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Chapter Eight
Lizzy
“Come on, cheer up,” River coaxed, holding yet another dress from her closet in front of me, “Can you at least pretend like you’re happy to see me?”
“I am happy to see you,” I told her, sincerely, “It’s just the whole-”
“The whole situation with Mason and Trent,” she finished for me, “Ok, run this by me one more time, I’m a little bit confused, so you had crushes on both Mason and Trent back in college, correct?”
I nod.
“And Trent had a thing for you?”
“I guess so?”
“But you didn’t make a move on him because Mason had a thing for him, too?” she asks.
“That’s about the size of it,” I nod.
“I swear, you should be a soap opera,” River mutters, shaking her head, “Girl, how in the world did you get into all of this?”
“I don’t know,” I moan, “Maybe I should have just said no when he asked me and the three of us could just be friends and go back to shoving all of those feelings deep, deep, deep down.”
River hands me a dress on a hanger. “Absolutely not. Repressed feelings are bad for the skin, and they shorten your lifespan.”
“Is that true?” I ask her.
She ignores me. “Go get dressed. Come on, I want to take you someplace special tonight.”
I duck into her bathroom to change into the dress she’s given me. Her flight had gotten delayed, and she hadn’t gotten in until late Saturday night, so instead we’d agreed to let her spend the day power-napping before meeting me at my new place, and once I’m dolled up to her liking, she’s going to drag me “out on the town.”
The little black dress is a snug fit, but a glance in the mirror reveals that it clings nicely in all the right places. I can wear it for the night to appease her mania.
I step out of the bathroom and she lets out a crow of delight. “Perfect! All right, let me just get changed and then we can head out,” she says, rummaging in her closet until she finds what she has in mind, something in a deep burgundy.
She dips into the bathroom to change, and while I wait, I glance in the full-length mirror behind her door, wiping a little smudge of mascara from under my eye and adjusting my hair.
River steps out, the burgundy sheath dress snug around her curvy figure.
“What do you think?” she asks.
“You look great. So, what’s this ‘someplace special’ you’re taking me tonight?” I ask her as she leads me down to her car.
“It’s this nightclub called Ecstasia,” she informs me.
I frown. I’d heard the name before the club had been around a long time. “Isn’t that place super sketchy?” I ask as I slip into the passenger seat of her Mazda, “I remember hearing that it was kind of high on the creep factor.”
River slips into the seat beside me and buckles her seat belt. “It used to be kind of on the seedy side, but it’s under new management and it’s not what it used to be. They kept the fun and freaky aspects,” she wiggles her eyebrows pointedly at me, “But they cleaned up some of the sketch.”
I nod. I’ll take River’s word for it, although I wonder if we aren’t a little old for the nightclub scene. But I’ll humor her for the evening, she’s hell-bent and I know full well that she’s unstoppable when she’s like this.
“I’m only dancing with you, though,” I warn her, “I’m not exactly looking to get tangled up with potentially even more baggage.”
“That’s fine,” she agrees, “I’m not trying to play wing woman or have you disappear with some guy anyway.”
We arrive at the club shortly after, and true to her word, it doesn’t look particularly seedy or untoward, at least from the outside. It just looks like your average nightclub.
We show our IDs at the door in what feels like a show of flattery from the bouncer. Not that either of us looks bad for our ages or anything, but neither one of us looks like we might be underage.
