The Home Court Advantage (14 page)

“She used to work at another place I used to go to. I think she kind of liked me.” I had a feeling that was the understatement of the century but I didn’t pursue it. I didn’t have time to pursue it, truthfully. I looked up and saw Cousin Derek approaching our table. Uh oh. Things were getting better and better. Maybe Braden had been right about the club thing not being a great idea.

“Hello, Braden,” Derek said in a voice that sounded like he should have been saying “Hello Clarice” instead. It was kind of mesmerizing, though, and I found myself staring at him, almost fascinated. “I haven’t seen you out and about in quite a while.” His eyes traveled over to me. “And who is this lovely woman with you?” He gave me an almost boyish look, but with an obscene undertone, and then he raked his fingers through his hair in a very Braden-like way that surprised me and threw me off balance. He was almost like Braden’s evil twin.

“This is my girlfriend, Gabrielle,” Braden answered in a slightly menacing tone. “She’s not only lovely, she’s an intelligent, accomplished, fellow attorney, for whom I have the greatest respect. We’re a very happy,
monogamous
couple.”

“Uh, hi?” I said, trying to sound friendly. After all, he was a relative even if he did have some obscene tendencies. Every family had a black sheep. In my case it was my grandmother.

“A pleasure,” Derek replied. “And a surprise. It’s been some time since Braden was half of a ‘monogamous couple’. I’m not sure that he’s ever been part of a ‘happy’ one.”

“Gabrielle is exceptional,” Braden responded coldly.

“She does seem rather extraordinary. And not only beautiful but brilliant and accomplished too. I must confess that I’m jealous.” His voice was silky and his gaze was hot. He was looking at me rather like that snake from
The Jungle Book
. I half expected to see those little swirly things in his eyes.

“Well, we’re enjoying the, uh, monogamy. And happiness! We’re happy too. Happily monogamous! And stuff,” I said. True, it was rather an awkward thing to say, but my tone was upbeat! At least I was a friendly weirdo! His eyes raked over me unashamedly and then he moved on and I released the breath that I hadn’t realized I had been holding. I wondered if
my
eyes had those little swirly things now.

“And Cameron is here too. You, I have seen recently. Good thing you decided not to go to that party after all. Things didn’t turn out too well for the guests, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I must confess that I wasn’t heartbroken. They’re not my favorite people, even though I’m obviously a patron. And, is this lovely lady your …” He shifted his leer to Jess.

“Friend,” Cam answered. Derek was looking at Jess like he might want to devour her. Jess looked like a deer in the headlights. A brave little deer, but no match for a Buick. Then Derek gave her a cute grin that looked a lot like Cameron’s cute grin and I became convinced that he had evil superpowers and could morph into every woman’s dream guy. “Very close friend,” Cam added with a warning tone in his voice, grabbing her hand in his. Jess seemed to snap out of it then and looked at Cam with a smile. Derek nodded and then his eyes fixed on Lily with distinct interest – even beyond interest in getting her naked.

“I recognize you,” he said, making it sound dirty. A slow Grinch-like smile spread across his face. Uh oh.

“You do?” she asked dubiously. She gave him a thoughtful expression, like she was trying to place him. I wondered what Lily had been doing to research those steamy novels.

“From a book signing event in New York. Many women who I’ve known find your novels very stimulating.” I was pretty certain he meant women he had ‘known’ in the Biblical sense, and ‘stimulating’ in the, well you know, stimulating sense.

“Legal thrillers?” Adam, who had wound up sitting next to Lily, asked with a smile. I have to admit that I almost laughed out loud at the way he said it. I had a sneaking suspicion that Adam didn’t like Derek very much. I can’t imagine why not. Without answering, Derek shifted his gaze to him.

“Is she your girlfriend?” I could see that Lily was annoyed with how he had asked that question. It sounded kind of like he was asking him, “Is this your car?”

