Hot Water (2 page)

I try to think back to the last time I saw her. I remember the place. Club Fantasy. I’d just learned that Trevor, the hot guy I’d been fantasizing about for eight months, had gotten a summer internship saving dolphins in Aruba or something, and wouldn’t be coming back East at all. The whole, “I-couldn’t-possibly-forget about-you-you’re-special” thing had obviously gone right out the window. Not that it mattered, since my summer was already pretty much ruined by the fact that I’d have to be my mom’s coffee-getter. So I’d hoped to drown my sorrows with some alcohol and hot guys.

Club Fantasy had been pretty dead. I remembered getting ready to leave, but that’s when something epic walked in. You could tell by the way they sucked the air out of the room. They didn’t look at anyone, simply sauntered up to the bar and ordered their drinks, like they owned the club and everyone in it. Despite the boom of the bass, an odd hush fell over the crowded club, and all heads swung in their direction. “The hotness quotient of this room just got upped a thousand times,” Bow’d said.

“Bow, are you out of your mind? Those guys are older. They’re also full of themselves,” I muttered, watching them. They were laughing so much you’d think they were all in love with each other. I scanned the bar and noticed every girl in the room was staring at them, glimmers of drool in the corners of their mouths, obviously wondering how they could infiltrate their little love fest. “They’re acting like the only people in the bar. I doubt they’ll even notice us.”

At that moment, one of them kicked over a barstool and fell on his backside. The others just laughed more.

“Charming,” I’d said to Bow. “They’re drunk. Can we go now?”

She’d shrugged and followed me toward the exit. We’d almost made a clean getaway. But as we passed them, one of them broke out of their party. He called after me, “Hey. Hey. Hey. Girls. Don’t tell us you’re leaving so soon.”

Don’t turn around
, I’d told myself, convinced they were trouble. But of course, I did. I was looking for trouble.
Big mistake
.

A guy with a goatee, Rhys, I guess, approached us. He told us it was a bachelor party, and we would do them all a terrible disservice if we left without allowing them the pleasure of our company. Even though it was obvious that the only pleasure the groom should be allowed was a nice bed to sleep it off in.

Then he offered to buy us shots. Shots were something I’d never done. At first I thought,
Just one
. Just one turned into a lot. And then it got hazy.

I barely remember seeing Angry Guy there. He’d been behind them the whole time, nursing a scotch at the bar. They’d tried to involve him a few times, but he’d simply shrug and go back to brooding. He’s really good at that, I’m realizing.

He does not seem to notice my impending heart attack over the fact that I have barely any recollection of what happened over the past six hours. Bored, he runs a finger over his eyebrow, inspects his fingertip, and then flicks whatever was on there away. “Your girlfriend went home about three hours ago, in case you were wondering.”

Bow . . . left me? Suddenly I remember . . . I’d told my mom I was sleeping over her house. So
why
did she leave me? I dig through my wristlet for my phone and check the display. It has blown up. Somehow I have not realized this. There are about three thousand missed calls and texts from Bow. Shit. And we’re in the city? How am I going to get home now? NJ Transit stopped hours ago. At least, I think. And Mr. Angry isn’t offering me any sympathy. He looks at me like I’m something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Cursing my stupidity, I start to amble down the street, aimless.

“Hey. Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asks. Not really nicely. More like I just threw up on his lap. Which, I am getting out of here, before I do.

I shake my head as I continue to walk away. As if I need another reason not to turn around to face him, tears start to slide down my cheeks. I’m still completely unsteady. And suddenly I realize I’m getting a major blister in these five-inch heels that Bow insisted I wear, because they made my legs go on forever, or some crap like that.

“Hey,” he calls again. I hear his footsteps behind me, and then he tugs on my elbow. I turn around and nearly smack my forehead into his cleft chin, I’m so off balance. Even in my heels, he’s a good five inches taller than I am. “Come on. I’m not letting you go off alone and drunk, in the city.”

 Well, at least he isn’t a total asshole. “I don’t have anywhere to go,” I say. “I live in Metuchen.”

“Okay.” He says this like it’s no problem, then jogs to the limo and speaks into the passenger window. “Karl. Need you to take us into Jersey.”

