At the head table, Adam pulled out a seat for Jared before reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving a slim silver flask. Chris nodded at them.
“Lookin’ sharp, gentlemen,” he said with exaggerated sophistication.
“You too, bro.” Adam held out the flask but Chris declined.
Between them, Clare sniffed.
“You look nice too,” Jared said condescendingly.
“I know.”
She couldn’t know that she’d echoed Adam’s words from earlier, or why Jared let out an amused snort. Adam swatted him on the thigh.
“So, what’s been going down?” Adam asked.
“Well, princess here”— Chris gestured to Clare again, and Jared had to try really hard not to laugh again—“has been giving scores to the best dresses.”
“Anyone ranked over a five yet?” Adam said to Clare with a grin.
“Not yet,” she said.
Under the table, Jared groped for Adam’s hand, then linked their fingers together.
“Not even us?” he asked her.
Clare looked them slowly up and down, taking in the crisp suits and expensive accessories.
“Fine,” she relented. “Combined, you get an eight.”
Instead of bitching back, Jared laughed.
Jared wasn’t sure what started it, or who. He and Adam were making out in a corner when he heard a shriek of horror from the dance floor, and he almost bit Adam’s lip in his haste to look over and see what was going on.
“Fuck,” Adam gasped, then turned to look over his shoulder. “Bitch fight?” He turned back to Jared, his face bright and excited. “Aw, yeah.”
Jared laughed and pulled his hand back from where it had been gratuitously groping Adam’s ass. “Wanna go watch?”
“Oh hell, yeah.”
They stumbled away from their dark corner and out to the dance floor where pools of light pulsed pink and yellow and green. There was a crowd gathered in a tight circle, and Chris was barging his way to the center of it, his thick elbows shoving people out of the way.
Adam quickly followed in his wake, and they found themselves in the middle of cat fight hell.
For three young women who’d been raised with poise and class, when they were fighting, Clare, Mia, and Ryder looked deranged. Clare’s carefully styled hair was loose around her shoulders, and her dark red lipstick was smudged across her face. Mia’s lip was bleeding, and Ryder was crying even as she snarled and clawed at Mia’s dress.
“Aw, fuck this shit,” Chris crowed and grabbed the girl closest to him—tiny Mia—and hauled her away. As Adam grabbed Ryder and threw her over his shoulder fireman-style, the crowd parted and Jared was left with Clare.
“Come on,” he said and dragged her away by the wrist before anyone could step in.
As they ducked into a door marked Employees Only next to the bar, Clare hissed and spat and cursed at him, but Jared marched on, only stopping when they got to a corridor that led to the kitchens.
He looked back and saw the telltale swelling around Clare’s left eye. He’d been in enough scrapes in military school to know the beginnings of a black eye when he saw one.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered and dragged Clare into the kitchen.
“Hey!”
They both turned as someone finally caught up to them. An older woman in a white chef’s jacket stood with her hands on her hips.
“Y’all can’t be down here.” She narrowed her eyes at Clare’s scratched face, then at Jared, who was pulling the hapless woman along. “Is there a problem?”
“Gay,” Jared said, pointing at himself. “Very gay.” He pointed at Clare. “Bitch fight. Can we get some ice for her face?”
“I fucking hate you,” Clare hissed as the woman rolled her eyes and marched through a set of swinging double doors. He ignored her and followed the chef.
This kitchen was empty, a smaller space Jared assumed was used for catering more intimate parties. Their savior in a white jacket was piling ice cubes into a ziploc bag that she then wrapped in a dish towel.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the icy package at Jared. “There’s a smoking area out back.”
Behind them, Clare sniffed in disdain.
“Thanks,” Jared said with a grateful smile and steered Clare away before she said something insulting.
The smoking area wasn’t the cramped shack Jared expected. It was more of a walled garden with a couple of benches. Since he didn’t know where Chris had taken Mia or what the argument had been about in the first place, it seemed the safest place to be.
“Here,” Jared said, steering Clare onto one of the wooden benches. “Stick this on your face.”
“I don’t fucking need—”
“Shut the fuck up and put the ice on your face,” Jared said. “You can’t out-princess me right now, sweetheart.”
Clare looked livid but sat and slapped the ice over her swollen eye.
“Good girl.”
A slim Hispanic guy wearing checkered chef’s pants came out of the door to the kitchens, whistling to himself and stopping short when he saw the high school kids in fancy clothes snarling at each other.
“You guys shouldn’t be here,” he said cautiously.
“Please,” Jared said. “I will give you twenty bucks for a cigarette right now.”
Hispanic Guy grinned and pulled a battered packet of Marlboros from his pocket. “How about your number instead?”
Jared hesitated, then tucked a folded bill into the packet in place of the cigarette he took. “I’m taken,” he said.
“Not her?”
“No. Not me,” Clare said around the ice on her face. “Him inside.”
“What happened?” Jared asked, lighting the cigarette and taking a long draw on it.
“Fucking bitch,” Clare spat.
“Which one?”
“Mia. She should know when to keep her fucking nose out of other people’s business.”
Jared took another drag on the cigarette, passing it to Clare when she held her hand out. He didn’t claim to know much about women, but this seemed to be one of those situations where he could do no harm by staying silent and letting her speak.
“Bitch has been trying to set me up with Chris for fucking ever.”
“Hm.”
She passed the cigarette