“Arch nemesis,” Adam said with a smile and I felt Jess kick him under the table. “Just kidding, Lily and I are very close,” he said, putting his arm around her. At least it was true in a literal sense. Derek gave Adam a look that seemed almost like a challenge but he moved on.

“And is this
your
close friend, Drew?” he asked, looking at Mark. Drew and Mark looked at each other and then quickly back at Derek as understanding of his implication dawned.

“Good buddy,” Drew answered in a deeper voice than usual, slapping Mark on the back. “Just hanging out here. Doing guy stuff.”

“Talking about women. And sports. And beer. And uh …” Mark added.

“Condoms,” Drew added and I rolled my eyes. Brilliant.

“I see,” Derek said. “Well, I left a good friend of my own at the bar and she’ll be rather annoyed with me if I keep her waiting too long. Fun chatting with all of you. Ladies … perhaps I’ll see you on the dance floor.” And with that he left and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I saw Adam let go of Lily. Was it my imagination or did he look a little reluctant to do it? Cam held on to Jess’s hand for a couple more minutes which was very promising. The waitress came back with our drinks and Braden suddenly dropped a coaster under the table until she left again.

“Did you know her
well
?” I asked a little tensely, wondering if she was someone he had actually hooked up with.

“No!” Braden answered reappearing from beneath the table. “She flirted with me a lot but I always got a weird vibe from her.” He got a weird vibe from her. Because, you know,
he
wasn’t acting weird at all at the moment. People hid under tables all the time in these places.

“So Derek seems kind of … alarming,” Jess said with a smile.

“It would be best if you ladies stayed close to us when he’s around,” Cam said, glancing in Derek’s direction. I followed his gaze and saw that Derek had his hand up his ‘friend’s’ miniscule dress and she was grinding against him. Charming.

“Looks like you and Lily are a couple,” Mark said with a smile to Adam.

“And so are you and Drew,” Adam replied with a smile of his own. Mark and Drew both looked at him menacingly and I suspected that they wanted to grab the first club chick who walked by and demonstrate their raging heterosexuality right here on the table.

We decided to split up and look around a little to check the place out. Braden and I went exploring with Adam. Lily, Cam and Jess headed off together and Drew hung out with Mark - as buddies – and fellow sports fans, beer drinkers and condom consumers. Finally we all made it back to our table, without anything very interesting to report. It was a club. Kind of a cool one, but just a club. I wasn’t really sure what I had expected to find here. Obviously, the cocktail napkin was just some drunken fireman’s forgotten trash.

“Let’s dance,” Lily said and I got up to join her and Jess out on the dance floor. You know, alcohol did really seem to improve my coordination and balance. Or more likely it just made me think it did. We danced to a fast song, and looking to my right I noticed Derek dancing with the woman from the bar, who had been joined by another one who looked amazingly similar. They both had big hair and were dressed in very skimpy outfits. Actually, I would classify what the women were wearing more as fabric swatches than outfits and what they were doing more as writhing than dancing. Derek himself had plenty of good moves. He seemed to have natural rhythm and he moved his hips well. What a surprise.

He must have sensed someone watching because he looked in my direction and smiled when he saw me. I looked away quickly. Oh fuck! I hadn’t been checking Derek out! He was just interesting to me because he was Braden’s cousin and apparently the black sheep of their family. It was too late though. The damage was done. Derek started subtly dancing the trashy twins over in our direction. Great!

I made sure not to look at him again. That’s what Braden had said and I think I had seen that in a wildlife documentary somewhere too. Never make direct eye contact with the deadly panther/poisonous snake/wild rutting pig/Derek. Unfortunately, that meant that I didn’t have any idea where he was or what he was doing. Too late I realized that “where he was,” was right behind me, and “what he was doing” was moving his hips against me. Derek was as tall and well-built as Braden and he felt disconcertingly similar but I knew it wasn’t Braden behind me. I would have just known anyway but it was a dead giveaway when Derek leaned down and spoke into my ear and he was all Derek-sounding.

