When the bus comes to a stop in front of a beautiful restaurant, I make sure to put on my metaphorical armor. I have pissed Nicky off by not changing. I can sense her anger and I have a feeling she will do something to upset me tonight. When we were in high school we decided to dye our hair one day. I wanted to go lighter because I was already a blonde. Nicky wanted to go blonde but thought it wasn’t a good idea for both of us to have the same color, so she settled on a red color since her hair was jet black. Or so I thought. She prepped me and washed my hair not saying a word. When I turned and looked in the mirror I burst into tears. She’d dyed my hair red so she could have the blonde. Great friend, right? My brain is working overtime, thinking of all of the things she could do.
“Hey, it’s show time.” I feel Daniel’s warm breath caress my ear. Looking over at him I take him in. My eyes enjoy the view of the top of his chest. He left the top three buttons open and his sleeves are rolled up.
“Like what you see, Frost?” he teases.
“I did until you opened your mouth,” I tease back. His eyes dance with amusement as he leans into me.
“Forget my chest, I think you would like what I can do with my mouth,” he whispers as he brushes his nose up my neck taking in his fill of me. “You smell edible.”
“I should feed you then.” I realize what I said could be taken the wrong way. “I mean food, not me.” Oh God, I just messed this whole thing up. I was so confident a few seconds ago and now I’ve ruined it.
“Get moving Westy,” I stand abruptly, cutting off his sniffing session. He takes his hand and pulls at the hem of my dress.
“I will melt you, Frost.” He stands, happy with his stupid joke.
“Yeah, like I’ve never heard that one before.” I push him along so I can get out of the now empty bus. He steps out of the bus and turns to offer me his hand. I take it, but when my feet hit the ground he doesn’t let go.
“What are you doing?” I ask pulling my hand out of his.
“Nothing, what are you doing?” he says, ignoring me. I blow a stray piece of hair away from my face annoyed.
“Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
“I don’t have a mother, she died giving birth to me,” he replies looking into my eyes. I want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. God Kayley, you really are a bitch.
“Ha, just kidding!” I pull my hand away hard and slap his arm. Walking off in a huff I see everyone is sitting around our appointed table.
“How nice of you to join us Kay, what, did you have a quickie in the bathroom with Westy?” Nicky announces to the whole table. I feel my heart drop to the floor and my face turn red.
“Oh Nicky, we didn’t want to start our relationship like you and Matt did,” Daniel retorts standing next to me. Burn! Nicky’s face turns seven shades of red, and not from embarrassment, but from pure rage. I turn and smile at Daniel as he pulls out my chair for me to sit in. I mouth, “Thank you,” to him as he pushes me in. I guess he does have manners.
“She’s a bitch,” he whispers in my ear once he is sitting next to me. I smile and nod my head in agreement, then smile at Nicky who is sitting across from me.
Dinner goes relatively smoothly, except for when Nicky spilled her wine, and yes, it was directed to hit me. My reflexes and Daniel’s saved me from getting it on my dress or in my hair. Nicky did, however, give me a half-assed apology, which Daniel pulled out of her.
After all the parents and grandparents are dropped off, the wedding party heads over to a night club. There are twelve of us in total, and I feel pretty comfortable with everyone.
“Stay close to me, OK?” Daniel says when we arrive and get escorted to our VIP room.
“Why?”
“Because ‘Nasty Nicky’ has it out for you tonight, I heard a comment she made to her cousin,” he says while wrapping his hand around my waist.
“Mr. Weston,” an older man greets Daniel. “It is our upmost pleasure to have you as a guest tonight, at your request we have roped off the VIP area. If there is anything else you would like, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Thank you, as long as the drinks are flowing, we should be just fine.”
When we enter the VIP area, I stand there in amazement. We have this whole room to ourselves?
“You set this up?” I ask looking over at Daniel.
“Yeah, I wanted Vegas and strippers, but Nicky wasn’t going for that, so Matt came up with this.”
“You fronted this whole night?”
“Yeah, Matt’s my boy,” he states as if it weren’t a big deal.