The clanging is getting louder. Mom is probably making her way up the staircase now.
“Come on, Bee.”
Ugh.
It is either this or be stuck in the house for the next forty-eight hours until I drive back to campus on Sunday. The choice of going out tonight for at least a little fun or relegating my only social interaction to my parent’s stuffy friends tomorrow night…
“Josh, just wait until you see this. It is a masterpiece,” our mother calls out.
He raises his brows, giving me one last lifeline.
Dammit.
“Fine.”
CHAPTER FIVE
BLAIR
This is either a great decision or an awful one.
The verdict is still pending.
“Come on, Bee, loosen up a little.” Josh gives my shoulders a half-assed massage as we walk down the amber-lit street to the bustling bar on the corner.
Part of me feels like our parents are going to pop out of the nearest trash can.
My fear isn’t totally unfounded. Junior year, I’d tried to sneak out to a house party after a week of begging our mother to let me go. I’d almost made it all the way to the party, walking through Valencia Hernandez’s neighbor’s lawn, when a pair of headlights blinded me from the driveaway. Mom’s bright white Range Rover loomed menacingly, and I almost threw up out of pure shock (that and the two mini bottles of vodka I’d chugged, courtesy of Michelle). My friends had sprinted away while I stood there literally like a deer in headlights. I’d been quietly delivered back home, reprimanded, and lectured about the damage alcohol and smoke would have on dehydrating my skin and polluting my hair right before the upcoming pageant contest.
It always came back down to my image.
Josh grabs my face with both hands, and I startle back.
“Stop freaking out.”
His unwavering gaze nudges the ball lodged in the back of my throat.
“Alright, alright.” I push his hands aways and fluff my hair. “I’m fine.”
I take the next few minutes to clear my head and attempt to shed the anxiety lacing my lungs, replacing it with false confidence. I try to imagine myself as the Blair Hanes I want to be, not the one I’m told to be.
The bar smells like beer, fries, and a tinge of Buffalo sauce. It is already decked out for Halloween—cobwebs strung from the rafters, a skeleton propped in the corner by the dartboard, and little glowing pumpkins littered here and there. Even the bouncer is wearing an apron covered in fake blood.
There is never any escape from Halloween in a small town like ours.
“IDs,” the bouncer requests in a gruff voice, not looking up from his phone as he holds out his hand.
“Come on, Peter, you don’t think I’m twenty-one?”
Joshisn’ttwenty-one. Neither am I for that fact, which makes me all the twitchier. Everyone in town knows that Old Spur is the one place anyone can get into, no matter how crap your fake ID is, but that doesn’t make me feel any better since I’ve never tried to get in before.
My plastic ID is slippery between my sweaty fingers.
The guy, Peter, looks up and immediately drops the asshole act as he claps Josh on the back.
“Dude, I didn’t know you were back in town.”
“Parents’ annual Halloween bash. You know the drill.”
