Scarlett White (5 page)

"Natalie?" Bryan suggested.

"Diana?" Mary guessed.

"Anna-Lisa?" Bryan put in.

"Alex?" Mary proposed.

"Brianna?" Bryan questioned.

Tristan just kept shaking his head at all the names. It was ironic that both of his siblings knew so many people at a school neither one of them went to. They probably learned all of the students from all the football parties Tristan had hosted after big wins—which happened to be a lot—during the season. Mary was only in eighth grade, and Bryan was only in seventh grade, and yet they knew everybody from their older brother's high school.

"But those are all the important ones," Bryan whined half an hour later. "Don't tell me you're in love with a dork?"

"I'm not in love, and she's not a dork." Why was Tristan defending her? She was a nerd, which was the exact same thing as a dork. And he didn't like her at all. He had to work with her on a lab project, and that was that. Nothing else. She was a fairly pretty girl who had nice legs and a nice ass and some nice breasts, and that was it. She wasn't anything to dwell over for this long. She just wasn't...

It was eleven p.m. on Sunday night, which meant it was time to party, but for the first time in seventeen years, Tristan didn't feel like the partying type. But, again, he couldn't deny the audience of what they desired. When Kyle called him on his cell phone, Tristan agreed to go down to club illegally and party it off like there was no tomorrow. Tristan hopped in his black convertible. As he started pulling out of his driveway, his phone buzzed on the seat beside him. He turned down the music blasting from the radio, and without looking at his caller ID, placed the phone up to his ear, "Talk to me."

"Hey, Trissy."

"Alice!" Tristan was surprised and shocked to hear her high pitched, fake voice from the other end of his phone. "How did you get my number?"
'Coz I sure as hell didn't give it to you.

"Oh, don't kid yourself. I was going to get it sooner or later even if you do keep playing hard to get," Alice replied.

I'm not playing.
"Okay, what do you need?"

"I need a ride to the club tonight."

"You're coming?" Tristan was suddenly rethinking going at all. Maybe this whole trip just wasn't worth it, especially if Alice was coming.

"Of course, I'm coming. There's no party without me, silly." Alice finished her seriously self-conceited sentence with a girly, dumb giggle that only those bratty, clueless girls did.
Oh, wait, she is a bratty, clueless girl.

"Oh, right, how stupid of me to think otherwise," Tristan mumbled sarcastically.

"Cool, so I'll see you in a little while." And with that said, Alice hung up the phone.

Tristan rolled his eyes and threw his phone back on the passenger seat. He turned the radio up to maximum volume and rolled the roof of the convertible down. He enjoyed the feeling of being free as the wind blew through his hair. He didn't know how people could stay cramped up in their little boxes that they liked to call cars. And he seriously couldn't wait until college, so he could buy a motorcycle and feel even more liberated. His mother wouldn't allow him to buy a motorcycle while he still lived under her roof, so as soon as he moved out and attended college by himself, he was going to invest in a nice, shiny motorcycle.

Tristan's phone buzzed again on his passenger seat. He let out an exasperated sigh as he picked it up again, hoping against hope that it was anybody, but Alice.

"Talk to me," Tristan repeated as he slid the phone open.

"You coming?" Kyle asked. There was a lot of racket on the other side of the phone. And there was pounding music that made it almost impossible to hear what Kyle was yelling through the receiver.

"I'm on my way, but Alice asked me to pick her up."

"Oh, yeah, I meant to talk to you about that," Kyle said, his voice dropping a bit.

"About what?" Tristan asked.

"She's going to try and spike your drink."

"She won't have to. I'll have it spiked first," Tristan answered with a smirk.

"No, I mean she's going to really spike it. She's going to get you drunk; I mean, so drunk that you're not going to remember what will inevitably happen afterwards."

"Great," Tristan mumbled. "And how do you know this?"

"Oh…that's not important."

"Kyle…" Tristan said in a warning tone.

"Okay, so I accidentally suggested it."

"WHAT?"

"I mean, I was just joking about it. She had said something like 'What is Tristan's problem? Can't he see that I'm perfect for him?' And then I was like, 'I dunno. You should get him drunk and then see how things work out'. I was totally just joking around, but she took it seriously. Because Brianna told me that she heard Alice telling Chelsey that she was going to spike your drink and have her way with you," Kyle explained.

"You so owe me one for this, you know that, right?" Tristan said through clenched teeth.

This was just what he needed. Instead of being able to relax, dance, and drink all night, he was going to have to make sure he didn't drink too much and didn't get caught up in Alice's trap.

Ten minutes later, Tristan pulled up into Alice's driveway. He honked and waited for a little bit and when Alice didn't come out of the door, he reluctantly turned his car off and stalked up her driveway to knock on her oak front door. Two minutes afterwards, Alice opened the door, sticking a hoop earring in her left lobe.

"Oh, I didn't know you were here," Alice said in a faux surprised voice.

"I did honk," Tristan replied.

"I guess my music was on too loud. I'm almost ready. While you wait, do you want a drink? My parents are out," Alice asked with a small smile on her freshly glossed lips as she stepped backwards into the hallway.

