Games of Fire (11 page)

“You ladies ready?” Lauren asked, placing a hand on her hip and striking a sultry pose.

Jessie alternated between touching her riot of curls and brushing invisible pieces of lint from her top. “I don’t know! Maybe this isn’t such a great—”

“Don’t be a chicken!” Lauren turned on her. “We did not just go through all that trouble to back down now.

Jessie looked at Sophie, silently pleading. A jitter of guilt flittered through her. But she didn’t agree. She wanted to go inside. She was cold, her feet hurt and she wanted to see Brian.

“Okay,” Jessie murmured, shoulders hunching.

Together, they started for the house, their strides slow and uneven. Sophie fought not to cave the closer they came to the point of no return. They came to a stop at the doors. Lauren knocked. Seconds melted into minutes and no one let them in.

“Maybe they can’t hear us,” Jessie said, looking relieved. “The music is pretty loud.”

“Well.” Lauren reached for the brass doorknob.

“Lauren!” Jessie gasped. “You can’t just walk into someone else’s house!”

“How do you expect to get in otherwise, Jessie? Exactly!” Lauren said when Jessie faltered.

A solid wall of noise punched them with a fist made of pure heat the second the door gave way. The tangible force knocked them back a full step as wave after wave of bass pulsed through the opening. The stench of sweat boiled in a concoction of gym socks, sickly sweet perfume and vomit. It stung the air, souring it. There were bodies everywhere, moving, running, lounging, all infused into the moment. Laughter and chatter hummed just a notch over the crash
of music. No one else seemed to mind.

“Come on!” Lauren grabbed Jessie’s hand. In desperation, Jessie grabbed Sophie and together, they f
iled over the threshold and stepped into a world so far from theirs, it was in another galaxy.

The blur of faces and the jolts of color twisted into a hammer that steadily pounded into the goose egg still protruding from the base of Sophie’s skull, from its meet with the pavement after nearly being crushed by a car. The world pulsed with every heavy thud of music, raging, angry and cruel. Time seemed to swim, hazy and bright across her vision. She shook her wrist loose of Jessie’s grip, needing her fingers to push against the throbbing behind her eyelids. The floor tipped. The wall took the collision of her shoulder, sending fingers of agony ribboning through the cavity of her brain. Chaos swallowed her groan.

Someone bumped into her. The female laugh was loud and high pitched, unnatural for someone under their own influence. Sophie’
s eyes flew open. She had to blink to bring focus to the commotion. The brunette standing in front of her, staggering, barely supported by the two other girls keeping her up, released another laugh. Her friends, not nearly as drunk as she was, moved her further down the hall. Sophie watched them stumble away before searching the sea of faces for signs of her own friends.

Lauren and Jessie were nowhere to be seen. A jolt of panic had Sophie pushing her way through the throng of partygoers. The narrow corridor was even more confined by the strategically placed end tables, each one beautifully decorated with crystal bowls filled with stones, family pictures and vases. Smiling portraits of Roy squished between a handsome dark haired man and a beautiful dark skinned woman, paintings of fruit bowls and
sunset beaches hung from the walls, leading a perfect path into a kitchen straight out of a catalogue. Slabs of polished marble gleamed beneath a litter of plastic cups, bowls of chips, pizza boxes and couples making out. Every light over the counters blazed, splotching halos of yellow that glinted off the metal rim of the keg. A rowdy crowd of hulking figures surrounded the giver of alcohol the way vultures swarmed a dead carcass. They hooted and hollered, shoving each other and making crude gestures. One boy, who looked like he should have been in college, manned the hose, spraying yellow liquid into plastic cups. The cups were passed around, but not usually until one or more mouths had first taken a sip. Sophie somehow wound up with a cup pressed into her hand. She set it down on the counter and quickly walked away, scanning the crowd for Jessie.

There was a quick flash of green in the distance, resembling Lauren’s dress and Sophie took off after it, keeping her eyes trained on it. So completely caught up in the fear of losing sight of her friends, Sophie didn’t see the figure until she walked straight into it, and unlike Brian, this one didn’t stumble. It was like walking headlong into a solid brick wall. The sheer strength of it nearly sent her staggering backwards like a rubber ball.
Hands caught her just above the elbows, pulling her forward and back onto her feet.

“I’m sorry!” she shouted, turning to face the reason for the bruise she would no doubt have in the morning. Her eyes bulged. Her heart stopped momentarily and all the spit in her mouth dried to dust. “Spencer!”

He stood before her looking as pale and gorgeous as ever in his dark jeans, black t-shirt and tattoos. His gray eyes devoured her in a slow, scorching climb like he was photographing every inch of her and didn’t want to miss a single detail. The path of his scrutiny burned wherever they touched her skin. Goose bumps clustered the lengths of her arms. Her cheeks flushed at the hungry appreciation behind his appraisal. The dress was suddenly not long enough to conceal the miles of flesh exposed. He took a step forward, invading her sanity with his powerful scent of raw male and spices. The heat of his body lashed against hers. Her neck was forced back so she could peer into his face. Her lips parted, unknowingly begging him to do something she knew was a bad idea. A muscle danced along his jaw as he seemingly gritted his teeth. The overhead lights caught the silver skull studded into the leather band clasped around his wrist, as he raised his arm and scooped wisps of hair off his brow.

Damn
it he looked good.
But then he opened his mouth and it all flittered away like dying embers in the night breeze.

“I see you made it without using me as your pawn,” he said, his voice carrying seamlessly over the din.

Sophie didn’t know whether to apologize for putting him on the spot the night before, or kick him for being such an ass. She opted to surge past him before she apologized and then kicked him for good measure. It was a big enough party. They could easily stay out of the other’s way.

