Page 5 of All for You

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Rani

I don’t like to be ignored or put up like some toy that’s only there to be taken out when needed. And it kind of feels like that’s what is happening with Charlie. Yeah, that’s right - I found out his name.

Okay, so it wasn’t on my own, but it doesn’t matter how you find the information, just that you have it. And I got it from my sister, of all people. She caught me coming out of my room the day after Charlie dropped me off and asked if I was dating him. Specifically, if I was dating ‘Charlie’. Apparently, her boyfriend - who is a cop wannabe - told her that he had been the one to drop me off both nights.

I told her to mind her own damned business before Mom and Dad find out about the tragic demise of their wedding cake topper. The porcelain one they put up on the high shelf and about how it was really her fault and not Sox the cat…and I have the proof she broke it on my phone. After that, she stopped talking to me for a few blissful days and kept her big mouth shut. I really like my little brother way better than my bitchy older sister.

So what is a girl who doesn’t like to be ignored do with herself when the hot cop she wants to acknowledge her thinks she’s too young for him? She grabs her bestie and goes to a college party, of course. And bless Milly’s heart, she troops along with me even though she’s looking like she might have wild murder hornets in her mouth and really bad constipation elsewhere. This kind of thing just isn’t for her. But she’s here for me, nonetheless.

“How long do we have to stay here, Rani?”

“Just a little while. I just want to find out what it’s like, you know.”

She sidesteps a drunk flopped over in a puddle of his own vomit. “What it’s like? You want to understand what it’s like to be the reason most older people think the world is going to hell because they look at these winners and see the future?

She seems dubious when some of the other guys are lighting bendy straws on fire and trying to use them at the same time. I admit this place is full of…well, I’m not sure what to call them but I’m not here for them.

I laugh it off - or try to - and take another solo cup from someone offering it to me. I’m not planning on drinking it, but no one here needs to know that.

“Milly, I just want to find out what goes on at one of these things. Why are so many people talking about it? Why do they do it? Aren’t you ever curious about why people do the things they do? Don’t you ever feel like…I don’t know, that you might be getting left behind?”

“No. Not really. I have you. I don’t need anybody else.”

I turn and take in her sweet face. She really is too good to be my friend but I’m not going to tell her that. Milly is like an angel and look at where I’ve brought her. I set the drink down and take her by the hand.

“You’re right. You always are.”

I pull her through the crowd to leave but come up short just outside when a big beefy football player-type guy steps in my way. I try to go around him, but he just moves with me. “Excuse me, we were just leaving.”

I use my coolest voice on him.

“Oh no! You have to stay. I’ve seen you around here looking all cool and sexy. I think we should fuck.”

Wow. He’s really using all his vocabulary on me. I wince and start to notice the fact we aren’t around enough people for me to feel comfortable around this guy.

“No. I have to take my friend back home. She has a curfew.” I try to give him a smile that drips ice but this guy is just too stupid to understand subtleness.

“Oh come on. She can stay a little longer, can’t she? If you want, she can join us…or just watch.”

“Oh gross!” It’s a whisper from Milly that echoes my thoughts exactly.

“Look, I get you’re not smart enough to understand big words so let me put it in a way you can understand. I don’t want to fuck you. I will never want to fuck you. And frankly, you can go fuck…yourself.”

I say the last slowly just in case his mind is hung up on the words before since I tend to talk fast when I’m pissed off. Milly stifles a giggle behind me.

“You’re a sassy little bitch. I like that.”

Oh sweet Jesus. This guy is worse than I thought. I open my mouth to break it off in him - verbally since I have no intention of touching this douchebag - when he grabs me by the arm.

“I’ll have to teach you another way to use your mouth.”

Bile rises in my throat for just an instant and I feel Milly’s tense fingers on my back. But before I can get totally sick from this troglodyte, his touch leaves me. In the space of a heartbeat, the guy is pushed up against the house and is held off the ground by one very pissed-off hot cop.

Uh oh. Looks like I got more than I thought I would with this little escapade. I watch as the color drains from the guy’s face as Charlie says things to him too low for me to make out.

“Who the hell is that?” Milly grabs my arm in a death grip and whispers like she’s afraid he will overhear her ask the question.

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