THRUST

Chapter Seven

Alice has offered to be our driver tonight, which is comforting, considering the whole rear-ending Edward Cullen incident. We're all headed to The Clubhouse to get started before we ride out to the coast.

.

.

.

Huddled inside the walls of The Clubhouse, I follow behind Angela and we nestle into a booth in the back with Alice and Rose.

Rose is Angela's best friend and I've only met her once before today, but I already adore her.

Rose is unapologetically blunt and observant yet slightly oblivious at the same time. She's edgy... full of that punk vibe. Larger than life tall, and super feminine... Rose has long, dark silky brown hair that hangs in beachy waves with highlighted caramel and platinum strands mixed in.

Tonight, her blue eyes are heavily lined and shadowed in black. She looks effortlessly cool in her shredded Iron Maiden tank with a mini skirt and Vans.

I've decided that she's cooler than anyone I've ever known. Her shiny tanned legs go on for miles and her lustrous, nude lips turn me on and I'm not even the least bit bi. After two drinks at Alice's earlier, I'm already in rare form and I'm pretty much obsessed with her.

The first time I met Rose, I came into Alice's house, to find her in full-on conversation about how she couldn't believe her friend, Nicole, was dating a coke dealer.

She was sitting down in front of the coffee table and rummaging through her purse, pulling out a tiny plastic bag, saying, "Like, how low can you go, you know?"

Immediately after sharing her distaste of her friend dating this coke dealer guy, she sprinkled a neat little rail of white powder onto the table and sucked it straight up her nose without pausing... saying, "She can do so much better."

After cleaning the counter with her fingers and rubbing the remnants onto her teeth, she dropped the tiny white bag back into her purse and moved onto the next subject on her mind- parking meters and how disgusted she was with the ones on Bennington. She spilled out a non stop rant while I looked on.

"No backing in, no parking on Thursday from two to eleven, no parking Monday through Friday, five am to six am, two hour parking Monday through Friday, nine am to six pm. I mean, what the fuck? All of those signs, how do you even? It's like they put those signs there with hidden cameras strapped to them, just to make fun of you, sitting there in your car, pulling in and backing up with each sign you read further. Why don't they just post a sign that says walk, skate or bike to this motherfucker next time."

The irony of the situation amused me, but knowing Rose better now, I understand her. She doesn't do coke on the regular, at least not to my knowledge, and she has a lot of depth, despite my first impression. The best part about her though, is she is electric with life. She's fun.

Once the waitress with the smallest boobs brings us our drinks, I notice Briggs come through the silver door behind the bar. My heart flip flops in my chest with excitement as he walks to the guy sitting at the bar and bumps knuckles with him.

He's got this thing with black, white and one word on his shirts. Tonight he's wearing a white t-shirt with the word 'nope' written in large, black, lowercase letters.

Rose yells, "Whew! You comin' with us tonight?" and he looks our way with a small smile. She clenches the cherry between her white teeth as she pulls it from the stem, while looking at him, and a tiny pinch of jealousy mixed with disappointment bubbles up.

She tosses back her drink and calls the waitress back over, "Hey, candy lips," the waitress turns to her as she finishes up with the table next to us, "Can I get three shots of tequila and some lemons please?"