yolo (17 page)

“Ah, merci beaucoup!”
She looked at Chris and smiled. “And who is this delightful date?”

“Oh, uh . . .” Emily stuttered, not sure what to do about Madison's choice of words. “This is Chris. We're not . . . like . . . we just met, I guess.”

“Emily!” Madison wiggled her eyebrows.
“Ooh la la!”

“It's really not—”

“No need to explain,” Madison gushed. “Anyway, come, come. Let's get you some bubbly.”

“Actually, I was looking for Kyle.”

Madison paused for a moment, then said, “I think I last saw him out by the pool, which is just
parfait
because that's where the champagne is.” She took Emily's hand and started pulling her along.

“Champagne at a high-school party?” Chris asked as they made their way through the house. “Things have definitely changed since I graduated two years ago.”

“The Steins are a special case,” Emily told him. “As I'm sure you can tell.”

Out on the patio, things looked even more glorious, like something straight out of a high-quality and high-cost music video. The DJ, whom Emily recognized from her history class, had a full table set up with equipment that Emily couldn't even name, and he was pumping original remixes of the latest songs from his huge speakers.

The infinity pool, which looked amazing even on the absolute worst days, was glowing from the lights inside, and disappeared into the distance, opening out to a view of the tree-covered mountains. People stood all around the patio, laughing, dancing, and drinking the night away.

“For you,” Madison said as she handed a tall glass filled with white bubbling champagne to Emily. “And for the
monsieur
.” She handed Chris a cold beer. “Kyle should be . . .
ah, voilà
!”

Emily turned to see Kyle making his way over to them. He had on his usual—dark jeans and a fitted henley—and he didn't look bad. But he always looked good, or at least acceptable, and looks weren't the most important part of a relationship. Emily knew she wanted more than that.

“Hey,” he said when he was close enough. He nodded at Madison, who quickly twirled around, singing loudly in French at some of her friends who she'd just spotted. “So . . . I hadn't heard from you today. Just saw Brandon and he said your day was kind of fucked up.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Emily glanced at Chris, not sure what to do about his presence.

“How about I take a walk around,” Chris said. “Maybe I'll track down Brandon and Ana.”

Emily let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. “That'd be great.”

Before he walked away, Chris leaned in and gently kissed her cheek. Emily wasn't sure if he'd done it in some effort to show up Kyle, or if he just wanted to do it at that moment, but whatever the reason, she didn't mind.

Once Chris was gone, she turned to Kyle, who was staring at her with wide eyes.

“Why the hell did that guy just kiss you?”

“Really,” Kyle said again. “What's going on?”

“Look, Kyle.” Emily had never done a breakup before, and she wished she could just play a couple songs to get the point across to him, but that wasn't going to cut it. “We don't work. You know it and I know it. And I think it's time we both accept it.”

“But we can make it work,” Kyle said quickly. “I can be better. You can be better. Right?”

Emily frowned and shook her head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know,” Kyle stuttered. “We could go out more. You could, I don't know, be less . . .
uptight
about things.”

“If by things you mean your pot smoking, then—”

“It's barely a drug,” Kyle said quickly. “Everyone does it.”

“I don't care, Kyle.”

“If you'd just chill out a little . . .”

“That's the thing.” Emily took a deep breath. “I shouldn't have to chill out. I'm fine the way I am. And you should find a girl who does want to chill out, just like you. I'm not that girl, and I'll never be that girl. I don't want to be that girl. And
I think when you really consider everything, when you think about it, you'll realize that I'm right.”

Kyle was quiet for a moment, then he sighed. “I guess you're right. But don't you think you could've waited before finding some other guy to flaunt in front of me.” He motioned in the direction Chris had walked. “I mean, he looks like some kind of biker dude you found at a bar.”

“Pool hall.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. It's just been a crazy day.”

Kyle crossed his arms, his eyes narrowed at her, but then he nodded. “Okay. Okay, I guess this is the right thing. But we can still be friends, right? I mean, even if this”—he motioned between them—“isn't working out, you're still a cool chick.”

