CHAPTER TWO
“You know Brent is going to be here,” Isla says, nudging Audrey.
Audrey plays it cool, but the excitement is clear in her eyes. “Yeah, he texted earlier asking if we were going to be here.”
“Who’s Brent?” I ask.
“Audrey’s on-again/off-again boyfriend. I’ll never understand those two,” Isla relays as Audrey fixes her lip gloss.
“What do you mean?”
“They fight, they make up. They fight, they make up. It’s a never-ending circle.”
“That’s because,” Audrey begins, waving her lip gloss wand, “he can’t handle it when I prove him wrong—and I do it a lot.”
Isla nods. “She does.”
“It’s not that he’s dumb,” Audrey continues. “I think he just likes to start crap so we have make-up sex. Really, really hot make-up sex.”
“That’s more than I needed to know,” I admit.
“Have you ever done it?” Isla asks.
“No.” I’m not ashamed of it, either. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that there’s never been a guy I’ve been attracted to enough to want to.” Maybe there’ll be someone hot for me tonight. Yeah, sure.
“Me neither,” she confesses. “Though, I’d like to.”
“She’d really like to with Carlos Romero,” Audrey tells me.
Isla blushes. “He’s so hot and his accent—yum.”
“Oh boy,” I mutter. “We’re here. Why aren’t we out there?”
“We need to take our time. Make a grand entrance, you know. There are too many people walking in right now,” Audrey declares.
“Oh, the hell with that. Let’s go or take me home. I am not waiting in this car until you deem it the ‘right’ time,” I nearly shout. I just want to get this night over with. I stashed a pair of flip-flops into my backpack because I have a feeling I’m going to want to leave before they do and there’s no way I can walk home in these contraptions.
“Okay, okay. Jeez. Calm down, Rocky,” Audrey teases, then checks her lips in the mirror again, licks her front teeth, tosses her red curls over her shoulders, and finally we’re off.
We step out of Audrey’s black Mercedes convertible. Yes, I said Mercedes. These aren’t the type of people I usually hang around with. These are what people back home call the “richies”. They’ve got the money and the social status and they know it.
And me? I’m just a Marine brat. We’re not rich, but we do well. Now, my mom? She was rich. She left me a trust fund when she died. I was five when someone took her from us. I don’t remember too much about her and I really wish I did. All I know is one minute she was there and the next she was gone. A random Quik Mart robbery gone very wrong. The asshole shot my mom because she sneezed.Sneezed. My dad’s heart broke, shattering into a million pieces. He hasn’t been the same since, and he’s never looked for anyone new. Sometimes I wish he would. He deserves to be happy, and I don’t like him being lonely.
It sucks growing up without a mom, but my dad’s cool. He does his best, and my grandparents helped raise me until they got too old. I am still pretty devastated that my granny died. It’s only been six months so it’s still pretty raw. A couple years ago I would have been living with the grands instead of with my aunt, who I only see once or twice a year. She’s my mom’s sister so she’s pretty well off, too. All of Mom’s side of the family has money—like the “richies”.
I could fit in with them if I wanted to—but I don’t, and I won’t. Though Audrey and Isla are “richies” they don’t act like it—at least not around me. Audrey thinks of her Mercedes as “just a car”. She told me she’d rather have gotten something less flashy like a VW convertible. Personally, I’d be afraid to drive anything that costs as much as a Mercedes.
Two steps and there’s already sand scratching the bottom of my feet in my sandals. I send Audrey a glare and she just gives me a big fake smile that says, “ha ha.”
“Oh,” Isla interrupts. “They’re here.”
Her face is red, and I think she’s shaking.
“Wow, you’re really crushing on this guy, huh?” I ask.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Audrey answers.
“He’s Academy, like Brent,” Audrey informs me.
