Page 59 of The Other Side of Paradise
“You’re not that drunk. And I was going to walk you there anyway. What’s your room number again?”
“24. Ah, shit,” she laughed, raking her hand back through her hair, sweeping it sloppily out of her face. Fuck me, though, flushed-face and messy-hair Stella asking me to go back to her room with her was… good god.
“C’mon, trouble. I’m taking you to your room. Just to make sure you don’t peel off to go make out with someone.”
She laughed. “There were a million hot people at the lounge, and I didn’t make out with one.”
“Uh-huh. Any standouts?”
“You, obviously,” she said with a wink, and I at least had the escape of shutting off the car and stepping out around to her side of the car to gather my thoughts.
“Well,” I said, coming around to where she slipped out of the car, her sleek silvery dress riding up a little as she slid off the seat and down onto the pavement, “congratulations on getting the standout hottie to come back to your room.”
She put a hand to her chest, beaming at me. “You’re making a move on me? I didn’t think you had it in you, Allison.”
“I’m kidding—I mean—what does that mean? I know how to make a move.”
She laughed. “You do not. Okay, let’s go.”
Ugh. I didn’t. I went with her back to the room, past the little botanical garden and up to the boardwalk that led between the rooms, and she swiped her card through the lock, pushing the door open, and I lingered there at the door, watching as she walked through.
“Well, I guess… thanks for tonight,” I said, and she turned on me with a mischievous glint in her eyes, and she took me by the lapel, and my heart jolted when she tugged me over the threshold and into the room.
“Where areyouoff to in such a hurry? I thought you said you were off tomorrow.”
“I—well, I am,” I blurted, face hot. Stella’s bedroom… right. It was a little messy, her suitcase lying open on the floor with clothes and personal effects in it, stuff laid out randomly on the shelves, but housekeeping had been through—the bed was made and the bathroom was tidy, wiped down. It smelled nice… something between lilac and vanilla.
“Take off your shoes,” Stella said, shutting the door behind me. “We’re playing a game.”
“A game. What—kind of game?”
“A game where you sit your butt down and stop trying to run away,” she laughed, giving me a playful shove. “Unless you really need to go somewhere? I can survive on my own if you want to ditch me.”
“No—I don’t.” I hoped that didn’t come across sounding too desperate, likeno I would love to spend as much time as you want doing anything you want me to.I think it did. Oh well.
I took my shoes off, and I dropped down on the little couch by the sliding glass doors, where the flowy lavender curtains were sheer enough to show the water rolling in the distance, down the winding slope that led to the beach. Stella stumbled a little bit while standing on one foot to take her shoes off, but she caught herself on the corner, kicked her shoes off, and made it over to where she pulled a bottle of Bacardi from a cabinet, showing it off. “This kind of game,” she said, and I flushed.
“A drinking game? You’re already a little tipsy and I cannot handle my liquor.”
“All the better,” she said, trying to twist off the cap and not making it, pursing her lips as she strained to get it open, and she eventually took a handful of the hem of her dress and used it for grip—never mind the fact that that dress probably cost more than I’d spent on clothes total in my life, I only thought about that for a millisecond until the movement lifted her skirt up enough for me to see her underwear while she did it, a soft mint green color with sheer sides. I… stared. I tried not to, but I did, and I’d forgotten what she was saying when she finally broke the seal, opening the cap and holding it up. “Very efficient. Barely need to go through any for us to get drunk. Were you staring at my panties?”
“No—I was just—I was worried you’d damage the dress.”
She laughed. “The dress isfine.It’s a good material, it can take it rough.”
“Uh… uh-huh.” She definitely did that on purpose. Why did Stella have me back in her room to flirt with me? I was dying.
She took a set of shot glasses, and she shoved an end table around to the front of the couch, right in the middle, where she set out four shot glasses, and I watched in morbid fascination as she poured out a shot of Bacardi into each one.
“That’s… that’s a lot of rum.”
She set the bottle down with them and dropped onto the other end of the couch, grinning at me. God, she looked so fucking sexy with her face a little pink and her hair messy, polished look all thrown off from a night of dancing and… “I know,” she said. “The game goes until all the rum is gone. The question is, who ends up taking how many shots?”
“I could not take more than two.”
“Well, better get me to take at least two, then,” she said, and she leaned in towards me. “So, here’s the game. It’s super simple. I ask a question. You have to either answer it truthfully or take a shot. Then you ask me a question. What do you think?”
Shit, I was about to take four shots of rum. I laughed nervously. “I have no idea what kind of question you wouldn’t want to answer.”
