Chapter 1
Stella
Regret is not a feeling I’m personally familiar with. I prefer to live life to the fullest and embrace it for all its faults. However, I believe I’m beginning to understand the sensation as I let a mildly sweaty stranger lead me away from the throng of dancing people to a more secluded area of the club.
It’s not a bad decision,I tell my intuition.You’re just nervous.He’s not ugly by any standard, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is off.
It starts as a twisting in my stomach, a sense of not-rightness as he leads me to a darkened part of the club and presses me up against the wall, trapping me. He looks down at me hungrily, licking his lips before descending on me, capturing my mouth with his. I try to move with him, to let him guide me, but I fear he may need a map.
This is… messier than I anticipated.
Maybe it’s my lack of frat party experience that’s making getting blasted out of my mind and tonguing a stranger seemunfun and a little gross. Maybe it’s the onion sandwich I’m guessing he had for lunch.
Beyond the criminally bad breath, the sloppy flop of his tongue in my mouth is off-putting. I wonder if he’s trying to show me what else it can—or can’t—do. He pulls away, tracing my bottom lip with his thumb.
“We are going to have so much fun tonight,” he says as he pushes his thumb.
Into.
My.
Mouth.
Oh my god! Dirty fingers! Dirty fingers!I’m trying not to gag as he shoves it further into my mouth, like he’s trying to evaluate my tonsils.
Is this supposed to be hot? Because I’m nauseated.I don’t care how new I am to this, I know he’s doing something wrong.He probably wouldn’t even wash his hands before fingering me.
Yup. There goes my libido. I quickly extricate myself from his hold.
“Where are you going, sexy?” he asks, his touch trailing offensively down my arms.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I shout over the music, putting as much space between us as possible. I’m sure he can take one look at my disgusted face and see that I’m lying out of my ass, and I don’t care at this point. I’m relieved to get away from him, even if disappointment tinges the edges. I really thought this could be the night.
One thing is for sure; this is the first and last time I will ever let Hazel and Nessa talk me into going clubbing with them. I love them to death, and I would do anything for them, but this freaking sucks, something my friends didn’t seem to understand when I protested on my way out the door, and don’t seem to understand now that they’ve abandoned me for the dance floor,leaving me to the whims of sloppy-tongue-gross-thumb boy. Truthfully, I was simply looking to make the best of an awkward situation.
Now that I’m officially nineteen, my friends have been determined to get me “out there” to get more “life experience.” While I’m not necessarily opposed to that, I’m not convinced I love their methods. I’ll admit that they’re right in that I don’t get out much lately. It seems I’ve been chained to work these days. Not that I don’t love my job, it’s that it’s become all consuming.
But I came here tonight with a purpose.
Experience.
With the pounding beat and the undulating bodies, the constantly changing lights, the discombobulating music, and the looming anxiety, it was difficult to distinguish between a guaranteed good time or a lesson in bad decisions.
Hazel and Nessa are dancing with each other when I find them, taking full advantage of girls’ night. The benefit of dancing with each other is that they don’t get strange men approaching them trying to shoot their shot.
I, however, have not been so lucky. As luck would have it, I’m a loser magnet.
So far, I’ve attracted a much, much older, balding gentleman who tried to get as close as physically possible while still talking directly to my chest. One guy sat down at the bar next to me and complained about his current girlfriend before he asked if I would help make her jealous, which I quickly declined. And there was one, very attractive, very drunk girl who, if I did swing that way and she wasn’t halfway down a bottle of tequila, I may have hit it off with.
But the pickings have been slim.
Hence, thumb-in-mouth boy.
I push my way back through the crowd to Nessa and Hazel who have gathered quite a few spectators by this point. Hazelturns her smiling face to greet me, takes one look at my expression and follows me directly out of the club, dragging Nessa behind her.
Only an ounce of moderate guilt itches under my skin at pulling the girls away from their fun early. It’s been a while since we’ve been out, and I know Hazel was apprehensive.
After all the times Hazel was terrorized by her ex last year, she’s kept a very low profile, usually only venturing out in less crowded areas, or with larger groups. Nessa said that her brother—John, I think—occasionally had to play guard dog a few times.
