“Let go of me,” she says.
I smile. “Nope, it's time for you to embrace your inner slut.”
“I don't want to look like a slut.”
“You're going to a crazy club, not the country club. You definitely want to look a little slutty.”
I pull her into our hotel suite. Of course, she takes in the articles of clothing strewn about.
“You ever think about cleaning up after yourself?”
I ignore her comment and lead her to a barstool. I pour her a glass of champagne from the bottle we didn't finish. “Drink. Don’t move.”
“You know, you’re kind of bossy.”
I grab my makeup bag and plop it into the counter.
“You have gorgeous eyes. We’re going to play them up a little.” I do up her eyes, starting with a white sparkly color in the corners, going to a deep rose in the middle and ending in an intense charcoal. I smudge a little of the charcoal under the bottom outer edges then add a thick swoop of a charcoal liquid liner with flecks of silver glitter. Then I find my reddest lip stain, carefully brush it onto her lips, and add some High Beam gloss.
“Okay, take off the cardigan.”
She takes off the cardigan to reveal the simple red dress and a pair of sparkly silver pumps. I grab my bag, which still has the black leather skirt I wore the other night in it. After our time at the lake, I just had thrown the little PJ shorts back on.
I’m trying to figure out what she’s going to wear for a top, when I spy a pair of scissors.
“Here, try this on,” I say, handing her the leather skirt.
She looks at the skirt like it’s a piece of trash. “Just because we want to look slutty doesn't mean we have to be cheap.”
I flash the Saint Laurent label at her.
She tilts her head, studying me and the skirt. Like she’s trying to decide if she should go for it or not. Finally, she takes it and slips it on under her dress. She holds the dress up and looks in the mirror. Then she spins around, scrutinizing the back. “My ass looks amazing in this skirt.”
“It does. And watch this.” I bend down and unzip the zipper that runs up the front middle of the skirt, giving her a nice slit leading straight to her crotch.
She studies her eyes in the mirror. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I love what you did to my eyes.”
“Good, cuz you may freak about what I’m about to do next.” I hold up the scissors. “May I?”
She looks down at her dress, which I want to turn into a top.
She grabs the bottle of champagne, takes a big swig, and says, “What the hell.”
I carefully cut from the hem of the dress straight up to her bellybutton. Then I cut around the waistband of the skirt so that the new top will just graze it. When she puts her arms up to dance, her flat stomach will be nicely exposed.
She hands me the bottle and says, “Take a drink.”
I take a sip while she looks at herself in the mirror.
“Let’s go shorter.”
I cut up an inch higher all the way around. “You look hot,” I tell her.
“And you . . . I still hate you, but maybe not as much as I used to.”
I smile, knowing that’s a compliment.
“Come on, let’s go knock Jake’s socks off.”
Jake’s response is more than expected and he’s all over her in the limo.
When we get to the club, I’m shocked to see that the dance floor isn’t packed yet.
I grab Whitney, round up Peyton and Maggie, and lead them up to the center stage.
“Girls, it's time to get this party started.”
Whitney gets a panicked look in her eye. I know she's not a great dancer.
“Don't worry,” I tell her. “Just move a little and let your hands glide across the other girls’ bodies. Drives the guys crazy.”
The DJ sees us coming up to dance and cranks up one of my favorite songs.
I grab Maggie and grind up against her. Peyton does the same to Whitney and pretty soon we're in a line, butt to butt, and lost in the music.
I lose track of how many songs we dance to but when I look out, I’m excited to see that the dance floor is now packed.
I see Katie, yell at her, hold my hand out, and pull her up onto the platform. Dallas takes my hand as I climb down. He’s already hypnotized by Katie’s boobs bouncing up and down in her teeny top.
I find Dawson and Jake and pull them both onto the dance floor.
“Jake, go get Whitney.”
He laughs and says, “I’m just enjoying the show.”
Dawson pulls me close and runs his hands all over me. We dance for at least an hour before Dawson says he needs some water. “That champagne gave me a headache. They serving food?”
“Yeah, there's snacks upstairs. Want to get something?”
“Definitely.”
We go upstairs and find Aiden, Nick, and Logan chowing down. It's a little quieter up here. There's a balcony that's probably packed on a regular night, but our school isn't big enough for that. So this is a great spot to sit and watch everyone dance below.
“You go get food. I’ll get water,” Dawson says.
I’m waiting in the short food line when Aiden gets in line behind me.
“Hey,” I say to him. “Are you guys having fun?”
“We were having fun watching you dance on the stage. Although some of the things they were saying about my sister were a bit inappropriate.”
“Do you like watching girls grind on each other?”
“I like it better when we grind on each other. Don't forget you promised me a dance.”
“I won’t.”
“Great shoes by the way.”
“You noticed my shoes?”
“Yeah. The stones on the heels were catching the light when you were dancing. It looked really cool. Peyton asked me to take some pictures. Wanna see?”
He holds up his phone and scrolls to a picture of us dancing. There is light dancing all around my feet.
“Oh, that is cool. Will you send me that?”
“Sure. So did you do that to Whitney?”
I laugh. “Yeah. She got the Barbie Goes Clubbing makeover.”
“I’m surprised.”
“That I'm nice to people?”
“That you're nice to her after what she did to you.”
“Honestly, I mostly did it for Jake. He's my friend. And if that means Whitney won't hate me as much, all the better.”
“Just when I thought I had you all figured out, you surprise me again.”
I load up a plate with bacon and other breakfast foods.
“Was it a good surprise?”
His eyes bore into mine.
He nods, then smiles and steals a piece of bacon off my plate, popping it into his mouth. “This is good. We did good with the party, don’t you think?”
I look around. “Yeah, Aiden, we did good.”
I finish filling our plates with some fruit, a couple muffins, fried hashbrown patties, and French toast sticks. I don’t even think about the calories. I know I’ll burn them off dancing.
Dawson laughs about how much I eat of the kind of junk food I usually avoid.
“We're gonna burn it off dancing.”
He pulls my hand up to his lips and kisses the back of it. “I can think of some funner ways for us to burn calories.”
The party starts out fun, but as the night rolls on, the drama grows.
We take a break from dancing and Whitney runs to the restroom.
She comes marching back out with a pissed look on her face. Rachel and the minions are behind her and they all look to be in tears.
“Those backstabbing bitches,” she rants. “They all practically jumped me in the bathroom and bitched me out for dancing with you. For coming in the limo with you.”
“Well, I am practically your sworn enemy. You’ve confused them. They don’t know who the hell to like.”
Whitney breaks out in laughter. “They couldn’t find their ways out of a paper bag without me.”
“I don’t know what you said to them, but they’re all crying.”
“They’re all drunk. Which is something I am not.” She reaches in Jake’s pocket, grabs his flask, and drinks whatever was left.
Then she looks at Dawson. He takes the flask out of his pocket and hands it to her. The three of them do multiple shots.
Once it’s finished, Jake and Dawson go on a hunt for more alcohol.