“What the hell?” Jenni mumbled, but Dillon pulled her away before she could get a positive glimpse.
Dillon held her up as she tripped. He kissed her again. His big hands settled on her hips, pinching.
“What’ve you got for me?” He nuzzled her neck.
“No marks,” she told him. Dillon was trying to give her a hickey, like he was sixteen instead of however the hell old he really was.
“Someone else doesn’t seem to have the same rules.” He touched the faint purple marks on her neck.
She knocked his hand away. “That’s none of your goddamned business.”
“Hey, hey, listen, it’s not like I care if you’re getting some on the side. Or hell, it’s not like I care if I’m the some on the side. But if you don’t want marks, you’d better tell whoever the other guy is.”
“There’s no other guy.” The denial was automatic out of habit.
Dillon didn’t seem to care. He wheedled, “C’mon, baby, I need a little something.”
Of course he did. Dillon had been buying from Barry since before Jenni got recruited to expand the market. He was her best customer.
Jenni inched out of his embrace. She wasn’t sober, and she didn’t want to be, but she was losing at least the edge of her drunkenness. She patted her hip and let out a laugh.
“Oops. Forgot. No pockets.” She spread the hem of her dress, almost losing her balance again.
“Damn it!”
“Relax,” she told him with a scowl. “I have some at home. I just have to walk over and get them.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They walked across the street, which had been lined with cars for the past hour or so. Inside her house, she told Dillon to wait in the kitchen while she ran upstairs to grab the small mint tin in which she kept the supply of painkillers she sold. She was almost out. She’d have to get some more from Barry. He’d want his cash soon, too, and she double checked to make sure that was safe in its hiding place too. It would suck if Allie or worse, her mom, found it.
Before going back downstairs to trade the pills to Dillon for some money, Jenni checked her pager. Nothing. She tucked the pager away in her underwear drawer. Disappointment reminded her of the taste of vomit. In her bathroom she brushed her teeth. Spat. Brushed, rinsed, spat again.
Steve had told her he’d be on the road for a few days, maybe a week. He’d told her he wasn’t coming to a high school party anyway, even if he was home. If Dillon was way too old to be there, Steve was literally old enough to be the father to most if not all of the kids are the party. Including Jenni.
Steve wasn’t her father, though. He was something else that had no name. He was another of her secrets, and she held it tight to herself.
Chapter 5
Rebecca
Then
The music was so loud that Rebecca couldn’t hear anything Madison was saying, but it probably didn’t matter. The other girl was already so drunk that she could hardly stand up. It was gross. Rebecca had barely managed to finish one plastic cup of warm, fizzy beer. Her stomach was already upset. So much for partying hard.
“Tristan,” Madison finally said into Rebecca’s ear.
“Huh?”
Madison nudged Rebecca’s shoulder, then pointed toward the corner where a group of guys were gathered around a beer pong setup. “Tristan Weatherfield!”
Rebecca looked again. She knew Tristan, of course. Quarry High was so small that everyone knew everyone else, because most of them had been in class together since kindergarten. She knew Tristan, but they’d never hung out. Tristan wore black leather jackets and spiked his dark hair. He had a James Dean kind of retro vibe mixed up with a punk/rockabilly Stray Cats style, and guys like him didn’t pay girls like Rebecca the time of day. She was the Steff to his Andie in their school’s version of Pretty in Pink. Different worlds. Different universes, as a matter of fact.
“He’s cute!” Madison breathed beer-scented breath into Rebecca’s face. “He keeps looking at you.”
Rebecca attempted another sip from the red plastic cup, trying to hide the shudder of disgust at the beer’s sour flavor. “Maybe he’s looking at you.”
“You think so?” Madison waved a hand, jangling her armful of bracelets. “Should I go ask him to dance or something?”
“I don’t think this is the sort of party where you do that.”
“Right, right.” Madison looked serious. “You should do it, then.”
Rebecca laughed, her attention caught away from the cute rebel boy in the corner to Jennilynn Harrison, who was being led away by the stranger none of them knew. The guy was old. At least thirty. Good-looking, but in a shady way.
“Go.” Madison shoved her.
Rebecca took a couple of stumbling steps toward the group of boys. Tristan wasn’t looking at her, so he didn’t see how clumsy she was. On the other hand, he wasn’t looking at her, which meant that Madison was just too drunk to know what the hell she was talking about.
The beer in Rebecca’s cup sloshed. So much for her getting drunk and wild tonight. She should have gone out with Richie. She could have let him take her back to his house, where they’d have tussled on the couch in the basement rumpus room. He’d have tried to get her shirt off like that was some big deal, to see her boobs. She’d have let him after a struggle, not because she really thought it was a big deal, but because good girls held out.
“Tired of being a good girl,” she said.
Madison blinked. “Huh? What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” Rebecca steeled herself, then tossed back the contents of her cup. She grimaced at the nasty taste, but welcomed the warmth spreading through her. She handed the empty to Madison.
She had to weave her way through a group of kids dirty dancing on top of a bunch of potato chips being crushed into the carpet, but she kept going. By the time she got to where Tristan was standing, she expected to lose her nerve. To her own surprise though, Rebecca put herself squarely in front of him.
