Once Bitten (An Anya Maynard Novel)

Chapter Seven

“Business never ends,” Brad sighed “if you’ll excuse me Anya, some things just can’t wait.”

I nodded and he walked me back into the house, dropping me back off at the table with the girls before turning to disappear into the crowd. These two weren’t friends yet, and maybe not ever considering their choice of recreational activities.

“Hey Brad, you better hurry up,” Becky giggled and shook something at his retreating back I couldn’t see, “He’s giving all your shit away to anyone who’ll say Trick or Treat.”

Brad shook his head at them, absolutely no amusement there, and joined the guy dressed up like Danny from Grease waiting for him in the hallway. I had seen Sandy around here at some point tonight too.

“Hey, you want to share the goodies Anya?” Lilly asked me. “It isn’t too often you get shit as good as this for free.”

“Shit?” I asked, still lost to what it was they were talking about.

“Oh don’t tell me you didn’t do a little blow all that time you were on the streets?”

I narrowed my eyes at Becky. “No, I haven’t.”

That might have been a little too much for Jess to have told them.

“She didn’t mean it like that Anya,” Lilly said as she shot a dirty look at Becky. At least she caught the animosity I was throwing at her other half. “Really, we understand if you don’t want too and we’re fine with it. It’s not required to hang with us so no pressure.”

I eyed them both, knowing that just because they wouldn’t make me do any cocaine didn’t mean they wouldn’t just because I asked them too. I had no right to ask them anyway, but I was growing more and more uncomfortable the farther Becky went through her process. First she wiped a spot clean on the table and dumped out the little baggie, then she pulled a credit card out of her basket and formed the powder into a neat white line before finally sucking the straw from her drink dry.

“Here,” she offered it to me, “You can go first, like a peace offering.”

I shook my head, “No, I’m good, really.”

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged and leaned over the table, taking one quick snort.

I turned and busied my gaze as Lilly repeated Becky’s movements, distracting myself by trying to name as many costumes as I could. I might be uncomfortable here, but it would be even worse out there with so many strangers so I figured I might as well stay put till either Brad or Jess came to rescue me. I was trying to figure out if the guy at the bar was a Smurf or part of the Blue Man Group when a familiar voice carried over the music. I snapped my head around to see Danny laughing with another man not ten feet away from me, a man not in costume but dressed for the club scene all the same.

He had the same suede sport coat as the last time I had seen him. Another shiny and tacky print shirt unbuttoned to expose the hairy plains of his chest. Loose slacks that pooled over gleaming leather shoes. All that was different was the alertness to his gaze. This time Nikko wasn’t doped up.

Everything came into sharp focus at that moment. The drugs. Brad’s man giving the girls “his” shit. Brad was the one on the other end of Nikko’s phone that morning! My stomach rolled when I remembered the last thing Nikko said, so push the bitch off and we’ll get you a new one. That whole incident lasted no more than twenty minutes yet Jess was already at the diner when I walked in. It wasn’t her in his bed but some other woman, soon to be two if what Nikko had said was true. Suddenly Brad didn’t seem like quite the perfect man he led himself to be.