HOW I LOST YOU

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Author’s Note: Thanks for reading! Please vote, comment and like! If you like this please check out my other books I’m Not Her, If I Tell and Who I Kissed.

Copyright © 2013 by Janet Gurtler

Chapter Seventeen

The VIP party was held in a ballroom in our hotel, with a formal dinner followed by an after-party in the same room. On the main floor, we asked the concierge for directions and he walked us to the nearby party room, intrigued when he found out we were paintball players. When we reached the noisy hall, the concierge nodded his head and left us. “Have fun.”

I took a deep breath to collect myself. The room was huge, much bigger than I’d imagined, and the noise level already high. We walked into the crowd. I peeked inside the gigantic ballroom and my stomach flipped. White flowers spilled from oversized vases placed at entrance doors to the ballroom. Colorful balloon centerpieces rose up from tables around the room. At the front was a head table decorated with fresh flowers and cool ropes that looked like they were made from paintballs. Beside the head table was a huge screen and beside it a podium with speakers. Off to the left, a DJ was set up and at the other side of the room, I saw a portable bar that people were buzzing around.

The party spilled out into the hallway. Portable bars were set up in two corners in the wide hall, and all around us people chatted and laughed. I gawked around at good-looking girls in short-shorts and tight shirts with Spyder logos carrying trays of food and stopping to serve people around us. The walls of both the ballroom and the hallway were covered in paintball sponsor banners.

I walked slowly behind Kya who cruised the area, smiling at strangers as if she were the guest of honor. Without her experience in heels, my movements were slower. The ambiance of the crowd and the excitement in the air sucked some life from me, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on Kya, energizing her. Lots of eyeballs checked us out, and Kya lifted her head higher and
strutted harder.

“We should find our table,” I whispered to her, glancing around and recognizing some faces from paintball tourneys and waving, but everyone looked so much more glamorous in dress-up clothes.

Even though it was a player’s party, there were obviously sponsors and spouses attending too. Some older women in cocktail dresses and older men who couldn’t possibly be players milled around, mixed in with the obvious players, some with dates on their arms, but many grouped with their teams, traveling solo.

“Oh my gosh, this is like being on the dessert bar at a buffet,” Kya said with a happy smile as eyes passed over us. “The best-looking desserts.”

I ignored her, pulling my dinner ticket from my zebra purse and glancing at the table number listed on it. I peeked inside the ballroom, spotted some table numbers, and figured out the proximity of where we would be sitting. “Come on, we’re that way.”

“Wait,” Kya said. “We have almost half an hour before we eat. Let’s wander a little more. Oh. Check out those hot guys checking us out.” I glanced over and saw a group of twenty-somethings gathered in a circle in front of another portable bar. Two girls in the group wore dresses as short as ours but had noticeable ink on their legs. I didn’t recognize them. Four guys stood by, wearing dress pants and dress shirts. Two had face piercings; the other two were more conservative and they were the ones checking us out.