Page 71 of The Red Zone
“Thank you, captain obvious, but that doesn’t answer my question. Has anyone seen her in the last—I don’t know—hour or so?”
The awkward silence and shared glances between friend groups gave me my answer. I took one more look around the room, seeing if anyone would budge. Kind of like how teachers in middle school did when no one volunteered to answer their questions. Their tactic almost always never resulted in a response, but at least it gave the kids who were shy the chance to muster up the courage to raise their hand if they wanted to.
Unfortunately for me, most of these people didn’t have a shy bone in their body, so I just looked like an idiot standing up there giving everyone an aggressive stare down.
“As you were.” I waved my freehand before reaching for some random tall man’s shoulder to steady me as I stepped off the coffee table. Blaring party music began filling the room again, and everyone returned to their mindless chatter like they hadn’t missed a beat.
I walked over to Scarlett who was leaning against one of the walls with a red solo cup in her hand. “I can’t believe no one’s seen her.”
“Maybe she’s handling a work emergency or something?”
Scarlett shrugged, peering around the room until she spotted Abel, who was talking to one of the defensive ends.
“Go.” I winked at her, noticing she was contemplating whether or not she should leave me to hang out with him. “I’ll see you later.”
I rounded the corner to my left, heading for the kitchen, hoping I could find something—anything—to soak up some of the cheap beer I’d been sipping on for the last hour. I spotted some of the pinwheels that Scar had left on the counter, but before I could make a beeline for them, the doorway was blocked by a six-foot-something shaggy haired dude in an ugly brown graphic tee.
“Hi, Bobby.” I smiled at him, trying to squeeze past him, but he placed his hands on both sides of the doorframe to stop me.
“How’s my girl?”
“I’m not your girl. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
He blocked me in once again, shuffling to the right so I couldn’t get past him. There was a simmering warmth starting to sizzle through my veins, but I tried not to let it show through.
“You could be.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, placing a hand on my waist.
Disgusting.
Sure, Bobby was a decent looking guy—tall, curly blonde hair, knew how to dress himself without his moms help—but that was really all he had going for him.
You know how some people have a good personality and it makes them ten times hotter than they actually are? Well, unfortunately for our boy Bobby, he was the opposite. His creepy lurking and unusual demeanor made him lose hotness points, which was a shame, because he had good potential.
The weirdest part about the guy was that he wasn’t really friends with anyone in our friend group, yet he continued to show up at parties. People tolerated his presence because he wasn’t an outright jackass, but no one was jumping for him to join their conversation either.
“Not interested, thank you,” I said with a chipper smile, patting him on the chest before ducking under his armpit and breezing past him.
“I’ll see you around then?” He called out to me as I walked away from him.
“Not a chance,” I responded under my breath, not sparing a look back at him.
“That guy bothering you?” October came out of nowhere, shooting Bobby a lethal glare as I shoved pinwheels in my mouth back-to-back. Barely taking any time to breathe between bites.
“Not at the moment,” I mumbled with my mouth full.
I gasped as my favorite song boomed over the speakers, singing along to the tune, trying to push past October so I could steal back Scarlett from Abel and dance with her. But he just dragged me back into his arms instead.
His back flushed against the wall and he pulled me tight against him. I could feel his hardened bulge pressed against my stomach. A wave of heat flooded straight to my center, but I did my best not to think about what I was feeling.
I was here to party with my friends. Not to be seduced by October. That was for later.
“You sound like a horrible town troubadour.” He worked a hand into my hair, pulling my face toward his to sear my lips with a tantalizing kiss.
“How many troubadours do you know exactly?”
“Enough.” He kissed me hard.
“Mmhmm, I’ll take your word for it.”
