Pulse (Contemporary new adult/college romance) (Club Grit Trilogy) (7 page)

“Long story short, it was not the greatest.”

“Nobody wants a short story. Tell all,” demanded Samantha, lifting her hands into the air as if to command me, as if she was the leader of a cult and I one of the followers. I loved it when her inner theater minor came out and I laughed.

“Alright, so, he was cute as usual, but we didn’t really click. He talked more about himself than I expected and I guess that away from work, bouncers are just normal guys and I want something...more,” I lied. Well, it wasn’t a total lie. I’d asked Skylar questions about himself so he didn’t get a chance to get to know me, so that I could figure out why he’d ever be with a girl like me to begin with, so that I could learn that he wouldn’t. Ever. That he was just doing it to save me the embarrassment of being rejected. “We took a pic.”

I showed them the picture of Skylar I’d kept, the one that I’d been tempted to set as my background so I’d stop going to the Photos app on my champagne colored iPhone 5S and looking at his picture and wishing in that moment, I was the iPhone his eyes were making love to instead of the girl he was next to, cheek to cheek, but ignoring.

“You guys make such a cute couple...but if you’re not feeling it, I guess you’re just not feeling it,” said Becca, shrugging her shoulders. That’s what I liked about Becca. She wasn’t a pusher, like the girls in the sorority that pushed people’s boundaries and limits to make them “stronger”. Just recently, one of those girls that the Bigs had pushed had ended up leaving the sorority and I hadn’t really paid it mind, because I knew Omega life wasn’t for everyone. It wasn’t for the weak. I didn’t know her story or reason for leaving, just that as an Omega sister, I’d be an Omega for life, no matter what happened, and that I’d stay strong, never letting a guy like Skylar make me weak.

“You invited DeAndre tonight, right?” asked Samantha. It was obvious she was trying to cheer me up by changing the topic, but all she ended up doing was opening a can of worms I didn’t even know was on the table.

“Wait. Wait. Wait...Kim let her invite DeAndre?” asked Becca in return. She sounded concerned, but she was the carefree one usually, the one who told girls to go after guys and to believe in the best in people. She was the one against gossiping and all about giving second chances, so what beef did she have with DeAndre? Had he dissed her in some way, or was there an actual issue?

“Uh, yeah, why?” Shit. The last thing I’d wanted was to cause more drama. I’d chosen DeAndre because unlike Skylar, he seemed like he was going to be easy to manage, not some guy that I’d have to hold on a leash and take care of. He wasn’t supposed to be a problem, but a solution. He wasn’t supposed to be the kind of guy that caused me trouble, but the kind that made it go away.

“Well, you know DeAndre gets...handsy, right?” It was obvious Becca was trying to be diplomatic about something, but I wished she would just come out with it, what the issue was about DeAndre. Frat boys were handsy, to put it lightly, that was a given, but what had DeAndre done that warranted a warning about it?

“Yeah, I know, I kinda got handsy back with him on Thursday, at Pub Night.” I blushed. I’d been too wasted and too fucked up to remember exactly what we’d done but I remembered I’d had fun with him, that I’d said his name and that he’d said mine, and I remembered that I wanted more.

“Oh, well, as long as you know,” said Samantha. Becca shot her a glare. I’d never seen them like this. Maybe it was because Kim was usually around as a buffer but this was the Big Battle of the Bigs. There was no hair pulling, no smashing glasses on the ground, no
Jersey Shore
headlocks and pile drivers like you’d see in a montage, but there was ice and shade tossed left and right. What the fuck was going on?

“I’ve got to go,” said Becca and she left with her bags in tow. It was weird but I’d catch up with her later, I was sure of it.

“That was...different. What was that about?” I asked Samantha, but she changed the topic. She was my big so if she said that DeAndre was fine, that was all that mattered, right?

Right?

Right.

A
S KIM SETTLED IN HER USUAL VIP STATION TO WATCH THE FRESHMAN SISTERS, DeAndre and I hit the dance floor. Now was not the time to bump elbows and learn Kim’s secrets while taking selfies with my smartphone to upload to Instagram for guaranteed hundreds of likes in hours. Now was a time of action, the time to impress her.

After Becca had left, Sam had given me a pep talk.