“Hi, Tristan.”
Tristan turned and gave her a long, obvious look, up and down. “Hey.”
“Rebecca,” she said. “Segal. We had Bio II together last year.”
“I guess so.” His eyes were red. His stance and his grin were both a little wobbly. He focused on her, but barely, as he took a long swig. “Where’s your drink?”
“I guess I need a new one. Want to get one with me?” Her own boldness shocked her. Maybe the beer she’d managed to chug was affecting her.
Tristan drained his cup by tipping back his head. Rebecca watched, fascinated, at how the muscles of his throat worked. When he finished, giving her another of those wobbly grins, her stomach tightened and a hot flush crept up her throat into her cheeks.
Drinks had been set out in the kitchen. Empty bottles lined the counter. The trashcan was already overflowing with discarded red plastic cups. The floor, sticky from spilled red fruit punch. Ilya and Niko’s mother was going to be super pissed when she got home. Rebecca couldn’t imagine ever throwing a party like this at her house.
Tristan pulled two cups from the top of the trash and ran them under the kitchen faucet before turning to her. “Punch!”
“Sure.” She wasn’t going to be grossed out by the fact he took them from the trash, Rebecca told herself. She was carefree, loose as a goose, she was totally chill.
Tristan poured them both cups of punch. He held up his cup to knock against hers. “Cheers.”
Drinking the punch was like taking a punch, right to the guts. It was so much worse than the beer. Rebecca shuddered with disgust at the vodka’s strong taste, barely cut at all by the equally disgusting red punch. Tristan saw her grimace and laughed.
“The more you drink, the better it tastes,” he said.
She was already noticing that. She sipped again. The music wasn’t as loud in here, but while that would make conversation easier, she was having a hard time figuring out what to say.
“You sat in the back,”
Tristan said suddenly.
Rebecca’s eyebrows lifted before understanding what he meant. “Oh. Yeah.”
“I remember you now.”
It didn’t sound flattering, but it was better than him having no idea who she was. Tristan gave her another of those up-and-down looks. She tried not to blush.
“Rebecca Segal,” he said. “You and Richie go together.”
She took a long drink, forcing herself not to show how horrible it was. She kept her answer nonchalant. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“He’s not here.”
“No,” Rebecca told him.
Tristan smiled. “Sweet.”
Rebecca was not expecting the kiss. Sloppy and sudden, it almost missed her mouth. Tristan’s body against hers made her stumble back so that her hip hit the table. Bottles rattled again. Faster than she’d have thought him capable of grabbing her, he snagged her wrist to keep her from falling.
“Easy,” Tristan said. “Sorry?”
“Don’t be.”
This time, she kissed him, and Rebecca wasn’t sure if it was the beer and the shitty punch or the fact she’d been aching to do something like this for what felt like her entire life. She didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. Tristan’s mouth was on hers, and his tongue was sweeping inside it, and she felt giddy and free and alive.
“You want to go find a place?” Tristan asked her.
Rebecca’s heart thudded so hard she felt a little faint. “Yeah. Sure.”
Chapter 6
Jenni
Then
Dillon had been satisfied enough by the pills Jenni had given him, but when she demanded he pay for them, he refused. They’d argued. He seemed to think that because he’d bought her beer and liquor that somehow made them equal.
“No tradesies,” she told him, wishing she wasn’t sobering up.
“Look, you little bitch. I brought you and your underage friends the booze you asked for. I thought we had an understanding, and that was that you’d have something for me. Which meant giving it to me, not making me pay for it.”
“Everyone pays for it,” she retorted. “That’s how it works, you dumbass.”
“You are a nasty little whore.”
His words stung, even though she tried not to let them. “Yeah? And you’re a pathetic old fuck with a drug problem. I could get beer anywhere, but you can’t get what I have from just anyone.”
“You think it’s cool, huh? Playing games with me?” He shook his head and spat to the side.
In the shadows along the side of the Stern house, Jenni could hear the music from inside. She wanted to go back inside the party and forget this old dude and the pills for tonight. She never sold to kids in her class. She wanted to drink some more, dance some more. She pushed Dillon back with both hands square on his chest.
“Fuck off, creep.”
When he made to grab at her, she ducked away from his fumbling and punched him in the face. It was luck on her part; she’d swung wildly. When he grunted and stepped back, though, Jenni held up her fists again.
“I said, ‘fuck off.’”
Dillon held up his hands. “Fine. Jesus.”
“And if you ever fucking put your hands on me again,” she added, “I’ll make sure you never get to buy anything from me or my supplier ever again.”
This last bit was pure brash bluffing. She doubted Barry would let a sale go, especially from a regular like this guy. It felt good to see him look nervous, though. Sure, he could probably get his drugs from somewhere else, but Barry, and therefore Jenni, were both known to have high quality shit at prices even a non-desperate addict could consider fair. She had deliveries on the regular, too. Consistent.
“Good luck getting high when you have to suck a dick so you can get your Jackpot,” she told him, referring to one of the street names for at least one of the drugs she’d been selling.