"Oh, I already had a drink…" Tristan trailed off, politely saying 'no' in the best way that he could think of without blowing up on her for actually trying to get him really drunk.

"You really can't have too many," Alice cajoled, her smile never faltering. "C'mon, you know you want one. My dad only buys the best."

"Seriously, I'm fine. I want to be sober enough to actually drive to the club, and then maybe I'll start getting drunk," Tristan replied.

"Well, come in, at least. I don't want you out in the cold while I finish getting ready," Alice rejoined.

Tristan couldn't find anything wrong with just taking a step in. And Alice was right; it was cold outside. Tristan nodded his agreement, and Alice walked back into her house and allowed Tristan to come in. Tristan shut the door behind him, but as soon as he was enclosed by the walls of the house, he wanted to run back outside. The hallway was dark and barely lit. He had an eerie feeling about this place. He wanted to just turn around and walk right back outside and crawl into the comfort of his own car.

"Right down there is the kitchen," Alice said, pointing in the direction of the back of the house. "I'm just going to go get my shoes and then I'll be ready."

Tristan started for the back of her house and made his way into the kitchen where he flipped a switch to turn on the light. And right there in the middle of the table located off to the side of the room were two cans of beer. Tristan chuckled and stayed completely clear of the incriminating cans.

Soon enough Alice entered the kitchen, and for the first time since Tristan had entered the house, he could actually see Alice. Her brunette hair was curled into flawless ringlets, and her makeup looked professionally done. But Tristan wasn't looking at Alice's face; instead his eyes had traveled down to her outfit. She was wearing a fire engine red, skin-tight, strapless, short, skimpy dress. Her full breasts were stuffed into the tight dress, looking as if they might pop out at any second. And as Tristan really eyed the dress, he noticed that what he had originally thought was a leather material was really snakeskin. She was wearing at least four inch, black, high heeled boots that rose past her knees and stopped a few inches below the dress.

"Ready?" Alice asked, smiling at where Tristan's eyes had gone to and been glued to for about a full minute now.

"Yeah," Tristan said, starting to head toward the door to head back out of the house.

"Are you sure you don't want any beer? It's really tasty."

Tristan was really tempted to say 'yes', but Kyle's warning entered his brain again. It was spiked. She had added some sort of drug to make him groggy. He knew she had done it. The smirk on her shiny lips confirmed her recent actions.

"No, I'm going to wait until we get to the club," Tristan turned her down for the third time tonight.

"All right, well, let's get going then."

Alice led the way out the house and towards the car that was waiting for the two teenagers. Soon enough Tristan was on the road, blasting the music through his speakers on its loudest volume with his top down, which was incidentally ruining Alice's perfect curls. He hadn't meant to do that, but he loved the roof down. And if Alice wanted to ride with him, then she was going to have to deal with getting her hair messed up. Even if he knew that she had probably spent hours on styling her hair, he needed the night's fresh atmosphere to help him cope with having her in his car.

Finally they made it to the club, Purple Palm Tree, and they waited in line. But Tristan had a trick up his sleeve. He made sure that the burly man who was admitting people into the club after looking at their IDs—fake or not—saw him and Alice walk properly to the end of the line. But then as soon as they were safe, Tristan grabbed Alice's hand and pulled her to the back alley where one lone, black door was located in the middle of the brick building. He sent a quick text to Kyle, and soon enough the black door—which was locked from the outside—opened, and Kyle stood there with a drunken smile and glazed over eyes.

"Finally the two—hiccup—most funnest kids in school have ARRIVED!" he bellowed into the pounding club. "Let's get this party STARTED!" Kyle said as he wobbled his way back into the club.

"It's way too damn early to get that drunk," Tristan mumbled to Alice.

Alice giggled, "Well, I don't know, I'm pretty sure getting drunk is an all day luxury."

"Sure, if you have a miserable life."

"Or if you just want to have fun. Well, lead the way, Trissy."

Tristan winced at the horrid nickname that Alice had been calling him for three years now. Even when he had confronted her about it back in tenth grade, she had still called him the horrible name 'Trissy'. He hated the name because she made it sound like she was talking to one her girlfriends, not the star football player.

Tristan pushed his way through the crowd of horny teenagers and drunken adults. When he was in the middle of the dance floor, hands suddenly wrapped themselves around his waist from behind. He turned around in the grasp of the feminine hands. He wasn't surprised at all when he saw Alice slithering her body up and down his body.

"Alice—" he shouted over the booming music.

"Oh, just chill," Alice shouted back. "It's not like I'm trying to drug you or anything. We're just dancing."

Tristan chuckled to himself as he heard her say the exact thing she was still probably thinking of doing to him, but he gave into her as her short dress began rising up a little, and his hands grazed her breasts. He allowed her to press her barely covered body against his own body. His hands wrapped around her waist, and their hips moved back and forth to the quick paced music in synchronization. Alice's back was pushed up against Tristan's chest. Suddenly Alice twisted around so that her chest was pressed up again Tristan's chest. Alice wrapped her arms around his neck and she hitched her leg up to hook around Tristan's hip. Tristan automatically caught her leg, his hand cupping around the back of her knee, and Alice grinded her hips against Tristan's.