“Uh…Kat?”
“Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh, clearly knowing exactly what was bothering me. “We’re making a pit stop first. We’ll be smoking by the time we arrive at the club, you have my word.”
Smoking wasn’t the right term. Kat drove us to Reeve’s house and by the time Reeve finished with us, we were five-alarm blazing and should probably have been hosed down.
Apparently, Reeve had attended a school of beauty over the summer—which brought me to my next apparently. Apparently, Reeve was loaded.
She lived in a tall and sprawling mansion, with white columns, domed ceilings, chandeliers dripping with thousands of crystal teardrops, winding staircases and plush rugs with the most elaborate weave work. Out back was a pool as big as a football field. Oh, and there was an entirely separate section of the house where the servants lived.
Yeah. Servants.
Reeve dressed us in slutty, too-tight outfits and hooker heels. My “outfit,” or as I liked to call it, my Band-Aid, consisted of an ice-blue corset top, a micro-mini skirt with dark blue ruffles and ripped-up leggings. Black boots laced up to just under my knees.
With my pale skin, I’d never been one to wear makeup, but Reeve knew exactly what colors to apply to make my eyes pop, my cheeks appear rosy and my lips look like “plump candy apples all the boys will want to bite.” Her words, not mine.
Kat wore a long-sleeved top that veed all the way down to her navel, “forcing” her to ditch her bra. At least her legs were covered by a pair of skinny jeans, the lucky girl. Rather than jewelry, Reeve had given her a boy’s necktie that would play hide-and-seek with her chest.
Reeve dressed in a black-and-white polka-dot dress that flared at the hips and ended at the knees. She reminded me of a sexy seventies housewife.
Sometime during my transformation, Wren and Poppy arrived.
“I can’t believe we’re ditching the game for this,” Poppy said, gorgeous in a tank top, jean shorts and cowgirl boots.
“Better to support our friends than our team,” Wren said, “as long as you swear we’re not going to the club so that Ali can hook up with Cole and his gang of societal sores.”
Kat held up her hand, palm out. “Swear.”
As Poppy studied herself in the full-length mirror, she said, “Societal sores? Yes, they are losers, but is the witchiness really necessary, Wren?”
“I’m not a witch!” Wren said with a stomp of her foot.
“Are, too. The guy at Starbucks hit on me, not you, and you’re lashing out.”
“He totally hit on me.”
“Did not.”
“Did too!”
They continued to argue as we walked to Reeve’s SUV. Night was in full swing, casting shadows over the house and driveway. Porch lights offered the occasional safe haven, and kept me going. Fear would not control me tonight, though. I wouldn’t let it. Tonight was too important, my mission too critical.
On the drive, I spied what could have been a rabbit-shaped cloud. I told Reeve to slow down, convinced for a moment that we were going to wreck. But wonder of wonders, I must have been mistaken. We reached the club safely, no wreck, no deaths.
Kat gave her name to two ginormous bouncers I would have run screaming from in any other situation, and they allowed us to bypass the hundreds waiting to get in. We sailed inside, loud, raucous music instantly assailing my ears.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” Kat had to shout to be heard.
Wonderful wasn’t the right word. I’d seen things like this on TV, of course. Read about them in books. Listened to lectures from my mom. But this was exciting mixed with scary and sprinkled with a whole lot of this really can’t be happening right in front of me.
On the dance floor, men and women were writhing with Cirque du Soleil flexibility. At the bar, guys were doing body shots off girls. In the corners, a whole lot of making out was going on. I smelled sweat and perfume and a few things I couldn’t identify.
Building-wise, there were two floors. The bottom was where the dancing and socializing were done, and the top was for VIPs, maybe. An iron railing circled the second tier, allowing a clear view for those at the edge of a separate sectioned-off area. There I could make out black leather couches and chairs, iron tables and—
Cole.
Oh, glory, there he was. He sat on one of the couches, facing me, with Frosty beside him. He was talking to someone across from him and laughing. That amusement softened his face, making him look less scary and more Hollywood. He wasn’t wearing a hat tonight. Dressed in a black T-shirt that looked as if it had been painted on he was total smex appeal, and I wished I could see his lower half.
I nudged Kat in the stomach and pointed. She followed the line of my finger and clapped.
“Goody!” Rising on her tiptoes so that she was poised at my ear, she said, “Time to enact Operation Boys Will Cry. Stage one—make them notice us.”
“What?” Wren yelped. “I thought we were here to dance.”
“And so we will,” Kat said.
“What about spying?” I demanded. My ticket to Cole.
“We can’t really spy on them if they’re not spying on us, now can we?”
Warped logic, but okay. I wanted to talk to Cole, would talk to him, and yet suddenly all I could think was, oh crap, this won’t end well.
9
A Fiendishly Mad Tea Party
Okay. So. OBWC. Stage one, part A: Kat pilfered a beer from the tray of a passing waitress, took a swig, then handed it to Reeve, who took a swig and handed it to me.
This will relax you, she mouthed.
Without taking a swig of my own, I handed the beer to Poppy, who grimaced and handed it to Wren, who grimaced and set it on a table. The thing smelled like battery acid and moldy bread, and besides that, I too easily recalled all the problems alcohol had caused my dad. No way was I going there.
Stage one, part B: doing a bump and grind on the dance floor. We formed a train as we maneuvered our way to the center. There, Kat somehow forced everyone else to take a few steps back, leaving us in our own private circle. Anyone watching from the top floor would be unable to miss us.
Unlike Emma, I had no idea how to dance gracefully. Or attractively. But I watched the way the other girls moved their arms and hips and mimicked them. I must have succeeded, because all four offered me smiles of encouragement.
After what seemed an eternity of this I motioned Kat over, and when she reached me, I said, “I don’t actually want Cole to spy on me. I want him to talk to me.”
“Oh, he will. But listen, whatever you do,” she said, moving behind me and placing her hands on my hips, “don’t look up. I’m about to enact stage two. Stage three will commence soon after that, with no more action required on our part, so be ready.”
With a force of will I hadn’t known I possessed, I glanced at her over my shoulder rather than at the boys. “I want this to happen, but I have a bad feeling about how we’re going about it.”
“Good. I know I’m on the right track. So, here we go!” Like the sex kitten I was beginning to think she was, Kat spun around me and crooked her finger at a group of ultracute random guys.
Stage two: fanning the flames of jealousy.
The guys eagerly joined our little circle. Within minutes, masculine hands were roaming, and soft bodies were bumping into hard bodies. I was uncomfortable and embarrassed, and actually had to slap a boy’s fingers away from my butt, but I kept dancing, determined to see Kat’s plan through to the end. Not once did I look in Cole’s direction.