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NINE: Who's the chick Alex?

When we walked into the house where the party was held, the smell of alcohol and sweat hit me right in the face and I had to refrain myself from leaving the same way I came. A very enthusiastic Kylie held me back, however. She pushed both me and Luke inside the house and towards the place where there were the most people.

"C'mon guys let's have some fun!" She took Luke's arm and pulled him to the bar to presumably get something to drink. I used this opportunity to scan my surroundings. My eye immediately fell onto the group of varsity jackets gathered around the keg. That's also where the most noise came from, even outnumbering the music in terms of sound. I walked closer to the group of jocks and instantly recognized Adam. He was the one everybody was telling to 'chug!'

I did have a vague idea of what Carter looked like because of pictures of the team. I found a tall, lean guy that resembled him most of all, though he was the only one not wearing a jacket. I grabbed a random drink from some table, not caring about the contents and chugged it in one go.

Holding the cup in my hand, I purposefully swayed on my feet and stumbled against the guy. "Oops," I giggled, "how silly of me. I'm sorry..." I trailed, waiting for him to introduce himself. He looked pretty mad but I couldn't care less. "That's none of your business." He said, knowing what I was implying as he turned away from me. I frowned. Seems like this would be more complicated than I thought. I sighed and decided to fully focus my attention at one of the other boys. "Hey handsome," I slurred, "what's your name?" He looked at me, obviously checking out my body and then shrugging, "Alex." "Nice to meet you, Alex." I turned away. I'd just wait until later when everybody was a little less uptight.

In the meantime, I tried to find Kylie and Luke, which was not very hard. They were dancing in the middle of the room, seemingly not caring about anybody else but themselves as they moved their bodies to the rhythm of the music. I tried to blend in by dancing through the crowd, slowly returning to where I'd been standing before.

"Hey I didn't catch your name," the voice belonging to the hand on my shoulder spoke. I turned around and recognized Alex, the dark-haired boy I'd talked to before. "Hi. Nice to meet you too." I said sarcastically. He looked a little perplexed but quickly recovered and smiled. "It's Emma by the way." I answered his unasked question.

We started talking a bit while he kept chugging down more and more beers and I was waiting for him to let some information slip about his teammate. Eventually we even started dancing, although what he tried doing did not resemble dancing in any way, but it looked more like he was simply attempting to remain standing on his feet. "So Alex," I held onto his arm to prevent him from falling, "Hmm?" I led him over to an empty couch, "Who was the guy you were with? Because he seemed familiar to me." Alex looked confused for a minute and looked around, his eyes focused on the varsity jackets.

"I think you mean Nathan." I feigned shock and calmed myself, "I have to tell you something Alex, promise not to tell." First step: trust. He nodded and clearly wanted me to go on, "Well you see, I heard from this girl that last week, he-" "Who's the chick Alex?" I was brutally interrupted by a deep voice from behind me. I decided to keep quiet and wait. "Hey man," his friend held his arm to prevent him from falling, "Emma." He said my name, pointing at me. I finally got a glance of his friend. It was the same boy that I saw before. "Who's the dude Alex?" I asked him, copying his action. The guy rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "I thought you would be puking your guts out by now. You didn't look too stable back there." He pointed to the place where we first bumped into each other. Alex frowned at this but didn't say anything. "Water does wonders, you know." He didn't seem to believe me.

"So tell me, what exactly is it you want from us?" He caught on pretty quick, something to take into account. Can't afford to make any mistakes with this guy. "You guys seemed to have fun. I simply wanted to join. Plus, I'm new and thought I could make some friends." I shrugged. He didn't seem to believe me but didn't question it further. "Guess I'll see you at school. Whatever your name is." I turned around and started walking. He then spoke some words, just loud enough for me to hear. "It's Nathan." I know. I pretended not to hear him and walked back to wherever Kylie was, feeling accomplished. One step closer to my goal.