Golden stuck with me, so I started making both of us drinks in the kitchen.
A tall, blond man walked in, followed by the intoxicating scent of his cologne. Adrian Storm.
“Two Fridays in a row, Peaches.” He winked at me as he stole some cucumber slices from the cutting board.
“Don’t flirt with me. I’m dating Dalton Deangelo. I assume you’re aware of that, since you also knew about this party, and you’re a pretty sharp guy.”
“Ouch.” He took the knife from my hand and worked on slicing the rest of the cucumber. “Wait. Does that mean if you weren’t dating that guy, you’d welcome me flirting with you?”
Golden gyrated her h*ps as she leaned forward, her elbows on the part of the counter that jutted out from the wall in a peninsula. “You could flirt with me,” she said.
“Maybe just for practice,” he said, a twisted smile on his sexy lips.
She shrieked, “You’re so bad!” As he laughed, she flailed away at him, her tiny hands whacking his broad, muscular chest.
Suddenly I felt like the awkward third wheel, even though it was my f**king house.
How dare Adrian stare down at tiny Golden with that dumb I’m-getting-a-boner look on his face? His IQ was totally dropping by the minute, along with reduced blood flow to his brain.
Meanwhile, Golden had an equally dumb look on her face as she gazed up at Adrian’s chiseled cheekbones, then down at what he was wearing, which seemed to be one of his formerly-oversized band shirts.
I swirled my mason jar full of Easygoing Fun Girl Juice and asked him, “What’s with the band shirts? Why haven't you updated your look since high school?”
He looked down at the emblem on his chest, pretending to be surprised by it. “Oh. This. My parents had a bunch of my old clothes in the attic, and let’s just say the two-seater car I drove back to Beaverdale didn’t exactly have a ton of cargo space.”
“That’s a bit sad. So, you’re that broke, huh?”
Golden gyrated a little more. “I think it’s cool you’re starting from scratch,” she cooed.
Adrian gave me a frosty look, his blue eyes stormy with irritation. “There are plenty of opportunities right here in The Beav, if you know where to look,” he said.
“I’m sure,” I said.
He popped another cucumber slice in his mouth and crunched away. “Oh, but why am I telling you? You’re the one who found herself a movie star.”
“What about you?” I asked Adrian. “Weren’t you hot in the underpants for some actress? What happened with that?”
“It was all an act,” he said with a weird smile.
“Actors aren’t like regular people,” I said. “At least you had some fun.”
He gave me the most heartbreaking look. “Not really.”
With that look, my heart plummeted. I felt bad for Adrian, and worse for me. What was I getting myself into?
“Movie stars,” I said with a shrug, as if that explained everything.
Golden said, “Hey Peaches, that Deangelo guy is really more of a TV star than a movie star, wouldn’t you say?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see about that after this new movie comes out.”
Adrian chewed on the cucumber slices, his gaze still locked on me. “Do you even know what this movie is about?”
“No. Do you?”
“Of course I do. I know everything.”
“I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough, but why don’t you tell me what you know?”
He didn’t answer me, but turned to Golden, a sunnier look on his face. “Is it cool to dance at a house party? This song is the best.”
She threw her arms in the air and whooped. “Dance party!”
She led the way out of the kitchen and back to the front room, where we’d set up my little stereo and cranked the speakers to maximum. Adrian followed, his round bu**ocks particularly eye-catching in the tight jeans that he used to wear five years ago, when he was a scrawny semi-goth with a lip ring.
Wait. Why were his bu**ocks still so appealing to me? I thought my ancient crush had long since expired, but apparently it had been taken out of the mothballs in Adrian’s parents’ attic, along with his band shirts.
I stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching through the crowd for glimpses of Adrian dancing. He was loosening up by the second, dancing like he was just a regular guy at a house party in his hometown, which he was.
All the people there were just regular guys and gals, which was why they were at a house party on Lurch Street on Friday night, and not out at the Double D Ranch filming an indie movie.
It’s not unusual for me to feel isolated when I’m at a party. After all, you’re never as alone as when you’re surrounded by people having fun you can’t relate to. This night, however, it was different. I felt like I was on the verge of gaining something truly amazing, but in order to grab it, I had to let go of everything else.
~
According to the flight attendants, the trip to LA was smooth.
According to my stomach, it was not.
I did not throw up, but I did locate and clutch my airsickness bag for a few minutes, just in case.
The man sitting next to me on the flight reminded me of my father, which both comforted me and made me miss him.
The man said, “Hey, do you know why airplane travel is the safest form of transportation?”
We’d just gone through a rough patch in the little airplane, and I was breathing slowly, willing my guts to either be calm and hang on to the donuts I ate before boarding, or just get it all over with and purge those calories already.
He continued, “In all the years of airlines traversing the skies, they’ve never left anyone up here.”
I stared at him, waiting for actual safety statistics that never came. A full five minutes later, I realized it had been a joke, but by then he was engrossed in his paperback, ignoring the mean girl who didn’t laugh at his joke.
At least the flight was mercifully short, and soon we were landing. I smiled at the merry metallic chorus of seat belts unfastening around me.*
*This was my third time on an airplane, which explains why I sound like a total pro, right?
I’d brought just my small carry-on suitcase, so I was saved the adventure of awaiting luggage, and headed through the airport toward the exit and taxis.
I tried not to gawk at everyone around me and out myself as a tourist, but my eyes still bulged, because everywhere I looked, I saw big, round tits. And hair extensions, huge sunglasses, skinny tanned girls packing bottles of water bigger than them. And just… tits, everywhere.