC glared at him before gulping down his drink. He wasn’t even close to being drunk enough, he thought and ordered another drink.
Chris walked over to them and frowned. He had watched that little interplay and had found it disturbing. It was one thing to see Justin be an ass, as it was his specialty, but JC wasn’t usually like this. Or at least he hadn’t been like this until the last few months.
He’d been unbearable after Alex left but little by little he’d become the JC they all knew and loved. However there were moments, and these moments were becoming more frequent as time progressed, where he became inexcusably irritable and hard to be around. Tonight was one of them.
Chris hoped that JC wasn’t still upset over the Alex thing because it had been months since she’d left. He was acting as if he’d been shunned by a lover, which made Chris wonder not for the first time, if JC was in love with Alex.
The only thing stopping Chris from concluding that exact thing was the fact that JC still didn’t know Alex was a girl and Chris, however biased it might sound, didn’t think JC could be in love with another guy. Chris had never found an appropriate time to tell JC about Alex and after all this time it just didn’t seem relevant.
Suddenly he felt an arm across his shoulders and he looked up to see JC gazing down at him. “Man?”
“Yeah?” Chris said curiously.
“I think I’m in love.”
Chris had heard JC’s ramblings about love before - they were usually powered by
liquored much like this one but unlike the others Chris thought that this might
actually be legitimate. And it might answer what he’d been wondering all along.
He raised his brows and waited for JC to say more.
“With a dude.”
For a very brief moment Chris wondered if JC was hitting on him and then his
brain started to function once more and he realized what JC had just revealed.
“With Alex. Dude, I think I’m gay.” JC let go of Chris abruptly and gulped down the rest of his drink.
Chris didn’t know what to say. Obviously it had been killing the guy inside trying to figure out these feelings he had for another man and although it wouldn’t have been a big deal if JC were gay, JC needed to know that the evidence was misleading and he was in love with a women. Chris knew he had to tell him the truth about Alex.
He was just about to do just that when Joey walked over to them and exclaimed, “I just saw Becca and Andrea walking in here.”
Chris looked over at JC, whose face displayed a mixture of surprise, alarm and anticipation at hearing this news. JC obviously had drawn the same conclusion that he had. If Becca was here, then maybe Alex was here too.
Chris felt dread settle at the pit of his stomach at the thought of Alex and JC facing each other now without JC knowing the truth.
So he turned to his friend and said quietly, “C, we gotta talk.” And prepared himself to deliver possibly really upsetting news.
…
A whole hour had passed before she saw them. Alex had been coming out of the ladies room and had slipped on something on the ground. Suddenly she felt a hand on her arm and she looked up thankfully as the person helped her straighten up. She had been shocked when she’d looked up and saw who’d helped her. “Lonnie!” she had blurted out.
Lonnie had suddenly looked wary and he’d instantly turned on the ice. For a second she’d wondered at his reaction but just as quickly she realized that he hadn’t recognized her. She’d muttered something inconsequential, thanked him and then scuttled away. When she’d gotten far enough away from him she turned and looked back in his direction and saw them. Not all of them but she’d gotten a glimpse of Lance and Joey.
Now she was freaking out a little bit. More than a little bit actually. What if JC was here too? What if he saw her dressed like this? Would he recognize her and hate her forever or would he like Lonnie and not know her at all? Either way she really didn’t want to stick around and find out.
She rushed over to Andrea who was just coming back from the bar. “We have to go!”
”What? Why?” Andrea looked incredulous.
“The guys are here.”
Andrea bit her lip. “Oh really?” Her voice sounded oddly
high-pitched.
“Yeah. So, we have to go. I don’t want JC to see me if
he’s here.”
“Umm, but we just got here.”
Alex looked alarmed. “Are you serious? The guys could see me at any moment and you want to stay long--“ Suddenly Alex stopped speaking as the truth hit her. “You knew all along didn’t you? They were the friends.”
The guilty look on Andrea’s face was proof enough for
Alex. “How could you do this to me?”
”This was for you Alex. You guys need to talk to each other.”
“Maybe we do but it’s not for you to decide, Andrea. You absolutely had no right to involve yourself in this,” Alex said angrily. “I’m going to find Becca and then I’m leaving.” She turned away and made her way to the dance floor. She saw Becca dancing and started towards her when she realized that she wasn’t alone. Justin was dancing right in front of her.
Alex’s heart stopped. This was bad. Very, very bad. She stood there stiffly wondering what to do as people brushed past her. She couldn’t very well go over there and risk Justin seeing her and Becca was so enthralled with the man that she wasn’t paying attention to anything other than him, so she’d never notice Alex standing at the edge of the dance floor.
Suddenly she felt a hand on her back. She turned slightly about to give whoever it was a brisk set down. She’d gotten as far as opening her mouth when her eyes met his and she was instantly incapable of speech.
JC’s bright blues eyes stared into hers and she felt the bottom of her stomach drop to somewhere around her feet.
He leaned over and she could feel his breath on her ear. “Dance with me,” he said.
He didn’t wait for her to agree. He took her hand and led her onto the dance floor and like a lamb to slaughter she followed him.
What are you doing? She asked herself. Although JC didn’t seem to recognize her at the moment, she knew that at any moment he could and yet she couldn’t stop herself from moving out onto the dance floor with him. It had almost been a year since she’d last seen him and she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him until she’d laid eyes on him again.
He smiled at her and she melted a little. What was the harm in one dance? One dance, she promised, and then she'd walk off the dance floor, out of the club and out of his life forever.