How the hell had Eve's brother gotten into the party? He was standing in a corner, slouching and sneering. Lank hair dripped toward his shoulders, and he wore the same filthy dangerous-boy clothes that he'd had on when he'd threatened Claire at the U.C. He had a drink, but he wasn't drunk; there was too much hot contempt in his eyes as he surveyed the crowd. Crazy eyes. Oh God, that's how they look, those guys who shoot up rooms full of people.
His eyes locked with Claire's, and he gave her a bent smile. Claire anxiously looked at Eve, but her back was to her brother and she was talking to Michael, she clearly hadn't seen the potential trouble at all.
"What?" Shane asked.
Claire turned back and pointed.
Jason was gone.
Shane shook his head when she told him, and moved away to talk to Michael. Michael nodded, then handed Eve off to Shane. Claire saw his lips move. Watch her.
And then Michael angled off through the crowd.
So much for staying together.
Shane draped his arms over both of their shoulders and said, "Now this is the life. Want to get a room, girls?"
Eve rolled her thickly mascaraed eyes. "Like you'd know what to do with one of us, never mind two. Where's he going?"
"Bathroom," Shane said blandly. "Even vamps gotta pee."
Which, for all Claire knew, might be true, but she was sure that wasn't why Michael had cut out on them. Shane steered them up to the counter and snagged a sealed bottled water for Claire and two sealed beers, which he opened himself. Not taking any chances, Claire thought, and cracked the top on the bottle to take several gulps of the cool, sweet water. She hadn't realized how hot it was until then, but she could feel sweat sticking her flocked mesh shirt to her exposed skin.
Somebody grabbed her ass. Claire yelped and jumped, turned and saw a drunk-off-his-butt frat boy leaning in next to her. "Oh baby, me like!" he yelled in her ear. "You, me, outside, okay?" He did a drunken pantomime of what he was thinking of doing outside, and she felt a hot roll of embarrassed shame.
"Get lost," she said, and shoved him off. His buddies tossed him back toward her, and this time, he crashed into her off balance and pushed her up against the bar. He took advantage of it, too, hands all over her, hips grinding her right into the counter.
Shane grabbed him by the collar of his TPU golf shirt, spun him around, and punched him right in the face.
Great, Claire thought in shaken disgust. That's always the answer around here. Punch somebody. Then again, she didn't think reasoned discourse was going to be big tonight.
And of course, the guy's friends piled on. Eve grabbed Claire's hand and pulled her out of the way; a tight circle formed around the combat, with people whooping and clapping. "We have to stop him!" Claire yelled. Eve patted her on the shoulder.
"This is Shane's idea of a good time," she said. "Trust me. You do not want to try to stop him right now. Let him do his thing. He'll be fine."
Claire hated it. She hated seeing Shane get hit, and she didn't much like the way his eyes lit up when he was knee-deep in conflict, either. Stupid to be upset by it, she guessed, considering this was part of why she was so attracted to Shane in the first place -- the way he would unhesitatingly throw himself into things, especially when it came to protecting others.
Eve was practically reading her mind. "Let him be who he is," she said. "I know it's hard, because in general, guys are clueless and you just want to fix it, but just -- let him be. You don't want him trying to change you, right?"
Right. She didn't, although he was changing her, whether he knew it or not. Not in bad ways, she thought. Just ... change. A year ago she'd have been paralyzed with terror at the idea of coming to a party like this, and even more terrified to imagine being groped by a stranger like that.
Now, she was mostly just annoyed, and felt like she needed a shower.
Eve whirled. "Hey! I know my ass is fine, but look, don't touch!" An eruption of drunken laughter. She took Claire's hand. "We need a wall behind us. Less chance of getting the stealth feel-up."
"But -- " She gave up as somebody else patted her rear. "Yeah. Okay."
That put them half a room away from Shane, who was now somehow at the center of a knot of maybe ten guys, all whaling away at each other (mostly without connecting, they were all too drunk to really do damage). Claire leaned gratefully against the wall and sipped water. Somehow, she'd ended up holding Shane's beer, and with a quick sideways glance at Eve, she took a sip of that, too. Ugh. Nasty.
"Acquired taste," Eve said, laughing at her expression. "Shane buys like a college boy. If it's cheap and the ad has a girl in a bikini, it must be great."
"That's disgusting," Claire said, and took another long drink of water to wash her tongue clean. Even the water tasted bitter, after that.
"Well, in fairness, beer is mostly about the buzz, not the taste," Eve said. "You want taste and buzz, you get something like rum and coke, or White Russians." She seemed to remember, suddenly, how old Claire was. "Not that I'm going to let you have any of that, by the way. We promised your parents." She managed to look almost righteous when she said it, and she took Shane's beer out of Claire's hand. "I'll keep this." Eve raised her normally soft voice to a parade-ground bellow. "Yo, Shane! Quit screwing around or I'm drinking this!"
A ripple of laughter through the room. The fight was mostly over, anyway, and Shane shoved away the last stumbling frat boy who'd tried to take a swing at him, wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and left the field of battle. He looked rumpled and flushed and a little bit savage, and Claire felt something in her just growl in response.