“Gabrielle, you really know how to
move
.” Jesus, he made that sound so obscene! But then I had a feeling that he could make “pass the salt” sound obscene. I gave him what I hoped was a friendly (
just
a friendly!) smile and began moving
away
. Unfortunately, the floor was a bit slippery and I was a tipsy uncoordinated woman wearing six inch heels. My foot slipped out from underneath me and I went flying backward with one leg high in the air, landing squarely against Derek who caught me in what must have looked like some kind of fancy backward dip, because immediately the dancers around us backed up into a circle to watch.

With a sinking feeling, I recalled the surprise I had planned for Braden. I had decided to really go without panties and I had just flashed a portion of the crowd, including Jess and Lily, who were giving me an astonished look. I panicked, and attempting to right myself, I overshot and wound up pitching forward. I put my hands out to catch myself and landed in a push-up position, flipping over, landing on my butt and lower back, and spinning around in a circle with my legs in the air. The crowd started cheering! Holy shit, they thought I was break dancing!

Derek, who I was pretty sure I had also just flashed, apparently took this as an invitation. He came over and hauled me up and then spun me around, picking me up in the freaking air! The lights and the alcohol and the spinning combined to make me dizzy and when he set me down again I tumbled sideways and started flailing my arms in an attempt to catch my balance, first in one direction and then in the other. Derek followed right along and matched me move for move. I had a feeling that a new dance craze had just been born, The Flail, invented at Club 51 in Philadelphia. The crowd ate it up. Just when I was sure that I had reached the seventh ring of Hell the cavalry rode in to save me. Braden “cut in” on Derek, who gracefully stepped aside.

“What are you doing, Gabrielle?” he asked, speaking directly into my ear so I could hear him over the music. The crowd, including Jess and Lily, went back to what they were doing before Derek and I got jiggy. Derek himself had gone back to the Trash Twins, who I noted were now doing The Flail too.

“I was trying to move away from Derek and I slipped,” I answered back into his ear. I saw him try to stifle a laugh.

“That was pretty impressive. I think you and Derek could probably go pro if you wanted,” he teased.

“I’m just lucky I survived.”

Braden was a great dancer and he could even make me look good on the dance floor. I relaxed against him and let him guide me with his hands and legs and hips and soon I started really enjoying myself. We had slow danced but this was the first time we had danced like this together. We were pressed up against each other, shaking our booties, and bumping and grinding in complete synchronicity. But then we had a lot of practice with doing those moves horizontally. We weren’t actually simulating sex on the dance floor like Derek’s new friends were now doing with him - simultaneously I might add - but the way we were moving was most definitely very hot. The night was improving. I even saw a few more adventurous souls in the crowd doing The Flail. At one point, though, I looked over toward the bar and I saw Dollarella glaring at me and leering at Braden. I leaned up to shout into his ear.

“You never hooked up with that waitress?” I asked suspiciously.

“No! I swear. She always kind of creeped me out. I pegged her as a crazy stalker girl. Come to think of it, I don’t know if I trust her to serve you alcohol.”

“Maybe I’ll have Derek taste my drink first,” I joked.

“Good idea.” He laughed and dropped his hand to my bottom. “Are you wearing a thong?” he asked with a hot look. Apparently, he had missed the earlier part of the floor show.

“No. Actually I’m not wearing anything,” I answered and gave him my best bad girl smile. The hot look he was giving me became scorching.

“Naughty girl. If I had known that I would have occupied myself better under that table.”

Eventually Derek and the two women left together. Braden leaned down and kissed me deeply. Pulling back, he told me that he was going back to rejoin the other guys.

“Dance with your friends a little more. I’ll talk to the guys a bit and then I say we get out of here and go have a more private party.”

“That sounds good to me!” He left the dance floor and I moved back over to dance with Jess and Lily. The three of us kept dancing as another song came on and I watched the guys get involved in an animated conversation about something. Then I looked over toward the doorway arch and saw a woman with dark hair dressed in black who had her back to me. When she turned around I was surprised to see that I recognized her.