Scarlett White (6 page)

Tristan didn't mind dancing with Alice. After all, it was just dancing, like Alice had said. And he didn't mind dancing at all. It was easy and natural to him. And dancing with a partner—preferably a partner of the opposite sex—was just as exciting. And when that particular partner knew how to dance the right moves and make the right steps at just the right times, it really got him going. So, before he knew it, he was dancing with Alice again. And again. And again. Eventually Tristan's forehead began to coat with sweat. After about the seventh song of a string of long remixes, Alice whispered in Tristan's ear, ticking his lobe, "Do you want me to get you a drink?"

"Sure," Tristan breathed, out of breath.

Alice smiled, "Great. Go find a seat, and I'll meet you there," Alice said and gracefully untangled herself from Tristan's body.

Tristan then began his slow process of pushing countless bodies out of his way, so that he could make it over to where the tables were located at the side of the club. Finally after a few minutes of battling against dancing persons, he made it to the spot where glass tables and sleek chairs were found. Tristan started making his way to an empty two seater, but then he noticed three girls he never would have guessed would be out at a club.

He couldn't really remember their names, but he knew they were best friends with Scarlett. They were the other three nerds that made up the brains of Watson High. He didn't know what pulled him toward the three girls. One of the three girls had boob-length black hair and easy brown eyes. She didn't have a bad looking body, but it didn't have the
PA-ZAM
that Tristan liked. The second girl had light brown hair that was about the same length as the first girl with green eyes, and she had a nice looking body as well. The final girl had blonde hair that reached about the middle of her back and blue eyes, but she definitely wasn't the prettiest of them all. She hadn't quite matured as much as the other girls and she still had a baby chin. Tristan inwardly chuckled as he thought of the blonde as the misfit among the misfits.

Instead of heading to the two seater table, Tristan made his way to the three girls and sat down in the last empty seat.

"Hello, girls."

"Beat it," the black-haired, brown-eyed girl said, without looking up from her cell phone. Damn, why were the nerds so feisty? Well, Tristan couldn't say that he didn't like it. But he never would have expected these girls to look so good on the weekend. Every day at school they wore the ugliest clothes and hairstyles, but outside of school, they actually looked…hot. Tristan couldn't help what he thought, but it was actually true.

"Do you know who I am?" Tristan asked with a smirk. He knew the black-haired, brown-eyed girl's name. Jenna…Ginger…Ginny. That was it.

Ginny looked up from her phone, her eyebrow cocked, "Tristan Cox, the celebrity of Watson High, varsity football team captain, sophomore prom king, and A/B student, but he wouldn't ever let anyone know that because it would ruin his reputation and he might actually fit in more with the 'misfits'. Shall I continue?"

"How did you know that?"

"I stay after school to help grade papers sometimes for extra credit," Ginny answered. "The real question is do you know who I am?"

"Ginny?" The last syllable went up an octave, forming the statement into a question.

"Very good. Why are you talking to us?"

"I don't know," Tristan answered honestly. "I didn't know you were so…"

"Hot? Yeah, that's because we're modest in places where modesty should be. Example: school. But when it comes to clubs, we're just as skimpy as the rest of them," Ginny said.

"Where's Scarlett?"

"Oh, she's different. She's modest everywhere."

"Except the grocery store," Tristan mumbled, thinking back to this morning and remembering those shorty shorts she had been wearing.

"Well, today was laundry day at her place," the light brunette, green-eyed girl chimed in. Tristan knew her name too…it was something like Katie, or Kitty, maybe even Katy. Damn, what was it?

"You know with all of your hostility, I think you guys could make it as HH's," Tristan said.
Well, all of you, except the blonde,
he thought, but he would never say that out loud.

"Hostile Hotties? Eh…not our type," Ginny answered, without looking up from her phone again.

"You still didn't answer my earlier question: Where's Scarlett?"

"Stalker," The ugly blue-eyed, blonde coughed into her palm.

"I'm just wondering," Tristan defended.

"How is her where-a-bouts any of your business?" the Katie…or Kitty girl asked.

"I'm her lab partner."

"Oh, so you're wondering where she is, so you can ask her when she's free to work on the project? On the first Saturday the project was assigned. Do you take us for idiots?" the green eyed, brunette asked.

"Definitely not. You have to be the smartest girls in the school."

"Thanks for the compliment. But we don't need them from you," Ginny said with a smile.

"You really are hostile. I'm sure you'd fit in with the HH's pretty damn well," Tristan countered.

"Oh, I bet, but we don't want to sink that low to just fit in with that clique," the brunette—Kate!—said.

"Sink?" Tristan asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"Yeah. After college, we'll be the ones whom you call 'boss'. And if we lower our standards to fit in with the 'in' crowd, then we won't get a good education."

