Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (34 page)

“Really?” I let Tyler put his arms around me and draw me closer.

Astoria uttered a cry of disgust and walked off. John
took a few steps in our direction.

“
Oh, yeah,” Tyler said, lowering his lips to mine. I
barely felt the tip of Tyler’s tongue on my lips before he
was pulled away from me so abruptly that I almost fell
forward.

“What the fuck are you doing?” John roared, pushing
Tyler backward.

“Just gettin’ a taste, man. What do you care?” Tyler
laughed.

John roared another string of choice words before
punching Tyler in the face.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, John?”

“No! What’s wrong with you? You don’t touch her!”
John shouted. A couple of guys grabbed him. Shawn
pushed Tyler backward, away from John.

“Man. You have lost your mind. What do you care
about her? What anybody does with her? You had your
jungle fever moment. Let somebody else take a turn.”

“Let me go. I’ll fuck him up!” John bellowed, trying to pull away from the guys holding him back.

“Oh, so you ain’t done with her? I don’t think Sasha
would like you still mixin’ it up like that,” Tyler said,
laughing even harder.

“C’mon, man. Let’s just go,” Shawn urged, still
pushing Tyler toward the patio door.

“Fuck Sasha! You, too!” John shouted, still trying to
pull free.

“Bye, Johnny boy. I’ll see you at home. You looking
for Denise later, why don’t you check my room first?”
Tyler was still laughing as Shawn pushed him out of the
door. John finally pushed the other guys away from him.

A
nd before I could say or do anything, John was gone out
of the front door. I wanted so badly to run after him. But
I knew that would be the completely wrong thing to do.

So I just sank to the floor, holding my head, trying to
wrap my mind around the fact that John had just stood up for me.

For a moment, I had wanted to hook up with Tyler.
Just to get some reaction out of John. Honestly, because
I hoped it would hurt him. But after the scene that had just played out before me, all I felt was sick.

Later that night, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. That
included the fact that I still hadn’t stopped drinking. I
was so out of it, I didn’t know how I’d gotten downtown,
what had happened to the people I’d come there with,
and whether or not Astoria had been among those
people. I forgot Suse hadn’t even come with us. I kept asking people where she and Astoria were. I was giving
new meaning to getting my freak on out on the dance
floor. Somehow, my softball shirt had gotten ripped off at
the bottom so that it covered little more than my bra.

I was watching two guys approach me when I caught
sight of him. If he was in a room, I was going to know it.
No matter how drunk I was, how dark it was, no matter
what.

Of all the people I expected to see in the Bottom that
night, John wasn’t one of them. I had never seen or heard
of John going to a club before. But he made it downtown
that night, too. And we ended up in the same place again.
I didn’t recognize the people he was with, but all of them
were wild and at least as drunk as I was.

I
absently pushed away the two men who had been trying to make a sandwich out of me. One of them had
been waiting for me to act out the song blaring out of the
speakers. He was more than a little disappointed when he
lost my attention. He kept insisting I was going to dance
with him. When I pushed him away again, he tried to
pull me against him by grabbing my hips from behind.

“No,” I snapped, pulling away from him and then
pushing him away.

“Man, you a’ight. Can’t dance anyway,” he said,
sneering at me. He then walked off.

I rolled my eyes, and made my way over to the bar.
After what I had seen, it was time for another shot.
Especially if I was going to be in the same place with John.

“Grey Goose. Tab’s under Rich,” I slurred to the bar
tender. She nodded. It wasn’t like she needed my name.
All the bartenders had to know me by that point. My tab was going to put somebody’s child through college. Even
if it caused my tuition check to bounce. That was probably why I wasn’t getting cut off.

“So, you want my roommate now? Donnovan not
enough?” I jumped at the sound of John’s voice in my ear.
So many emotions flooded through me at once. I hadn’t
been that close to him since the night of indiscretion
after Barrister’s. And he hadn’t murmured in my ear like
that since—whoa. That was a dangerous memory to
have. I immediately tensed up just thinking about the
possibility of thinking about it.

“Donnovan and I are friends, your roommate wants
me, not the other way around, and what does any of it m
atter to you?” I slammed down my shot before turning
to him. Big mistake. Just seeing him did something to
me. Especially looking into those eyes . . .

“Yeah I do. And you want me, too,” he said.

I glared at him. I was determined that there wouldn’t
be a repeat of Barrister’s.

I tried to ignore my thoughts. Because none of them involved anything I should be doing. I tried hard to con
centrate on how hurt and angry I was. But with him so
close, that was more than difficult.

“Yeah, whatever,” was all I trusted myself to say. I
tried to push past him, even though all I wanted was to
stay where I was. I was annoyed with myself for almost
feeling relieved when he pushed me back and blocked me
from leaving the bar. I couldn’t trust myself to look at him. It was going to be way too easy for him if I did.

