Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (38 page)

Cali
grinned. She
had gathered
a section
of hair about an inch thick on either side of her head with
scrunchies
, letting the rest of her dark hair hang loose. She had dyed the ga
thered section on the right
a bright orange, the one on the left an emerald green. The
scrunchy
holding the orange hair was green; the one gathering the green hair was orange. She had matched her hair to her outfit by wearing a green shirt
, a very short black miniskirt, and knee high
white
cotton socks with three wide orange stripes at the top.
Her fingernails continued the color scheme—the nails on her right had been painted orange, while those on her left hand were green.
The final touch was a mismatched pair of
canvas
sneakers, one orange and one
green.

She did a quick pirouette for Leesa, using the back of her hands to fluff her two pigtails away from the side of her head as she spun.

“Oh, this?” she said, grinning.
“
I just grabbed the first stuff I saw
.”

“That’s what it looks like,” Leesa teased, “except that somehow the colors all match.”

Andy’s arrival interrupted their banter.
He was wearing bleached jeans and
an open brown suede jacket over a darker
brown T-shirt that proclaimed “Thank God It’s Fry Day” in big gold letters. In between the Thank God It’s and the Fry Day was a picture of giant fried chicken leg, dripping grease.
No wonder he and Cali g
ot along so well, Leesa thought, not for the first time.

“Hi, girls.”
Andy
crossed quickly to Cali and kissed her
warmly
on the lips. “You look awesome,” he said.

“What about me?”
Leesa asked when he broke the kiss.

Andy looked at Leesa.
“
You?
You’d look beautiful in a
potato
sack.
” He smiled. “
You look perfectly fine,
Leesa,
which I’m
sure
is exactly what you were going for.”

Leesa smiled and kissed him on the
cheek.
“Yep.
‘Perfectly fine’ works for me.
”

“Hey, how about me?”
Cali asked.
“W
ould I look
beautiful
in a
potato
sack
, too
?”

“
Incredibly beautiful
,” Andy said without missing a beat.
“And sexy, too.
Just like you look
now.”

Cali grinned
and turned to Leesa
. “Do I know how to pick ‘
em
, or what?
”

“Pick what?” Caitlyn asked, stepping through the doorway and completing their foursome for the night. She was wearing a tight black and white diamond patterned sweater over a short black leather skirt and black nylons. Her four-inch heels made her a slightly taller than Leesa, who was wearing flats.

“Men,” Cali said, linking her arm through Andy’s.

Caitlin grinned. “In that shirt, he certainly looks good enough to eat.
Which reminds me, I’m hungry.
”

“Well
then, what are we waiting for?
” Andy said. “Let’s go.”

Th
ere
was
a short line in front of The Joint, so even though
they had
passes,
they had to wa
it outside
for
a few moments
while the less lucky kids paid
the small cover charge.
When they got
to the front of the line,
Leesa saw
a familiar face seated on a stool beside the door, collecting the cover charges and passes.
It was Frank, a guy from Andy’s frat. Leesa had first met him at the Halloween party
.

   “There must be some mistake here,”
Frank said playfully. “What are three
such lovely ladies doing with this loser?”

And
y grinned and he
ld his fist out for a fist bump. “Jealousy does not
become you, my friend,” he said
.

“
Have fun,” Frank said, waving them past.

Inside, the place wa
s about half full.
One table near the front was filled by a
group of seven or eig
ht really large guys
—jocks fro
m the football team, Leesa guessed
. The hostess guided Leesa and her friends to a
table
next to the big guys. Leesa hoped the jocks were not going to get rowdy as the evening wore on—they were already the noisiest table in the room.

The hostess
handed
everyone a menu and skittered
away to seat the next party.
Leesa gave
the menu only a cursory glance.
T
he chicken sandwich was pretty tasty last time,
making her choice easy. She wondered if
the picture on
Andy’
s shirt might
have played a subliminal role in her selection.

A
minute
or two
lat
er, a waiter glided up to
the
table.

“
What can I get you guys?”

They all
gave their order
s
, including a
jumbo basket of fries
for everyone to
share.

“Coming right up,
” the waiter said
. He hurried away toward the kitchen
.

Leesa’s chicken sandwich wa
s even
better than she
remember
ed—the spicy Dijon sauce wa
s totally delicious. The chunky fries
wer
e tasty, too.
Looking at everyone’s
very
clean plates, Leesa guessed that the other food was just as good.

The waiter began
clearing
the dishes
away almost as soon as
they were f
inish
ed
eating.
His
timing was perfect, because the MC wa
s
heading
toward the stage. 

His welcome speech wa
s basically the same as the last time,
as far as Leesa could remember. So was
his introduction of the first guest,
Tony Phillips. The crowd cheered as Phillips made
his way to the stage w
ith his guitar. Clearly, there we
re
plenty of regulars here who knew what song Phillips wa
s going to sing.

He launched
into his traditional opening number, his custom written rendition of “I Love
The
Joint.” He
was
barely into the
song before a number of people we
re singing along with him.
Leesa
fou
nd
her
self humming to the melody.
When he was done,
Phillips received an enthusiastic round of applause as he left the stage.

The next performer was
an older guy
in his
forties
, dressed i
n a black button
-downed
shirt and dark blue jeans
.
His curly black hair wa
s flecked with gray and
hung
to his shoulders.
He took
a minute
to set up a
large music
player
and then grabbed
the old guitar from
the back of the stage. He hooked
the st
rap over his shoulder and strummed
the instrument
a few times.

“This old girl isn’t quite enough to do justice to the song I want to play for you,” he sa
id
.
“Back in the day,
I
ha
d
a
four piece
band behind me.” He reached
o
ver and patted
the top of the mu
sic player. “Tonight, this baby
will have to do.”

He strummed
another couple of chords. “Any of you kids ever hear
of something called…” he
paused for effect, and then shouted
: “rock and roll?”

B
oisterous cheers erupt
ed
fro
m the audience. He flipped
a switch on the music player and launche
d
into a rousing rendition of Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” By the time he
was done, the crowd wa
s clapping and singing along, a
nd a dozen
kids we
re dan
cing in any open spaces they could
find.