Then he opens the door for me and waves me inside.

I just stand there, confused. He’s going to pay the limousine driver to take some drunk girl he doesn’t even know way out of the city? But he raises his eyebrows and waves me inside again, this time, more impatient, so I duck my head and climb inside.

The driver, Karl, asks me where to? I tell him Bow’s address and toddle toward the leather seats. Angry Guy climbs in next to me and broods in the general direction of the window, like he doesn’t want conversation.

All I can do is swallow and hope I don’t lose the lemon drops swirling in my stomach.
Hold it together
, I keep telling myself. I start feeling better by the time we cross the George Washington bridge, but when he’s not looking out the window, he’s checking his phone. I clear my throat. “I can pay you back,” I say softly. “For the limo, I mean.”

His face screws up. More disgust. “You want to buy my limo?”

“It’s
yours
? I thought you rented it.”

“No.”

More silence follows.
Okay. Scintillating. So he’s a Rich Angry Guy
.

I’ve all but given up on having a conversation with this guy when he looks up from his phone, very suddenly, like he just read some really bad news. “How old are you, anyway?”

I try to remember what we’d told them in the bar. “Twenty-five,” I lie.

He shakes his head. “You don’t look it.” He says it like it’s the biggest crime on earth.

I’m getting a little sick of his attitude. Even if he is my ride home. “Sorry,” I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

He crosses his arms. “You really think it’s okay to go out at night and get so drunk that you hook up with random guys?”

The accusation in his voice hits me like gunfire. “No. I mean . . .” Why am I explaining myself to this creep? “I was having fun.”

“Fun? You realize that every single one of my friends wanted to fuck you,” he says. “You made out with half of them.”

I bite my tongue. I did? “I didn’t know the rules to the game.”

“That’s because there’s only one rule to Sex Master the way my buddies play it: Get the girls drunk and naked. If you’d gone into that hotel, one—or more— of them would have done you like a whore, and then forgotten about you the next day. That’s what we do. That’s fun for you?”

I feel my face heating up. “Who are you, my mother? If I were your mother, I’d tell you to stop having asshole friends.”

He lets out a grunt, and at first I think he’s going to yell at me for being the skank that I am, when he suddenly quiets. I’m arming myself with all these amazing comebacks when I look over and realize that he has his face in his hands, and he’s laughing to himself. He rubs his face tiredly. “You’re right. It’s none of my business. It’s just been a long night. Forget I said anything.”

Of course, I know he’s right. I am already feeling stupid and ashamed. I can just imagine how awful I’d feel if I had decided to follow those guys into the hotel room. If it weren’t for him, I would probably be screwed, in more ways than one. And that was not what I wanted. I just wanted to forget my troubles, forget that the epic summer I’d planned was ruined, for one stinking night. “Thank you,” I say, thinking that maybe he’s softening. I mean, he just laughed. That’s a sign he isn’t completely lost, isn’t it? “For the limo, I mean.”

But he doesn’t acknowledge me, just continues to thumb through his phone. Then he reaches over, gets a glass, and pours himself another scotch out of a fancy crystal decanter. He takes a big gulp, then fumbles around in the cooler. He pulls out a bottle of FIJI water, which he slides across the seat to me. “Have this.”

I look at him.

“Trust me. You need it.”

I take it, but this time I don’t thank him.

He takes another swig of his scotch and starts drumming his fingers on the armrest. “So let me ask you something,” he asks. “You do this a lot?”

I roll my eyes and exhale. What happened to “forgetting it?” “By ‘this’ you mean . . .”

“Drink yourself into oblivion and put yourself in compromising situations.”

“No. Actually, never. I’m just . . . my whole life is just . . .” he’s staring at me, and for the first time under his gaze, I feel self-conscious. The buzz is wearing off. “ . . . ruined.”

He chews on a piece of ice, forcefully and I can’t help but think
What did that piece of ice ever do to him
? “That’s kind of dramatic. Unless you have three months to live. Do you?”

“No. It’s just . . .” I don’t want to tell him about interning with my mother, because he looks like the type of successful guy who lives in Oppositeville—partying makes him angry and annoyed, while being cooped up in an office is probably great fun. So I say, “I thought my boyfriend was coming back east for the summer. But he’d rather spend it with some fish.”