I was young.

I was nineteen.

I was gorgeous.

I was Emma Nelson.

And I was a sister of Omega Mu Fucking Gamma.

This lifestyle? This was what I was entitled to, this was my birthright of sorts, and this was the life that I’d need to get used to living if I wanted to nab myself a rich successful guy, or a guy who had that kind of guy for a father. A guy like DeAndre.

Club Grit was off the fucking walls. Summer was approaching and because Club Grit couldn’t go to the beach, the beach had to come to Club Grit. All the bottle service girls were wearing grass skirts, coconut bras, leis, and platform bamboo styled heels. Of course, I was more focused on what the bouncers were wearing, but it was the normal uniform as usual. Of course, they weren’t supposed to stick out, they didn’t have bottles they made forty percent commission off of to sell. They were busy watching from the shadows, but I was the one watching the shadows.

Forget Red Rooms of Pain, I loved this paradise. It was Fifty Shades of Blue, and of Green, and Yellow, all across the walls as if I was in Miami, the spotlights twirling like a raver kid had gotten ahold of the lights and was high as fuck.

Like me.

I had popped enough uppers in the limo to feel them taking effect already, as well as some ecstasy, and I was ready to party. I needed to get on the dance floor, but I also needed to take in everything. All the sights, the smell of coconut and pineapple drinks, the feel of the soft carpet that was supposed to be like sand that my shoes practically sank into, they were all mine to experience, to enjoy.

Hanging from the ceilings were large scrolls showing waves with surfers inside and all though the scrolls were of pictures, unmoving, the way they moved in the air of the club, billowing and swaying, made it look like the surfers were really moving. The red carpet had been replaced by one that was an appropriately sandy color, and part of me wished my outfit was more tropical, but it didn’t matter because I was still dressed to kill.

Or at least maim.

I was glad I’d gotten to know DeAndre better over text and Facebook IMs, as well as a bit in the limo on the way to Club Grit. Every time we talked about something, it was like we had the same mind! He liked all the things I liked and hated all the things I hated. It was awesome. We liked the same music, the same movies, all that good stuff, and I thought maybe he’d be the one I’d not only take home, but start to date. Who needed that what’s his name, Skylar?—who was I kidding, I couldn’t forget that name if I tried (and I was trying, trust me)—, when I had a hot athletic frat boy on my arm, the kind of guy that could grind with me in front of my sorority sisters and make them jealous instead of make a fool of himself like so many guys our age.

Rebounds had their perks.

But, as I danced with DeAndre, something else clicked.

Skylar did something stupid on our coffee date. He told me what he hated.

The only thing that Skylar hated more than the pounding music of the nightclub was the girls.

Although he knew that they were all over eighteen, or else they wouldn’t have been able to get into the club, he also knew that for many of them, this was their first year of independence, living away from home, and that they were pushing their limits. They were drinking too much too fast, dancing with the kind of guys he knew had bad reputations, and just making the kind of choices he wouldn’t want anyone he cared about doing.

One of his cousins was young, like the girls gyrating on the dance floor, and in college thousands of miles away, and he’d warned her to stay away from the nightclub life too. She’d only find trouble, not true love like many of the girls on the dance floor were looking for, and there were better ways of finding validation.

I don’t know why he’d shared this if he hadn’t planned on pursuing me seriously. Maybe he wanted to vent. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t listen and that it’d be a good way to pass the time. While it was true I didn’t catch most of what he said, honestly too #excited, #nervous, #enthralled, #enchanted to function, I had caught that part, his weakness. However, those words had given me power.

I pulled DeAndre over to the corner where Skylar was surveying the dance floor. Why wasn’t he looking at me? Why wasn’t he giving me attention? Why wouldn’t he look me in the fucking eye and either tell me to fuck off or that he wanted me? What was his fucking problem?

What was mine?

I stationed DeAndre in front of Skylar’s line of sight and bent over doing what I’d seen on television, rubbing my ass all over his crotch. He grabbed it and practically opened it like a peach. It was too much for me but I didn’t care. There were more important things to me that something stupid like limits, boundary, or comfort. There were things like honor, revenge, and reputation. I wasn’t about to let Skylar be the guy that blew me off or the one that got away. I was going to lure him in. I was going to make him want me. And then? I was going to reject him. I’d be the one to push him away, because I’d never let any guy be the one to push me away. How far would I go with it? Would I just deny him a dance? Would I keep showing up at the club, teasing him in shorter and shorter dresses? Or would I fuck him, getting up and leaving as I felt him get ready to cum? Would I date him for months until he proposed and then leave him in the dust?

