One Moment More, S. J. Evans [ebook reader ink txt] 📗

hers, the one just wide enough that you could see her missing teeth, and scuffed her feet against the puke green and mustard yellow rug I’d been begging my parents to replace for years. “Me too,” she said quietly. Then, with her hands on her hips, she added, all back to business, “So. Are you really going to steal my Cookie Monster away for the night?”

            “Hold up.” Lila gave me a questioning look. “Cookie Monster?”

             I shrugged, “Yep.”

         “She killed the cookie.” Bailee gave her a pointed look, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “‘Cookie killer’ doesn’t have the same ring to it,” she explained, giggles now escaping her lips, “as ‘Cookie Monster’? Don’t you think?”

          “Ah, you’ve got that right,” Lila agreed, and laughed out loud. “But to answer your question, Bails . . . I’d very much appreciate it if you let me steal Reina for a couple of hours. I even invited Dexter to come stay with you while we’re out. At least until your parents get back.”

          Bailee’s eyes lit up, and she dropped her hands in front of her. “You mean,” she said, rocking on the balls of her bare feet, “Cowboy Dexter?”  Lila nodded in reply. “Really?” This time, when Lila replied with an easy “Yep,” popping the p, Bails let it all go, squealing, jumping up and down, and nearly squeezing the life out of my best friend all in a matter of seconds.

         I didn’t even have the chance to blink before she was smothering me in hugs.  “Oh, please please please let me hangout with Cowboy Dexter, Reina! It’d make today the best. Day. Ever!” She sounded just like Rapunzel from Tangled (her all-time favorite Disney movie), enthusiasm dripping into her desperate pleads. “Pretty please with vanilla cupcakes and sprinkles?”

           Leave it to a nine-year-old girl with a crush on one of your good friends—a fifteen-year-old boy who worked at his father’s diner and always wore his cowboy hat (no matter what he was doing)—to make your day turn completely upside down. Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the joys – or burdens, depending on how you look at it – of sisterhood.

           Now, despite the fact that I wasn’t too keen on the idea of going to this sketchy gathering with Lila (mainly because I wasn't fond of going on spontaneous outings in the first place), I couldn’t necessarily turn down my sister either. So, with a sigh, I caved. “Fine, you can hang out with ‘Cowboy Dexter’. But mom and dad will be back by eleven, and you must be in bed no later than ten, all right? Promise?”

         She chirped out a high pitched squeak, jumping up and down and throwing her arms around me. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Reina!” she squealed, squeezing the air out of my lungs. “I promise I’ll be in bed by ten. No worries. And I’ll even be sure to save you a couple of the extra cookies for when you get home.” Another squeal. “You’re the best sister EVER!”

          Smiling brightly at her, I pried her off me and gave her a shove in Lila’s direction. “She’s the one who set up this whole thing,” I said. “I think she’s the one who really deserves your gratitude.”           

         Jumping up and down in excitement, her long, blonde curls bouncing with the movement, she practically threw herself into Lila’s arms and thanked her more times than I could count on one hand, shrieking uncontrollably. “I owe you, Lila McDuffie! Big time.”

          Lila bent down and whispered something in her ear, something I couldn’t quite catch over the ticking of our old grandfather clock adjacent to the photos on the wall right beside the kitchen entrance, and they both giggled like the manipulative girls they were. And then, with Bailee following in tow, Lila started up the stairs, saying, “Come on, Reina. We’ve got to get you ready for tonight.” She paused on the fifth stair. Then she added, albeit a little more quietly, “And that special surprise.”

           With my foot on the bottom step and my hand on the staircase’s railing, I froze, my pulse in my throat. Oh no. This cannot be happening, I thought, getting this deep, sinking feeling in my stomach. No more surprises. I can't handle any more surprises. Never again.

             And by the way she said that dreadful little word, I knew it was only going to bring trouble. Lots and lots of trouble.

             If only I had known just how drastically my life would change because of it.

2. ♡

Well, this certainly was not what I'd been expecting, I thought, as I weaved my way through the mercilessly packed crowd at the entrance of Buxton's Under Twenty One night club. Not in the slightest. Squeezing my way around a teenage couple who had taken attached at the hip to a whole other level, their bodies so entangled together it was as if they had become one person, I tried to ignore the oppressive wave of anxiety that crawled up my spine, spreading goose bumps across my otherwise warm skin, tempting me to just turn around, walk out those large, blood-red doors, and find my way back home, where there was nothing but the promise of a pleasantly uneventful rest of the evening.