“Are you sure you don’t want me?” he whispered, let
ting his hand slip down to the small of my back.

“Yeah. No. I don’t,” I said breathily. We both knew
that was a bold faced lie.

He pulled me closer. “Really?” he murmured, his lips
brushing my ears.

“Really,” I moaned, my eyes rolling back in my head
with pleasure as he kissed the top of my ear.

“I don’t believe you,” he said, kissing the corner of my
mouth.

“You better stop before somebody sees us,” I said while slipping my hands up the back of his shirt.

“Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen. And like you want
it to,” he said. My body was now so tightly pressed
against his that I could feel every breath he took.

“I hate you,” I murmured.

“You love me and you want me.”

“That’s why I hate you,” I said, eyes closed, as he
trailed kisses down my throat. It was crazy. Everybody
could see. And I didn’t care. All I wanted was for John to
touch me. And for me to taste him—his warm, salty
skin—beneath my tongue as I licked the corner of his
mouth between kisses. I was in my own, little world with
him at that moment.

And suddenly I was rudely brought back to reality by
the raking of perfectly manicured nails down my back.
Screeching in my ears. A slap across my face. Flying hair and screams. And the next thing I knew, I had two fists
full of blonde hair. And I was screaming, mad as hell that
this shit always happened to me.

One of Sasha’s spies had attacked me. My old friend,
Cindy. She was Sasha’s second in command. I think I
would have tried my best to kill that girl, had I been
given the chance. I don’t think I ever stopped screaming
as I did the best to beat the plastic surgery off her face.

I had never been more full of rage in my life. It
scared me a little, but I also felt more free than I had in
a long time. I barely noticed her feeble attempts to push
me off. All I knew was that I wanted to give her all the
pain and hurt I had inside. I felt that if I could beat it all
into her, I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. After all, it
was all her fault that I was in that pain anyway. At least the way I saw it.

I don’t know who finally pulled me off of her. I have
no idea who dragged me outside of the club. All I could
t
hink was that I didn’t see John anywhere and that I
hoped I had killed that whore. Somebody was screaming
at me how stupid I was and that I had better hope she
didn’t press charges. Asking me how I would explain that
to the Bar. I vaguely remember telling that person I didn’t
care what the skank did.

I gotta get outta here. Out of this club. Away from this
school. Outta this town
, was the next predominate
thought in my mind. And suddenly, I knew I was going
to be sick. It had nothing to do with the alcohol. I
couldn’t believe what had just happened. Least of all,
what I had been about to do. I needed to get John out of
my head. For good.

He was ruining everything without even really being in
my life. Well, I reminded myself, he was always in my life
whether he was physically around me or not. I didn’t know
how much longer I could stand my life the way it was.

* * *

There was a trial team party on the last day of classes.
Suse and I went together. Donnovan was there, too, but
we avoided each other for most of the night. I didn’t
know what to say to him, knowing he’d heard about my
latest John run-in at the club. Suse and I spent most of
the night talking to Melissa, another trial team member
and my friend Lindie stole editor-in-chief from, and our
friend Inez, who was also on the team.

While everyone else talked about their summer plans,
I let my eyes wander around the room. Our coach had reserved a dining room in a Cuban restaurant for us. It
was a nice place. Lots of red and yellow and well-polished
wood. The music was festive and some people were
dancing. I felt like an impostor in the cheery room.
Especially when it came my turn to talk about my
upcoming summer.

Inez combed an olive-toned hand through her dark
hair and looked at me with large, dark eyes. “So, Denise.
Dettweiler, huh? That’s not an easy one to pull off.”

I forced a smile. “Yeah, well, it’s a job.”

Suse put a hand on my back and shook her head.
“Don’t you be modest about this.” She then turned to the rest of the group and gushed over my summer associate
position at the big, fancy firm with the other girls.

I didn’t really care about it one way or the other any
more. I didn’t feel the same passion for law school as I once had. The more the semester dragged on, ever since
the law review debacle, the more I began to wonder what
the point of it all was. From school to the golden hand
cuffs—chained to a high-paying job I was certain I’d have
no passion for—to what? What was the point?

I came back to the conversation, curious as to why
everyone had stopped talking. Until I saw that
Donnovan was walking our way. Suse exchanged glances
with Inez and Melissa.

One side of Donnovan’s mouth moved up in a tenta
tive half smile. “Denise? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.” I turned to tell Suse and the others I’d be
right back, but they practically shooed me off before I
could. Donnovan and I walked out to the patio that was
b
ehind the dining room we were in to escape our nosy
classmates.

He took a deep breath and laughed nervously. “Why is it so hard to talk to you all of a sudden?”

I laughed back, hoping it would help break the ten
sion. “Yeah, it shouldn’t feel this strange.”

“Denise, about you and John . . .”

“John and I are through.”