“And you're a cool dude,” Emily said honestly. “Of course we can be friends.”

“Hug it out?”

Emily leaned in and gave Kyle a tight hug. For a second she worried that it'd be a mistake, but he backed away without incident.

“Dude.”

Emily frowned. “Look, we can be friends, but when you start calling me dude, then—”

“No, no, not you,” Kyle said. “I'm talking about the mad fucking muscle that just strolled in here.”

Emily turned around and gawked when she saw who he was referring to. Ruff and Scrappy were at the party, moving
through the house with Big Dog right behind them. They'd already spotted her and were coming her way, and she barely had time to comprehend what was happening before they were standing in front of her. Big Dog was grinning.

“Well, hello,
Liz
,” he sneered.

“Emily?” Kyle sounded confused, but he also stepped forward, moving slightly in front of her. “There a problem here?”

“Oh,
Emily
.” Big Dog nodded enthusiastically. “So nice to finally know your name.”

“Hey, dickwad,” Kyle said as he stepped up to Big Dog and puffed out his chest. “I don't know who the hell you are, but you can fuck off.” He immediately took a step back when Big Dog pulled out a gun and held it right at his chest. “Oh . . .”

“I suggest you reevaluate your tone,” Big Dog said slowly. “I'd hate to make a mess on this fancy-ass tile you've got here.”

“Look, just leave him alone,” Emily said, surprised by the strength in her own voice. She'd expected herself to be scared, and she had been for a moment, but after the day she'd had, she was tired of the nonsense. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Big Dog laughed. “What do I
want
?” He pushed Kyle aside and grabbed Emily by the arm. She tried to brace herself, but stumbled and fell toward Big Dog, who spun her around into Scrappy.

Emily felt Scrappy wrap his tree trunk of an arm across her, pinning her against his torso. She couldn't move her arms.

“I'll tell you what I want from you,
Emily
.” Big Dog leaned in so close she could feel his warm breath against her cheek,
and clearly see the capillaries lacing the edge of the scar across his face. “What I
want
is the one hundred fifty thousand dollars you stole from me today.”

Kyle made a move toward them, but Ruff stepped forward and shook his head. Kyle shrank back.

“What's he talking about, Em?”

“I didn't steal anything from you,” Emily said. Her voice was shaky now. She'd only had a gun pointed at her once before, and that was several hours prior at Rick's. That gun she found out later had not been loaded. This gun
was
loaded, or was likely to be loaded. It wasn't something she wanted to test. “Liz and Chestnut—the
real
Liz and Chestnut—have the money. We gave it back to them. They're probably trying to get it to you right now.” She really hoped she hadn't just sold out the couple by saying that.

“Oh, did you?” Big Dog had a strange smile on his face. “That's really very interesting,
Emily
, because I just caught up with Liz and Chestnut myself, and they informed me that you and your little friends tricked them.”

“That had to be before we gave it back.” Emily hated the desperate tone in her voice. “We gave them the money. They have it. It wasn't that long ago. Just call them and ask about it. They'll tell you what happened.”

Big Dog's eyes flashed fire, but his voice was cold as ice. “If you think for one moment that I'm leaving here without my money, you're wrong. I will pull your fingers off with pliers one by one until you hand it over, and then—”

Emily never heard what Big Dog had planned after he removed her fingers because Kyle lunged around Ruff and tried to swing at Big Dog. His swinging was wild enough to make Scrappy loosen his grip, which gave Emily the chance to pull away, but not before she slammed a foot down on his, crushing his toes with the heel of her boot.

Emily grabbed for Kyle's arm, but as she did, Big Dog regained his footing, and as Ruff was trying to subdue Kyle, Emily saw Big Dog raise the gun by its barrel and bring the butt down hard on Kyle's head. Kyle wilted into Ruff.

By now they'd drawn enough attention that everyone was watching, though no one was doing anything, and it was pretty obvious that they had no idea what to do. Especially once Big Dog had the gun raised and pointed at Emily once again.