     Now, don’t get me wrong: I actually liked the idea of spending the night in the presence of my friends, laughing and making complete and utter fools of ourselves. I just didn’t understand why it had to be done in the presence of so many horny, love-sick—and obliviously wasted—teenagers on the eve of one of the most over-hyped “holidays”. There were much better places we could have celebrated at. Places that didn’t offer the same worrisome amount of alcohol, drugs, loud music, dirty dancing, and sweaty brawls, as the infamous Buxton’s did.

    I knew I wasn’t an expert of how this place worked, but I’d been here enough times to see more drunken parties and catty fights than one sixteen-year-old could ever ask for. So you could say I had reason not to be its biggest fan.

    “Reina Elizabeth Williams, are you even listening to me?”

    Freezing in place, right before my ruby slippers had the chance to brush against the colorful tiles of the dance floor, packed with teenagers and young adults desperate to show off their moves, I bit my lip to suppress the smile that threatened to break across my lips. Apparently I’d been so caught up in trying to rid my body of the night club jitters I hadn’t even noticed Lila was speaking to me. And now, as she scurried up from behind me, nudging me in the side, I heard that familiar twinge of annoyance dripping from her honey-sweet voice. “I was talking to you.”       “Sorry,” I said, shaking my head and trying to act as innocent as possible, “I must have spaced out for a sec. You were saying?”    

      She spun me around, hands at the tops of my arms. When she noticed the smile that was creeping up my lips, despite my desperate efforts to keep my expression neutral, she shook her head, making a scoffing sound under her breath. “Oh, you know,” she said, in a tone that was incredibly close to the mocking side, “nothing important. Just that I caught your brother and his girlfriend having sex in the little ladies room.”

      “Lila!” Horrified by the mere suggestion that my fifteen-year-old little brother—who in fact was currently going through a rebellious phase—would do something as careless as that, I  struggled to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. Then I gave her shoulder a light shove. “That is so not funny!”

      “Oh come on, Reina,” she replied, grinning like the Cheshire cat, “you know you want to laugh. Don’t try to deny it.” She pulled a tube of lip-gloss from her diamond encrusted clutch and squeezed the cherry-red substance across her lips, before smacking them together and holding the tube out to me. Hesitantly, I took it. “Besides, I have your attention now, don’t I?”

      “You’re ridiculous,” I sighed, stifling a laugh as I refreshed my chapped, rosy lips. “You really make me question how we ever became friends in the first place, you know.”

      “Right back at you.” Her eyes twinkled under the bright, flashing lights of the club as she stared at me, sapphire gems peering deep into my own plain old hazel ones. “But anyways, we should probably get a head start out on the dance floor, before Landon and Kiara show up.” Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she linked our elbows together and started towards the dance floor. “That’s what I was really trying to talk to you about earlier.”

      “Oh.” I blinked, momentarily taken aback by the fact that we were heading straight for the overly crowded dance floor, straight for a disaster waiting to happen. “But wait.” I dug my heels in—which in turn caused a boy who’d been following too close behind us to slam into me, nearly knocking me off my feet, before he muttered something along the lines of “Watch where you’re going” in a slurred voice and was soon lost in the crowd—and handed Lila her lip-gloss back. “I’m not a dancer. I don’t dance, especially not with an audience. How about we just go hang out in the game room or something and wait for the others to show?”

      “No way, babe,” she insisted, tugging me towards the floor with much more determination this time. “You need to live a little. And that means you’re coming with me. Now.”     

      Oh joy. Hooray for me.

       Not.  

“Hey there, pretty lady,” a deep, familiar voice purred from behind me. “Whatcha doin’ all by your lonesome?” Well-toned arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against a warm and equally toned chest. “Did your friends ditch you to go make-out in some shady corner?” I could feel him chuckling, the vibration thrumming under my already hot skin. “‘Cause, if you were interested, I could always keep you company.”

      Snickering at that, I wiggled out of the boy’s arms and turned to face him, placed my hands on my hips. His lips were turned into his trademark half-smile, one that could easily melt any girl’s heart in an instant, and I had to fight the sudden urge to snuggle back up into his arms and accept his offer. “Call me crazy,” I said instead, closing the space in between us a little, so that, even despite our height differences (he easily had about three inches on me), I could feel his breath on my face, catching the whiff of mint and vanilla that came along with it, “but I highly doubt your girlfriend would appreciate that.”    

      If he didn’t stop looking at me so intently like he was, things were going to get ugly. And by ugly, I mean I was going to lose all self-control and fall at his feet, begging him to take me to one of those so-called shady corners, where no one would bother