And in the other room, a baby wails.
17
Cleo
I'm dizzy before I even step inside Rapture. Probably a bad sign, since the only alcohol I've had wore off hours ago. I'm shivering and cold, but most of the rain slopped off the raincoat I draped over myself before leaving.
I'm sure I look like a drowned raccoon compared to the rest of the women in the club. Cherry is performing for a group of admiring onlookers, most of them men. The only women I can spot in the strip joint that are fully clothed lounge over the bar, and Penny is flirting with the temporary hire, James. She raises a glass of Whiskey in salute as I approach.
"She lives!" she slurs, and I can tell the party started early. Holly clutches a Shirley Temple, the designated driver. Not that it would have mattered much. I've only seen her drink once, and that was to dull the pain after being shot.
"Sort of," I say, smiling.
Penny scoots to a new barstool and pats the one she just vacated. "Sit down and have a drink with us."
"I'm okay, really. I need advice more than booze."
I slide into the vacated seat and Holly turns so she can face me full on.
"What do you want to talk about? Besides having sex with Ryker?"
Penny slops a bit of her drink back into the glass into her glass in shock. "No fucking way. Youfinallydid it?"
I squint at Holly. "How did you know?"
Holly's smirk is indulgent. "I can tell. You looked guilty as hell, and you kept blushing whenever he touched you. So, was he good?"
I motion the bartender over. I'm going to need a drink after all. He makes me a screwdriver and I sip it tentatively.
"Yes. He's very good."
Penny tips her glass back. I eye the long, lean line of her body enviously. She still looks like a million bucks, with a sheet of long, dark hair, and the same golden cast to her skin as Cruz's.
"I'm just glad you two finally stopped dancing around it and fucked," Penny says. "It's been obvious that he's been after you for years."
I heat once more in shame. Ryker had been right. The only person unaware of his affections had been me. All this time I could have had a good man and I let him loiter on the edges of my life.
"He proposed to be," I mumble into my glass. I'm half-hoping the confession will be lost beneath the pumping bass and the buzz of conversation in the club. But I'm heard. Penny's glass thunks onto the edge of the table and she wraps her arms around me in a bear hug. That's when I know she is well and sloshed. Penny's not really the hugging type, even with her close friends. I can count on one hand the number of time's she's hugged me.
"I'm so happy for you!" she crooned. Then she frowns. "And I'm the only one single now. That bites. I'm gonna have to hurry and find a man if I'm going to beat Kase to the end of the aisle."
"Have you decided on a date?" Holly asks. "It took Cruz and I forever to agree."
"No, we haven't. He proposed and I sort of...panicked. And that's why I'm here."
Both women stare at me with matching expressions. It's an awkward combination of stunned disbelief and frustration.
"You just ran out on him?" Penny asks, aghast.
"Did you even give him an answer?" Holly demands.
"No," It comes out as a half-sob. "I didn't. He's going to be so pissed. I messed up."
"Why did you run?" Holly is sober and perceptive enough to dig deeper than my refusal. Penny looks ready to beat me over the head with her abandoned whiskey glass. Maybe I'd deserve that. I've hurt Ryker.
"I told you. I panicked. We haven't been together long and the last man who asked me that was..."
"Damian," Penny spits the name like a curse. "That little shit. Still fucking things up even after he's dead."
