AllFreeNovel
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It was true. Tons of guys on the dance floor were now giving them the eye, including a dark-haired college-age kid in an oversized T-shirt and baggy jeans. When he met their gaze, he raised his drink at them from across the room and crooked his finger, beckoning them over. Hanna and Naomi nudged each other and snickered.
“He’s cute, but he knows it,” Hanna yelled in Naomi’s ear.
“Definitely. Come on, let’s dance,” Naomi said, grabbing Hanna’s hand and pulling her onto the dance floor. The song was something Latin and fast, and they started wriggling to the music, making sexy poses for the Hola photographer every time he did a lap. Then, as the DJ transitioned into a new song, Naomi tapped Hanna’s arm. “Who do you think is the hottest guy in this place?”
Hanna slowed her dancing and surveyed the options. “It’s a toss-up between the Enrique Iglesias look-alike and James Bond in the corner.”
Naomi squinted at James Bond, who was wearing a slim-cut suit, expensive-looking shiny shoes, and Ray-Bans. “Hanna!” she shrieked. “He’s, like, forty years old!”
“He is not!” Hanna said, studying the guy’s toned physique and thick brows. “He just looks older because he’s sophisticated.”
“He’s definitely only a six or a seven,” Naomi decided, sipping her cocktail. “Now that guy is a ten.” She used her straw to point to a blond guy by the bar. He looked like he belonged on the cover of a surfing magazine.
“Are you kidding?” Hanna wrinkled her nose. “He’s an eight at best.”
“What about him?” Naomi glanced at a guy sitting at a nearby table. He had a shaved head and sexy cheekbones.
“Five,” Hanna decreed loudly, feeling more and more confident. “I hate shaved heads.”
“And him?” A guy with lobsterlike sunburn on his nose and arms.
“Ick! One!” Hanna cried.
They made it into a game, going around the room, tapping guys and assigning them numbers like deranged fairy godmothers. “Six!” they called to a slightly overweight guy who had thick, lustrous hair. “Nine!” they called to an Abercrombie-model look-alike who was dancing shirtless. “Seven!” “Four!” “Eight and a half!” At first, the guys at the club didn’t quite understand what the girls were doing, but they caught on pretty quickly. Those deemed eights and above looked pleased. A guy who’d gotten only a six narrowed his eyes and mouthed something that looked like Bitch.
Someone caught Hanna’s arm as she was racing past the DJ booth. “What would you rate me?”
She stopped short and looked at him. His hair was greasy, his nostrils weirdly oversized, and he was wearing a T-shirt that had the Chanel logo plastered across the front. He reminded Hanna of the guy who worked at the Motorola kiosk in the mall.
She turned to Naomi, who’d paused, too. “Ali had a phrase for this, you know,” she screamed into her ear.
“What was that?” Naomi asked.
“Not it!”
Hanna turned and fled. Naomi burst out laughing and raced behind her. Breathless from laughing, they spilled out onto the patio, which was much cooler and quieter. Naomi wiped her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life.”
“Did you see the look on that greasy guy’s face when I said, ‘Not it’?” Hanna squealed. “I thought he was going to kill us!”
Naomi collapsed into a chair. “Did you play that game a lot when Ali was around?”
Hanna swallowed a giggle and shook her head. “Not like that.”
“She didn’t have that game when I was friends with her,” Naomi said. Then an uncomfortable look flashed across her face. “But I guess that was because it wasn’t the same Ali.”
Hanna’s spirits dimmed a little. “Yeah,” she said, then reached for her drink, not knowing what to say next.
Naomi spun the bracelet around her wrist. “I feel terrible about what happened with you guys and Ali in the Poconos. It was all so unbelievable.”
“Thanks,” Hanna mumbled. Then she looked up, realizing something. “Were you surprised when you found out that there were two of them? And that the girl you were friends with was a murderer?”
Naomi picked at her nails. “Well, kind of, but …”
“But what?”
Naomi stared at the lanterns hanging from the rafters. “The whole thing is just sad, you know? I feel like such a jerk for saying this, but sometimes I still miss her.”
“You’re not a jerk,” Hanna said quietly. It hadn’t occurred to her before that Naomi had lost Ali as well. Not their Ali, of course, but an Ali all the same.
“You know what?” Naomi peered at her. “You’re really easy to talk to. I’m surprised.”
“I’m surprised about you, too,” Hanna said tentatively. The statement was way more loaded than Naomi might ever know.
“I’ve told you stuff I haven’t told a lot of people,” Naomi said, leaning against the railing.
“Oh? Like what?”
“Like the bingeing, for one,” Naomi admitted. The light caught her gold earrings, making them glitter. “And the stuff just now, about Ali.”
“You mentioned something about a favorite cousin, too,” Hanna said, her heart hammering. “A girl who got in a car accident?”
Naomi pressed her lips together. “Yeah. Madison. I never talk about her.”
“So … did she die in the accident?” Hanna held her breath.