"Touché." Tristan threw up his hands in surrender. "Are you guys ever going to answer my question?"

"She's with her—"

"Meghan!" Ginny and Kate hissed at the same time.

"It's not like he's going to go find her or anything, so what's the harm?" Meghan, the blonde, shot back.

"That's her private life. You don't go telling the boy she most despises stuff like that." Ginny glared at the blonde with daggers that made Tristan's spine shudder in fear. She definitely had a way with her eyes.

"That's another thing. Why does she hate me so much?"

Ginny's, Kate's, and Meghan's mouths all dropped open, and their eyes all popped wider a little bit.

"What?" Tristan asked, taking in their expressions of shock. What had he said?

"You seriously don't remember, do you?" Ginny asked you.

"Funny, that's the exact same thing Scarlett said when we talked about it," Tristan said, rubbing the nape of his neck.

"Well, it isn't our place to tell you about it. The only person who can remind you of what happened three years ago is Scarlett, and only Scarlett," Kate said.

"Uh…Trissy?" Tristan heard Alice's voice from behind him. "What are you doing talking to these…oh, my God, are you seriously out in this club?" Alice finished by directing her sentence at the three girls.

"It's a public place; we're the public. You got a problem with that, Malice?" Ginny asked in the sweetest voice that Tristan had ever heard. It was so sweet that it really scared him.

Alice narrowed her brown eyes at Ginny. "I'll make sure you're life is a living hell for the rest of the year if you talk to me like that again." Alice spoke through clenched teeth.

Ginny stood up slowly, her eyes narrowing and glaring with all the malevolence in the world. "I'd love to see you try," she said with the corner of her mouth quirking up into a mischievous smirk.

"Whatever." Alice flipped her sweaty curls behind her shoulder and walked in the opposite direction.

Tristan turned around and looked at Ginny with new eyes. He never knew how well Ginny could stand up for herself and her friends. Tristan smiled at Ginny. "Nice," he mouthed to her.

"All in a day's work," Ginny said with a kind smile that Tristan couldn't believe was worn on the girl who had just made Alice, the most popular girl in school, look like an ant. With that said, Ginny turned on her heel and walked into the moving mass of dancing bodies before disappearing into the mass of people. Kate and Meghan followed suit.

Tristan turned around and joined Alice—
Malice, that was a good one
—at a table.

"What a nerd," Alice said as she took a gulp of beer that she had probably gotten by flirting with the male bartender—
and in that dress, not even God could hold back.

"Huh, yeah," Tristan mumbled half-heartedly.

"Here you go," Alice said, passing Tristan the second beer.

And without a second thought, Tristan took a good, long gulp of his tasty beer. It tasted kind of funny at first, but after a good three gulps, the weird taste disappeared into the tasty goodness of the drink itself.

Chapter Four

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
BEEP!
Scarlett's old, loud alarm clock rang throughout her room. Without lifting her head from the pillows, Scarlett reached her hand out and hit the alarm clock several times even after she had hit the snooze button.
Serves you right for being so freaking annoying
, Scarlett thought as the old clock gave a creak from being hit so many times with such a strong force.

"SCAR! IF YOU MISS YOUR FIRST CLASS, YOU ARE GROUNDED FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH!"
Okay,
mother,
first of all: Why are you up at six in the morning? Shouldn't you be in bed with your usual hangover? And second of all: It's November 28th, so if I was to be grounded for the rest of the month that would mean approximately three days.

"I'm getting up!" Scarlett half yelled, half yawned at her.

Five minutes later Rosa, Scarlett's mother, came into her room, making sure to turn the bright overhead light on as she came in, and pulled the covers off her daughter's body. "Get dressed, now," she said, throwing the covers on the floor.

Scarlett moaned, reluctantly rolling out of bed to take a much needed shower. As soon as Scarlett was out of the bed, Rosa fell face first onto the bed, and Scarlett heard her begin to snore.

The hot water from the nice shower felt soothing against Scarlett's aching bones. Scarlett had spent most of her weekend with Charles reading
Dracula
to him even though it was completely off Charles' usual schedule. She liked her visits with Charles because she could tell him anything, and he understood her, even though he could never reply with anything comforting because he either refused to talk or couldn't. Scarlett wasn't quite sure which. Scarlett did notice Charles's slight annoyance with anything being off schedule, but he seemed to push the emotion off to the side because he didn't mind Scarlett being there.

Last night Scarlett didn't get home until eleven p.m., and she still had to finish that twenty-nine paragraph essay for Honors Spanish III about the Spanish Holiday: El Día de los Muertes, The Day of the Dead. And then she had to listen to the same, long lecture from her mother about getting home earlier to complete her assignments before her mother passed out on the couch.

But then her tired memory was jogged with the remembrance of something. Something about a black convertible and the smell of…oh, yeah…

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