Chasing Summer [Chasing Series Book 1]

All Grown Up

Maisie's P.O.V

It's a Saturday afternoon, and I'm sitting on Nicola's bed as we talk about the upcoming concert, "Do you think Michael is going to keep his blonde hair?" I ask.

"I don't know, probably, but I really wish he would he would go back to green or reverse skunk," She replied.

All of the sudden, Samantha comes rushing into the room, with her hands behind her back.

"Hey guys," She says, a creepy smile growing on her face.

"Whatcha got there?" I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.

"You guys know Jackson's older sister? Carly?" Sam asks. Nicola and I glance to one another and she replies.

"Yeah, what about her?"

"Well, she wanted to give us a little present. Since you know our parents are out of town for the weekend and Christine is at her friend's..." She trails off and throws an id onto the bed.

"Are these fake ID's?" I ask, picking up the card with my face on it.

"Yup! And it did not come cheap. I was thinking we could go to this new club I heard about and it seems like a lot of fun. What do you think? Want to go?" She asks excitedly. I'm all for it and I look over to Nicola who looks a bit skeptical.

"I don't know Sam, what if we get caught?" She asks worriedly.

"Oh Nic c'mon. Trust me, these will work. Also, we could use a little fun. We're all grown up now! We've been doing a lot of stuff lately with the band and school. We could use a bit of fun."

It takes a bit more to convince her, but she eventually caves at the idea of us going out.

"Let's go get ready!" Sam says, with an enthusiastic tone, it's going to take her hours to get ready.

****

It's about 10 o'clock now, and we park next to the club. Already we hear the rave music blasting from the inside, and smell the all too familiar smell of an uptown club. We stand in the line, and wait for about 30 minutes until we walk up to the bouncer and hand him our ID's. He glances down, examining them and looking back to our faces.

He huffs and opens the door.

"Go on in," he says and we all give him a round of thank you's as we make our way inside.

The smoke from the floor is everywhere and the room feels humid as people are dancing and drinking all around us. We make our way to bar to get some drinks and look around the room.

Already, I notice the VIP Loft from above, which has a perfect view of the dance floor below it. I bet that's useful for something.

A couple hours and a couple of shots go by and we all feel ourselves get tipsier by the minute. At one point we go back to the bar and stand, hoping to catch a breath. I feel a hand touch the small of my back, and I turn around to see a handsome, familiar face. A tall, muscular guy, with beautiful brown eyes and luscious brown hair, which compliments his husky voice.

"Clay is that you?" I ask, grabbing the attention of Nicola and Samantha. He goes around giving all of us hugs saying.

"I haven't seen you guys in forever, how've you all been?" He asked.

We begin to talk with him and catch up with all the time it's been since we last seen him. He offers to buy us a round of shots, and at this point we couldn't deny his offer.

Three rounds of shots later, the lightest one of us, Sam, is all over Clay.

I yell into his ear, "Do you think you could stay with Sam? I have to go to the bathroom," he nods and goes over to Sam and asks her to go dance with him. They walk off and I drag Nicola to bathroom with me. All this alcohol and dancing really makes a girl have to pee.

We walk out of the restroom and back towards the bar. I look around and don't see Sam or Clay anywhere. Panic strikes me as I begin to think of the worst scenarios as to what could have happened to them. I grab Nicola and ask her if she sees them. She tells me she hasn't,

"Try and call her," Nicola suggests. I take out my phone to call Sam, immediately I hear her voicemail...

"Hi this is Sam! Sorry I can't reach the phone right now, I'll call you back!" Nicola turns to me.

"Did she answer?" with a concerned look on her face.

"No," I reply, "It went straight to voicemail, her phones more than likely dead."

An anxious feeling settles over the both of us, the music is pulsing so loud in our ears we can barley hear ourselves.

"Well sh*t, what do we do now?" Nicola asks.

"Our best option is to split up and try to find her, we meet back at the bar in exactly 30 minutes. If one of us finds her we text each other, okay?" I look to Nicola for confirmation,

"Yeah, sounds good," she shouts over the music. We start walking in opposite directions to find Sam, God knows what trouble she could have gotten into.

Thirty minutes later, we meet back up at the bar and report to each other.

"Mais I can't find her anywhere. Where did they go? I'm starting to get worried," she says to me. I shake my head and reply.

"I don't know. But it's getting really late, the club will close soon. We have to find her before we get kicked out of here."

I look around and scan the room, trying to figure out something I could do that could help me look for one person in a sea of drunk club goers. As I'm scanning I hear the slurring voice of a guy trying to hit up a couple of girls next to me. I glance over and listen to him say,

"C...mon latiesss, you don't want to come with me to the VIP section? It'll be lots of funnn."

His intoxicated mannerisms is making him less appealing to the girls and they finally get up and leave. I noticed a VIP band around his wrist. That's it! If I go upstairs I can see the entire dance floor and find Sam.

I yell over to Nicola and tell her to stay at the bar in case Sam decided to show back up, and she agrees. I need to quickly devise a plan to get this guy to take me up to VIP with him, I observed him attempting to order another beer, but he was slurring his words so much the bartender couldn't understand him. This guy was probably in his early twenties and drunk out of his mind so I decided to go for a straight forward approach. I walked behind him and grabbed his wrist, and dragged him away from the bar and towards the stairs up to VIP. It took the guy a minute or two to realize what was happening, he never protested though, he seemed very happy that he was finally getting a girl to go up to VIP with him. Once we get to the stairs, I link arms with him and give him a flirty smile, just to make sure my plan would go through.

"Well hello pretty lady," he spoke loudly and slowly, noticeably handicapped by the alcohol. We make it to the top of the stairs and the guy shoves his wrist in the bouncers face and gestures towards me stating quite obnoxiously.

"She's with me!" As we stumble in, the guy grabs me by the waist and drags me close to him, and I can practically feel his hot breath on my neck. I shivered in disgust wanting to get as far way from this guy as quick as possible, I no longer needed him. I grab his face, and pull him close as if I was going to kiss him and quickly push his face out of the way, causing him to fall over. He's too drunk to realize what happened to him, and quickly I push past a large crowd towards the balcony.

I scan my eyes over the view of a bunch couples dancing on each other, having the time of their lives. Until I finally see the small little Sam, sitting secluded by a group of people, with Clay chatting with some chick on the side. I grab my phone and call hers, but it goes straight to voicemail.

"Sh*t, her phones dead," I cursed aloud.

I texted Nicola instead, and described Sam's location. As soon she replies, I run down the stairs and head towards the front entrance, where Nicola has Samantha in her arms, almost leaning against her for support. Sam has obviously had much more than we did.

"Alright, party girl. I think it's time to head home," I laugh as I help Nicola carry her.

"I've loved the stars too fondly, to be fearful of the night," she slurs.

"Okay, Galileo, I'm sure the stars love you too," Nicola laughs, as we leave the club stumbling.