No, this was just a game. It always had been, or at least, it always had to be.

“What now, Skylar? How do you like me now? How do you like me now, Skylar?” I kept teasing, not able to stop myself. I knew I’d taken too much that night, too many of those beautiful pills that I just had to collect in my mouth and transform into happiness just using my stomach and intestines (I had paid attention in bio), but I didn’t really care. DeAndre was smiling. He loved the attention and as his cock grew rock hard in his pants, I twirled around his body, the way that I might twirl around a pole if I’d been a stripper.

Secret: I’d almost considered doing that when I learned I hadn’t got my scholarship. I’d seriously considered moving out to LA anyway and starting to strip or maybe even get into porn. A girl from home had done that and of course, people had talked, but she had one of the biggest houses in town after she’d started in her movies. Rumor had it she kept cam whoring out of her house to pay the bills because she’d spent the money too fast. That wasn’t going to be me, though. That wasn’t going to be me. I was willing to do anything to get that degree and sacrifice my reputation now for a lifetime of comfort, but I’d never expected my parents to win the lottery, to be able to charge happiness that came in bottles and orange canisters with white labels to a black card, to be able to make everything disappear with some substances.

But what Skylar was looking at wasn’t me, but DeAndre. “You need to leave,” he said to DeAndre. I’d never taken Skylar for a defensive type. The fact that the guy who had been ignoring me, who had basically kept me on edge, kept me needing and wanting, was getting jealous, was perfect. That was my plan: to make him want me and to be able to deny him what he’d want, the way he’d been denying me and knew it. I didn’t like being Gatsby, looking at his number as if it was a green light across the waters and wondering if I should reach out and contact him, if I should sent smoke signals or wave a flag or do something to get his attention, if I should text or find him on Facebook or send him a Snapchat of my naked breasts to get some sort of reaction out of him. I wasn’t supposed to be Gatsby, I wasn’t supposed to be Ophelia, drowning.

And Skylar, the Skylar I’d found myself inexplicably drawn to that first night at Club Grit, the Skylar I’d wanted to nuzzle into at the coffee shop and just forget about the life I had at UCBH with, the Skylar that was sour and sweet at the same time? Skylar was now a lion and he practically snarled, “This isn’t about you, Emma. This is about him. DeAndre’s been banned from the club since a few weeks ago. He was found in the closet with a blacked out drunk girl, or should I say, inside of her? She didn’t press charges but he was kicked out of the club, for good. And right now, he needs to leave.”

“Whatever, dude, you going to make me?” challenged DeAndre. He had guts, challenging a bouncer when he had no bros to back him up, but maybe he’d forgotten that, forgotten that as a bouncer, this was Skylar’s turf. This wasn’t anything goes Pub Night, this was Club Grit, and there were rules that Skylar was paid to enforce, rules he took seriously. If he was going to have DeAndre leave, he was going to have DeAndre leave, and if he had to use force? Well, he was a bouncer, not a negotiator. He knew how to make problems disappear.

“Yeah, maybe I fucking am.” DeAndre’s eyes widened as Skylar came up and separated us. He took DeAndre by the collar and I followed.

“You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I fucking can! It’s my job. I’m a bouncer, not your boyfriend, and I look out for everyone at the club. But, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t hang out with this scumbag anymore, no matter who his daddy is.”

I looked at Skylar. Was he serious? Dead serious.

I looked at DeAndre. Was he going to leave? Not a chance in Hell.

I looked to the VIP. My friends were watching this wide eyed. I half expected Becca to drop her drink. The guy I always saw in the VIP, with lots of girls, the guy from Thursday? He came down the stairs and towards Skylar.

“Is there a problem, Sky?” he asked.

“Yeah, boss, there is. You remember the scumbag rapist? From the night you were away on business?”

“Shit, that’s him? Get the fuck out!” he roared. “Take him away!”