“Fuck you.” Dillon shot this over his shoulder as he stalked around the corner of the house and out of sight.
Jenni sagged against the side of the house. If she hadn’t been sober before, the adrenaline throbbing through her was making her feel like she was. She needed more to drink.
The figure loomed out of the shadows in front of her so suddenly she screamed. In the next instant she swatted at him. “Ilya! God, you scared me!”
“Sorry. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I need something to drink. I want to dance.” She punched at his arm, but lightly this time. Softer.
He grabbed her wrist and held it. She didn’t try to pull away. Then, in the shadows, Ilya moved closer.
She kissed him, pushing up a bit on her toes to do it. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said.
Their foreheads pressed together. The music from inside the house had switched from something raucous to a slower song. She and Ilya moved together in a slow dance. Jenni’s head went onto his shoulder.
“Who’s the douchebag?” His question sounded almost conversational, but Jenni knew better. Ilya was trying too hard to sound like he didn’t care.
“Nobody.”
“Did he hurt you?”
She pulled away to look at his face, still half in shadow so that she could only guess at the rest of his features. “No.”
“If he did —”
“He didn’t,” Jenni said and kissed him again.
“What are you doing, Jenni?” Ilya sounded wary.
She didn’t want that, and she didn’t want him to be thinking too much about this. She wasn’t going to. “Kissing you. C’mon.”
“Why are you kissing me?”
She sighed and leaned back against the side of the house with her arms crossed. “Because I want to.”
“You’re drunk.”
“So are you,” she told him, tone dripping with scorn. “What difference does that make?”
Ilya shook his head. “The party is getting out of control.”
“Yeah?”
He grinned. “Yeah.”
“Kiss me, Ilya. Kiss me.” She breathed the words, and with the music pumping out from inside, it would have been very easy for him not to hear her, or to pretend that he had not.
“Why?” He moved closer to put his hands on her hips. He didn’t kiss her.
“Because I want you to.”
He sighed and shook his head, but then he did gave her what she wanted. When the kiss broke, he didn’t move away from her. His arousal pressed her stomach. Jenni closed her eyes, wishing Steve had paged her. Wishing Ilya had refused to kiss her.
“I want to smoke,” she said next.
“I have a couple of joints in my room. But it’s all I have, there’s not enough to go around.”
“So, we won’t share.” She gave him a grin that felt twisted but must’ve looked fine, because he let her take his hand and pull him toward the door.
Chapter 7
Rebecca
Then
Rebecca couldn’t believe she’d actually followed Tristan upstairs to the attic bedroom, but here she was. He’d turned on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but it controlled only the fixture in the stairwell itself. The bedroom was still mostly dark.
She guessed by the clothes strewn about the floor and the poster of a swimsuit model thumbtacked to the attic’s sloping, beamed ceiling, that the bedroom belonged to either Ilya or Nikolai, and not their stepsister, Theresa. She’d seen the younger girl laughing and dancing with some underclassmen Rebecca didn’t know. She would never have dared go to a senior party before this year, but she guessed that if it was held in the house where you lived, you got the right to invite some of your friends.
“I didn’t know you were friends with Ilya,” Tristan said.
“I’m not. Jenni and I have study hall together. She invited me.”
Tristan nodded. He’d seemed super confident in the kitchen, but now that they were both up here and the bed was prominently the only place to sit, he was acting like he wasn’t sure what to do. Rebecca was definitely feeling
the red punch.
“I have a boyfriend,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah. Richie. We talked about it.”
“I want you to kiss me again.”
Tristan smiled. “Even though you have a boyfriend?”
In reply, she stepped closer to him. She offered her mouth, eyes closed. Heart pounding. He took so long to press his mouth to hers that Rebecca had started to think he wasn’t going to. Then, the sweet pressure of his lips. The gentle probe of his tongue. She sighed and opened for him. His arms went around her.
Somehow, they ended up on the bed. Arms and legs tangling. Hands groping, moving, roaming.
Rebecca had never been like this with Richie. Their makeout sessions usually ended when he tried to slide his hand up beneath her shirt and she pushed his hand away. He always did and then would stop kissing her.
“…gives up too easy,” she murmured into Tristan’s mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She kissed him harder.
He rolled on top of her. This was going so fast. She didn’t care. The room was spinning a little. The bed, a rocking boat on a sea of desire. She wanted this and wanted him, wanted more than small town life and a steady boyfriend her parents had picked out for her.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs didn’t register with her until the single overhead bulb came on. Bright as day. It stabbed light into Rebecca’s eyes over Tristan’s shoulder, and she cried out and threw up a hand to shield them. Tristan, eyes closed, face flushed with passion, didn’t seem to notice at first. At Rebecca’s low shout, though, he opened his eyes and strained around to look at who was interrupting them.
“Oh, shit, sorry.”
Rebecca didn’t recognize the male voice, but through the curve of Tristan’s arm she glimpsed a flash of blond curls. Jennilynn. She strained to look and saw Ilya. Rebecca had time to think that was interesting, the two of them together, before she realized she’d been caught.