Page 120 of Awestruck at Dusk
Time to figure out what to do with myself for the rest of the night.
Zara had quickly intercepted Nina, or perhaps it was the other way around. Who knew? I was undecided about approaching them, but I had no one else to hang out with.
“Hey, Red,” Liam whispered in my ear, startling me, of course.
“You’re just like my nightmares.”
“How so?” He chuckled and stood right in front of me, stopping me dry.
“Because you won’t go away.” I tried walking around him, but he placed himself in front of me again.
“Your lips are chapped. You need a drink.” I was wearing lip gloss, so that was impossible. He lifted his hand and signaled for one of the servers to come. “What’s your poison?”
“Sleeping pills,” I said with a forced smile. Not that I was kidding.
“Can I get you anything to drink?” The short blonde server asked in a sweet voice.
“You’re funny,” he said to me with a smile, angling a finger at me. Liam turned his attention to where the server stood, waiting. “I’ll have another whiskey, and she’ll have a tequila with club soda and a dash of lime since I’m guessing you don’t serve narcotics, correct?”
Our server widened her eyes for a bit but laughed a nervous laugh under her breath.
“He’s joking,” I clarified. “But if you do happen to have a sleeping pill to spare, you can go ahead and smash a couple into his drink.”
Our server walked away to get our drinks with a smile and a puzzled look on her face.
“How do you know I like tequila?” I asked Liam.
“Well, I could smell it when you arrived earlier, of course. Tequila is quite the betraying bitch, if you ask me. Asnitch, if you will, since you love using that word. So yeah, I could tell you were drinking tequila.”
I looked around and spotted Nathan talking to Lana. She was all over him and probably excited about his new relationship status. My blood boiled, and I didn’t even want to look where I knew William hung out. And I guess my scowl had unstable magic powers because it made Nathan glance at me, but I quickly brought my attention back to Liam.
“Want to play a little game?” Liam asked, lifting his brows a couple of times and brushing a rogue strand of hair off his forehead.
“Honestly? No. Not in the mood for games,” I replied.
Our server delivered our drinks and hurried away. I took a sip, and then another because I desperately needed it. My head was starting to pulse. I needed to delay the hangover symptoms by drinking more alcohol.
“All I want is for tonight to be as uneventful as possible.”
“Pshhh. Come on, Red. I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy this particular one I have in store for you.”
The worst part of all was that Liam was my best and only option to hang out with because I didn’t want to interrupt Nina and Zara; she already hated me enough as it was. And I wasn’t going to sit down alone somewhere watching everyone have a great time. I’d rather leave than make a fool of myself, but I knew Lily wouldn’t have appreciated it if I did.
Liam had to do for the night.
“I’ll play your stupid game if you stop calling me Red,” I proposed.
“And why do I keep getting this … low-key vibe from you that you love the nickname, then?” He sipped on his drink and clicked his tongue. “I’m getting so attached to it. But look here, I’ll counter offer you. We’ll play the game, and I’llreducethe number of times I call you Red.”
“Fine.” I had to work with what I had, which wasn’t plenty. And I was sure the next time I would see Liam would be at Lily and Joel’s wedding, so whatever. Caleb would’ve loved for me to punch Liam in the face for stealing his nickname.
“Glad you agreed, although we’re already kind of playing the game,” he said, draining his glass and placing it on the nearest cocktail table. “We’ll just amp things up, if you will. And that’s where the real fun begins. Let’s call it an experiment. So drink up that snitch of yours because I’m going to need you to free your hands for me.”
Snitch. I laughed. This guy was growing on me.
I brought my glass to my mouth to give it one last, deep drink before setting it down on the table, but Liam placed a finger under my glass and lifted it, “Drink up. You’ll thank me later.”
He made me down the whole thing and seized the glass from my grasp.