Her
temper had other ideas. Her heels teetered as she scuttled to a halt and whipped around, pointer finger finding and spearing his chest before she could even realize she’d lifted an arm. “I’m getting real tired of your crap, Rowth.”

His fingers curled around her hand, stopping her abuse
in a manner that could almost be considered gentle. “You mean my inability to jump at the chance to be your alibi to see another guy? Yeah, consider me an ass.”

She twisted herself free of him. “
What do you care why I wanted to come here anyway? It wouldn’t have been any skin off your nose to just say yes. It wasn’t like I was asking for a kidney or for you to even go with me, because heaven forbid I dared take such liberties—”

“Dare take such liberties? What, did your brain take a nosedive into the
eighteen hundreds?”

She
ignored the hot flush creeping into her face. “Well, I wouldn’t have asked you. I know how you would have hated that.”

Amusement fled from his eyes. “You have no idea what I would have hated.”

It took a moment to wrap her head around that. “What—?”

Spencer peered down at her
with something akin to frustration. “You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

“And why is that?” she asked sharply.

He seemed to hesitate a moment. His gaze flickered past her to something in the distance before returning to her once more. “Because you’re going to get yourself into trouble.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Right, because you’re suddenly all about protecting me
, what with your new found hero complex, but just because you saved me from getting crushed by a car, doesn’t mean I—”

“I do not have a hero complex!”

“Then tell me why I shouldn’t be here, not that it’s any of your business what I do, or where I go, or who I see.”

He looked past her again, his eyes narrowing into thin slits. She turned her head to see
what had caught his attention and saw nothing but bobbing and swaying bodies everywhere.

“He doesn’t want you!” His gaze returned to hers, chips of glacial ice. “He’s not
…” he trailed off with a deep growl.

She had no idea what he was talking about and never got the chance to ask when he
cast her a long, furious scowl, spun on his heels and disappeared through the crowd. Sophie watched him until she could no longer see him and only then did she move, shouldering and elbowing her way through the mess in the opposite direction.

Somehow, she wound up on the back patio, which was as crowded and noisy as the inside. Her heels scraped and clacked as she made her way around the pool overflowing with people despite the January weather. She shuddered. Wearing sandals seemed like a bad enough idea. Swimming was so not happening.
She found her way back inside, grateful to be out of the nippy weather and mist.

“Sophie!” It took her a moment to find the origin of the voice. She had to do several slow circles before she spotted the figure pushing his way towards her.

“Brian!” A smile split across her face.

He reached her, his hair fluttered perfectly over his forehead. “Hey! You made it.”

Sophie nodded. “Yeah, but I lost my friends.”

His brows creased as he turned his attention over the roaring and jumping crowd. “I can help you look for them if you like
, or you can come join us for a little while. I’m sure they’ll find us.”

She knew her friends would understand if she just let them find her.
They knew she was there to see Brian and would no doubt track her down that way, but she couldn’t just leave them alone in that place. What if something happened? They were supposed to stay together. “I should look for them,” she said, going against everything her head was begging.

Brian didn’t pull away, didn’t frown or get angry. He smiled and gave an understanding nod. “Okay. Let me tell my friends and I’ll help you.”

Grateful, she offered him a small grin and watched as he jogged back to the cluster of kids lounging around a solid oak coffee table on sofas made of black leather. The TV was on, flickering rapidly from station to station as though the possessor of the remote couldn’t make up their mind. Sophie didn’t see the point considering they couldn’t possibly hear anything over the noise, but she wisely kept the thought to herself.

Br
ian said something to his group, pointing in her direction, and then making a circular motion towards the ceiling. Several heads turned in her direction and Sophie didn’t know whether to wave or just stand there like an idiot. Idiot won. She stood like a statue, wishing Brian would hurry up.

A minute later, he
returned to her side. “Sorry,” he said. “Where did you want to start?”

Sophie shook her head. “I have no idea.”

He seemed to consider this a moment. His green eyes swept over the room. “Well, we can start down here and then make our way upstairs.”

Eager to start anywhere, she nodded.

Brian Fisher parted the crowd like Moses over the Red Sea. Even people with their backs to him shifted aside as if gravity repelled their proximity to him. Following along behind him was like following the tail of a rock star. All around them, people called out. They patted him on the shoulder, smacked him on the back. Girls giggled and pressed their scantily clad bodies into his in the midst of an embrace. It wasn’t his party but people shouted how much fun they were having and thanked him for the invite. Sophie felt ridiculously out of place in his shadow.

“Is it always like this?” she asked as they broke into the hallway.

Brian tossed her a glance over his shoulder. “Only when I’m in public.”

Sophie dodged a puddle of
vomit. “I would hate that,” she confessed, shouting to be heard.

“Which part of it?” he asked, turning left at the base of the stairs and stepping through an opening into a
rec room, equipped with a pool table, a plasma TV mounted on the wall and leather bean bag chairs.

The crack of pool balls crashed through the air as Br
ian took her across the room to the second doorway. Sophie silently wondered just how big this place was and if they would need a map to get back.

“I don’t think they’d have come this way,” she said, grateful that the deeper they went into the house, the more muffled the music became until she was just able to hear her own thoughts.

“Well, no harm in looking,” he countered.

She couldn’t think of anything to say to argue. She followed him through the
winding corridor circling back around to the kitchen. Most of the rooms along the way opened into bedrooms, closets, bathrooms and, in one case, a gym. Just how many rooms did a family of three need?

“Fisher!” The ch
orus
of his name rose up into the air in a cacophony of elation. The vultures guarding the keg lurched up and seemed to pour over Brian, engulfing him into their midst the way the ocean surged over sand and dragged things back into its fold. One minute Brian was standing at her side, the next he was gone, swallowed by the throng of people. Sophie stood paralyzed, not sure if she should run for help or not.