It was time to get the hell out.
When the going gets tough, the tough get stoned. Which is exactly what Harper and Miranda proceeded to do.
They stopped off at the after party (Harper: “After all, we planned the damn thing”) but after ascertaining that all the details were in place-beer, music, lanterns, illicit acts featuring Haven High’s elite-they ditched out. (Harper: “Just a bunch of losers getting laid”) Kane had roped scuzzy Reed Sawyer into supervising things so that the rest of them could focus on their night of debauchery-all it took was a dime bag of weed and a six-pack; apparently Reed didn’t have anything better to do anyway. A burnout like him certainly wouldn’t be caught dead at a school dance- and there was no way he would have made it onto the invite list under any other circumstances, but Harper supposed that climbing his way up the Haven High social ladder wasn’t too high on his list of priorities.
He lay sprawled on one of the motel’s musty sofas and lazily watched the chaos swirl around him. Harper wasn’t sure exactly what “supervising” was supposed to entail-yes, he’d turned on the music and made sure that the kegs were tapped and flowing, but if someone tried to make off with the stereo or burn the place down, would this guy be willing or able to do anything about it? Harper highly doubted it-but at the moment, she didn’t really care.
Besides, back at Miranda’s place, the parents were out, the pot was ample, the beer didn’t come from a keg, and there were no unidentifiable fluids or condom packages littering the floor. Nor was there anyone they didn’t want to talk to-which, at the moment, included pretty much everyone except for each other.
It took an hour for the one taxi company in town to dispatch a driver-but it was well worth the wait. (It was also worth it not to have to ride away from the party in the hot pink monstrosity that had carried them to the dance.)
“Did you see Lauren’s dress?” Miranda asked once they were safely ensconced in her bedroom. She exhaled a puff of smoke and flopped back onto her bed.
“How could I miss it? It was practically fluorescent!” Harper cackled, taking the joint from Miranda and inhaling deeply. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bed and rubbing her bare feet against the soft plush of Miranda’s rug. The best part of going to a formal was always the hour before getting ready and the hour afterward rehashing the night-so who cared if they’d pretty much skipped the middle? “And how about the way Peter King kept drooling every time I walked by?”
“Peter the Perv? Didn’t he get thrown out of school last year for trying to install that camera in the girls’ locker room?” Miranda asked with a laugh, almost choking on a kernel of popcorn.
“He’s b-a-a-a-a-ack,” Harper sang out.
“Hey, at least you didn’t have Lawrence Lester and the bug thugs chasing after you all night,” Miranda complained.
“Lester Lawrence,” Harper corrected her sternly. “Lester and Miranda Lawrence-has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“Shut up!” Miranda slammed a pillow into Harper’s face and they both dissolved into giggles. There were a lot of kids in their high school, and most of them sucked-if they tried hard enough, this could keep them going all night long.
Chapter 17
“Dude, great party!” Adam said, stumbling through the doorway of the motel. Beth caught him just before he fell.
“Yeah, great,” she echoed weakly, taking in the cloud of smoke, stench of beer, pumping music, and scattered couples making out in the darkened corners.
Adam high-fived Kane. “Your brother manage to score us the kegs?”
“You know it,” Kane assured him.
“Awesome-point me to it, liquor-man.”
“Adam,” Beth began tentatively, “don’t you think maybe you’ve had enough?”
He brushed her off and charged ahead. “No such thing!” he called back, before disappearing into the darkness.
Beth froze in the lobby, not sure what to do. A few tinted paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, casting an eerie, shadowy pall over everything. There was no electricity, and they’d decided against candles (nice ambience but overwhelming likelihood of disaster), so they were stuck with the dim reddish lighting of the battery-powered lanterns and the few shafts of moonlight filtering in through the lobby windows.
She and Adam had been one of the last couples to leave the dance, so all the seniors on the secret invite list had already showed up-the place was packed, but in the darkness, Beth couldn’t pick out any familiar faces. There were only strangers, blank bodies bouncing in time with the music or squeezed in together on one of the couches, ignoring the crowd. She was so tired, and so alone.
And she’d been feeling that way for hours-despite glimpses of sobriety and sweet moments of romance, Adam had spent the end of the night in a vodka haze, laughing it up with his friends while Beth stood awkwardly on the fringes, with only Kaia to talk to. And so, with no one to talk to at all.
Now she was on the fringes again, with Adam nowhere to be seen. She felt invisible, and yet totally exposed. As if everyone in the room was watching her, knowing with certainty that she didn’t belong. And indeed, if it weren’t for the Adam connection, she never would have been there-all of her old friends were probably home in bed, or sitting up in Lara Tanner’s basement eating ice cream and watching old black-and-white movies. Much as she wished she was with them, she just didn’t belong there anymore-too bad she didn’t seem to belong here, either.
She looked around in vain for someone she knew, someone she could talk to-even Kaia, at this point, would have been a relief. But it was as if the moment they’d stepped through the door together, everyone else had been pulled off into some kind of vortex. Vanished. And here she was, alone.
She supposed this wasn’t the kind of party where you made small talk, anyway. It was the kind where you passed out on one of the dusty couches, or threw yourself into a sweaty mass of dancers-or you did what she’d come here to do.
She could always go home, she guessed. Call a taxi, get out of here, escape. Forget this night had ever happened, forget about the supposed fresh start, about what she’d been planning to do. Save it for some other time.
The place was a skanky mess.
Adam had morphed into a drunken idiot.
But Beth had waited long enough to know that perfection wasn’t coming-tonight was just going to have to do.
And maybe finding the keg first wasn’t such a bad idea.
“Think we can go somewhere a bit more… private?” Kaia whispered to Kane, running a hand down the small of his back.
“Say no more.”
They threaded their way through the crowd in the lobby, away from the flickering light and the echoing music. Up the stairs, down a long, dark, narrow hallway, ignoring the shadowy shapes pressed against the walls, the bodies writhing together. Into a small, dark room at the end of the hall, the faded drapes drawn, allowing a slash of moonlight to cut through the room. It lit Kaia’s hands as she slowly unbuttoned Kane’s shirt. Their bodies remained in shadow, figures silhouetted against the night.
“Not quite the penthouse suite,” Kane admitted ruefully, his fingers expertly unhooking her bra as they stumbled together toward the bed.
“Not quite.” Kaia lay back and pulled him down on top of her, pressing herself against his tight body, relishing the heavy weight bearing down on her. “But it’ll do.” And so would Kane. He wasn’t the catch he imagined himself to be-but he was hot, he was cocky, and, most importantly, he was there. Sometimes Kaia needed a challenge-but
