Page 14 of The Fadeaway
7
Joel
“Kitty.”Her name is out before my brain fully acknowledges it’s her.
You could knock me over with a feather. Maybe it’s one of those weird dissonance things where your mind fails to associate a person outside of the usual place you see them or maybe I’m just that hammered. I’ve never run into Katrina anywhere but the café, but it’s clear I’m also drunk because it’s the only reason I’d be using nerdy words like dissonance. Even in my head.
The dress she’s wearing shows off long, toned legs, and the tits I’ve been admiring under the layers of material she usually has on are happily not the result of a miracle push-up bra. Her profile is to me, but I watch her react to my voice. She stills and her lips part as she turns toward me. She doesn’t respond until the girl next to her, a dark redhead who eyes me with a mixture of confusion and intrigue, elbows her.
“Joel Moreno.” The way she says my name is like a double shot from the bottle of Jack I hold in one hand. It burns so good.
“What are you doing here?”
One brow raises and a hand goes to her hip. It’s the same mocking look and stance she gives me every week, but tonight she looks nervous without the counter between us. “It’s a party. What do you think I’m doing?”
“Good point.” I give her friend, who looks familiar but thankfully not in anI’ve seen her nakedway, a small head nod and step closer to Katrina. I grab three cups and fill each of them with a healthy shot from the bottle I’ve nearly finished off. I hand a cup to Katrina and her friend and then lift the other toward them. “Cheers to doing what people do at parties.”
Her friend smirks and looks between Kitty and me. Katrina lifts her cup to her pink lips but pauses before drinking. She grimaces at the smell, proceeds to take a sip, coughs, and then forces the rest down like a champ. “That’s disgusting.”
“Shots usually are,” the redhead says and takes hers all at once. She consolidates the cups in her hand and chases the shot with whatever she’s drinking.
Kitty watches and does the same. “What’s the point of drinking something that tastes bad?” Her face flushes. “I don’t drink very often.”
I file that tidbit away. “First of all, don’t talk about my boy Jack like that. Secondly, depends on what you want from the night. Different kinds of alcohol make people feel different ways. Wine drunk is emotional. “Oh my God, I love yousomuch,” I say in a mock high-pitched voice that pulls a small laugh from her friend. Beer drunk is loud and obnoxious…” I wave my hand toward the keg in the dining room. The guys around it push and shove while they take turns filling their cups, smack talking so loud you can hear their taunts above the rest of the noise in the house.
“And this.” She lifts her empty cup. “What kind of drunk will I be?”
“Fun and invincible.”
The girl next to her snorts. “Until tomorrow morning anyway.”
“Some truth to that,” I admit.
“Tabitha,” the redhead introduces herself.
Katrina glances between us. “Sorry, I thought maybe you two already knew each other.”
“Joel, nice to meet you.” I extend a hand to Tabitha.
Before she can shake, Nathan butts in. “Shots, shots, shots,” he sings in his best Lil Jon impersonation, which is fucking terrible.
He has an empty pizza box he’s using as a serving tray and it’s filled with shot glasses of whatever party concoction he’s created.
He offers it first to Tabitha and Katrina who both take one.
I hold up a hand to pass. I know my limits. I like to teeter right on the brink of wasted. I’m toeing the line as it is. The mixture of booze and the adrenaline pumping through me at the sight of Katrina right here when I least expected it has me lit.
“Shut up. You’re not pussing out. It’s only ten o’clock. Party’s just getting started.”
“I’m pacing myself,” I say, annoyed, but take one anyway. I lift it to my nose and sniff, try and get some idea what I’m getting myself into. All I smell is a fruity punch of some sort.
“What is this?”
His smile is fast and wicked.
Ah fuck. “There Everclear in this?”
Fuck that. I place the shot back on his tray. And no way in hell I’m letting Katrina drink this. Girl will be blackout drunk before she knows it.