“Fish?”

“Dolphins.”

“Dolphins are mammals.”

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better,” I snap.

“Ah. So you got screwed over by a guy, and you’re drowning your sorrows.” He lifts his glass to my bottle of water, toasting it. “Maybe we do have something in common, after all.”

I raise my eyebrows.
Doubt it
. “You got screwed over by a guy, too?” I counter.

“My
girl
friend.” He narrows his eyes. “So the bimbo has a sense of humor,” he observes, staring out the window.

“Not a bimbo,” I point out, annoyed.

 “You’re not a bimbo, and yet you thought adding more guys to your guy problem would help the situation?”

“And you thought being an angry asshole would help your girl problem?” I shoot back.

He stares at me, his eyes boring into me as he finishes his drink and pours another one. “You know what? I’m starting to like you.”

“The horror,” I mumble, crossing my arms.

“So what were you after? Meaningless sex?”

I glare at him, then look out the window, wondering what exit we’re at. I am no longer entertaining this conversation.

“No, I’m serious. I want to know,” he says, raising the glass to his lips and contemplating it.

I turn to him. “What were
you
after?”

He looks down at his lap. “Who the fuck knows. My buddies said all I needed was to get smashed and have fun for just one night, and I’d forget all about my problems.”

“You didn’t look like you were forgetting them.”

“Yeah. Because I think they’re full of shit.” He slumps in the black leather seat and starts drawing circles on the armrest with his fingers, making me wonder just what problems he’s talking about. He’d said something about a girlfriend, screwing him over.

Probably because I’m still just a little drunk, I feel the need to venture: “What did your girlfriend do to you to make you such an angry, empty shell of a man?”

He shakes his head and downs the rest of his drink. His eyes look glassy. “The question is, what
didn’t
she do to me. And I don’t . . . I can’t talk about her.”

“Oh,” I say, watching him. A silence fills the cabin, and I start feeling sad, because I’d actually started to like talking to him. So I say, “An ego boost.”

“What?”

“That’s why I came out. Because I was hoping I’d meet some really hot guys and they’d give me attention. An ego boost.”

“Seriously?” He lets out a short laugh and starts tracing a finger around the rim of his glass. “If that’s what you want, I’ll have you know you’re smoking. Scorching hot.” He pauses. “Addendum: That boyfriend of yours is an idiot.” He says all this without looking at me.

“What?”

His eyes snap up to meet mine, and his lips spread into the smallest of smiles, one that transforms his entire face. I don’t know why I’d thought he and his friends were all the same. Because when he smiles, he’s without equal. “Well, you’re the bimbo who thought it would solve all your problems.”

I can’t help it. I start to laugh. And strangely, I
do
feel better. About everything. “So what would solve yours? I’m here to help.”

He shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“Oh, come on, there’s got to be something.” I think for a moment. “I know. You can kiss me.”

“What will that do?” he asks, doubtful.

“Because if you kiss me, you won’t have to keep thinking that the last girl you kissed screwed you over. And in that way, you will have moved beyond her. Put distance between you and the betrayal.”

His brow wrinkles. “If only.” He continues to shake his head. “That is very . . . does that kind of warped thinking actually work?”

“Well, when I’m out on the ocean and I wipe out, sometimes I don’t want to get on my board again. But the more successful rides I have, the easier it is to forget about the wipeout,” I mumble, suddenly embarrassed. My drunken stupor must be wearing off, because for the first time, I realize just how brazen I’m being. Did I just ask this guy to kiss me?

He’s staring at me like I have three heads.

I pout. “It was just a suggestion.”

“Distance between me and the betrayal. Huh.” He looks down at his scotch, then nods as if it’s all sinking in. “You kissed half the guys in the bar. So your betrayal is on the other side of the world by now, huh?”

“Fuck you,” I growl.

“Actually.” He puts his glass down and inspects me. “It’s not a terrible idea. I’m considering it.”

He looks so hard at me, contemplating, I start to blush. “Oh. Well. Don’t strain yourself.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”