The area cleared out, and Emily took several steps back as Big Dog came forward, still grinning.

“Now what?” he asked. “You don't have anyone to save you anymore?”

“Guess again!”

Emily watched as Brandon sprinted from inside the house and tackled Big Dog, and they both hit the ground hard. Ana came running out a moment later, making her way to Emily, but she was quickly swept up by Scrappy. She let out an ear-piercing scream, and at the same time Pickles leaped to her rescue and bit Scrappy's hand, which meant Ana was free but Pickles was now captured.

After a second of scrambling, Emily, Ana, and a bruised Brandon ended up on one side of the pool, while Big Dog, Scrappy, and Ruff were on the other side. Big Dog was holding Pickles in one hand, and his gun in the other.

“Looks like we've got a little problem,” he said, holding up the small Chihuahua, who was now shaking with fear.

“Don't you dare hurt my dog,
mulo
!” Ana screamed. Emily
grabbed her arm, since she wasn't sure Ana wouldn't launch herself across the pool to attack.

“Give me my money,” Big Dog said. “Or you can kiss your little dog good-bye.”

“We don't have it,” Brandon said. “Seriously!”

“I tried to tell them.” Emily wasn't sure if Big Dog would really shoot a small dog, but she couldn't take the chance. “Just call Liz and Chestnut. They'll get you the money, we promise.”

“Your promises don't mean much.”

“Don't you think we'd give it to you know if we had it? We don't!” Out of the corner of her eye, Emily saw Chris sneaking closer and closer to Big Dog and his thugs. She didn't know what he could do to help the situation, but it had to be more than whatever they were doing now. She just had to keep them sufficiently distracted. “We were planning to bring the money back to you,” she lied. “We got it from Balducci's, and we were going to give it back, but then we met up with Liz and Chestnut, and since they were going to do the job originally, we traded off. They have it.”

“And you expect me to believe that you are all okay walking away with nothing?” He laughed. “I'm not an idiot.”

“We just want the dog,” Brandon said. “That's it.”

Chris launched himself forward then, completely surprising Ruff and Scrappy as he tumbled into Big Dog. When they hit the ground, the gun went skidding across the white concrete
and Pickles flew through the air and landed in the pool.

Ana let out a banshee-style scream and jumped into the pool, party clothes and all. Brandon immediately followed.

Emily was about to make her way to the other side of the pool to help Chris, who was about to be pulverized as Ruff, Scrappy, and Big Dog all loomed over him, when a loud warrior roar echoed around the patio and four people came rushing from the bushes and trees right toward Big Dog, Ruff, and Scrappy.

Emily's jaw dropped when she saw that it was Buck, Blanche, Chestnut, and Liz.

“Tie them up!” Buck sounded, his voice booming.

It wasn't long before Ruff, Scrappy, and Big Dog were all tied up with rope that Liz had brought in a bag. Chris was now on his feet, gun in hand, breathing hard as he pointed it toward the people who had been about to attack him.

“What the hell?” Brandon said as he got out of the pool, then reached back to pull Ana and Pickles out. “How . . .”

“We're here to apologize,” Liz said as she stretched and took a look around at their surroundings. “Nice place.”

“Merci.”
Madison's tiny voice came from somewhere behind Emily.

“This was partially our fault,” Chestnut said. “If we hadn't gotten you kids involved at the start of this day, then you would've made it to your party without a hitch.”

“When we stopped at the pool hall and figured out what had gone down,” Liz said, “and that Big Dog and his cronies
were already on their way to finding you, we knew we had to do something to help. There was no way you kids were prepared for these three.” She kicked Ruff in the side, and he groaned. “Chestnut called up his parents and we all came right away.”

“But how'd you find us?” Ana asked. She motioned at Big Dog. “How'd
he
find us?”

“The bright lights in the sky aren't exactly subtle,” Blanche said. “We knew you were headed for a party, and that you were going in this direction. After that it was a guess, but a pretty good one I'd say.”