Chapter 50
50. Crap!
I ask Coraline if she wants to join me in the VVIP section, because the music keeps getting louder and
louder, and as the night matures, more and more people keeping into the bar premises.
But Coraline shakes her head and stands up, “No, Jace, I think I’d love to join the dance floor now,” she
comments, and gives me a suggestive look, “wanna join me?”
I take a nce at the packed crowd of sweaty bodies, and try not to grimace, “maybe not tonight,
Coraline.”
“Okay,” Coraline doesn’t try to persuade me further. She gives me a soft sort of smile, the same kind my
mother used to give me when she thought I was being grumpy but in a cute way. It makes
heart pang my
in my chest.
Coraline bounces off to the dance floor, and I look around until I find the entrance to the VVIP lounge that
is situated on the second floor of the bear, probably the area with plush couches and a more private bar
that I can see through the railing from even down here through the gap on the second floor. I take out my
wallet and try to find the emerald card before realizing that I had left it at the hotel. Cursing myself, I take
another, moremon card that doesn’t have as much of a credit limit but would be enough for once in
the lounge.
I make my way to the entrance and notice a burly man in a waiter’s suit standing next to a podium,
looking as if he had bitten into a lime. And just like that, I get a feeling that things are about to not go
ording to the n. For a moment, I wonder if I should just turn tail and leave for the public bar. After
all, Lemon is there, and he is polite and sociable. And at least a bit familiar.
Or maybe I am overreacting. There’s only one way to find out.
I wall about to the burly man and give him my most charming smile.
“Hey, Lemon over there said that this is the VVIP lounge. Can I get a temporary membership for the
night?” I purposefully drop Lemon’s name as not to create confusion.
And just like that, the burly dude’s eyes narrow. He scans my being with the painstakingly familiar air of
judge mentality.
Oh, boy, I muse to myself, here we go again.
The man scoffs, “sure, kid, like I would fall for that.”
“There’s nothing to fall for,” I reply with much sincerity as I can muster, “I can pay in advance…”
“You think I’m going to fall for that?” the man growled, “every night some miscreant like you would walk
up here, maybe dared by your frat friends because it’s so cool to make yourself a nuisance to good, hard
working folk, and demand entry to the lounge and then will proceed to trash the ce with your friends
who should not be allowed on the streets, much less in bars. And every time that happens, I will have to
answer to the boss on why, yet another set of wine sses have been broken and why there were cops
in here again to break up a fight! So please for the love of God, get the hell out of here before I call
security!”
The man’s face was red like a tomato by the end of the tirade. The rant has so much feeling to it that it
takes me a while to even process it.
“Look, man, I don’t know what you went through, and frankly, that sounds like a lot, and I am so sorry
that you have been inconvenienced by frat boys before,” I reply, “but I’m not one of their ilk. In fact, I’m
not even from around here.”
And that is the wrong thing to say because the man’s expression bes even more grumpier.
Is that supposed to reassure me?” he asks, and then gives me a sardonic once over. For a moment I feel
self-conscious in my cheap clothes which I still had not given up wearing. I mean, sure they were a little
on the rough side, but they were perfectly wearable, and because of my childhood I did not have the
good conscience to give up on clothes unless they were totally unwearable. I probably should change my
attitude now that I live with my father under his shadow. But my clothes felt like apart of my identity that I
still had to surrender to my father’s legacy. My whole life felt like it was my father’s to control, and
selfishly, I wanted things that were only my own.
Like the university I attended, and my clothes.
“I hoped so,” I shrug, “As I said before, I’m not a frat boy, and I can pay my way in.”
Maybe I should let go, Maybe I should just walk away. But the gleam in eyes is so challenging, and I find
myself unable to back down from a challenge. The earlier jitteriness makes itself known in my being. I
feel like I’m itching for something.
“You look like you got to work nights if you even want to make rent,” the burly man grouses, “and you
want me to believe that you can pay the fee for the VVIP lounge?”
“What’s the fee?” I ask.
N?velDrama.Org owns all content.
“Way above your paygrade.”
Now I’m starting to get angry.
“Look, dude, I’ve been nothing but nice to you,” I say, “and is this the way you treat your paying
customers?”
“No, this is not the way I treat my ‘paying’ customers. This is the way I treat hooligansing here to
waste my time.” He sneers, “so go on, beat it.”
I open my mouth to refute, but something catches my attention.
“Look, I’m going to tell this to you once and once only. I’m not going to go home with you, so let hand
right now!”
go
of my
That is unmistakably Coraline’s voice. As soon as I hear it, I turn away from the man at the entrance and
whirl towards the source of the voice.
Caroline stand sin the edge of the dancing space, and a big man, around my age, holds her wrists in a
viselike grip. She’s ring at him, while he sneers.
“Oh, don’t be like that sweetheart,” he croons, “I didn’t peg you for a tease before. ying hard to get is
hot, until it crosses the limit. So why don’t you make it easy for us both and cut to the chase, huh?”
He tugs at Coraline’s wrist again, and she yelps.
“Hey!” someone growls, “you let her go right now!”
Suddenly, every head in the near range turns to me.
That’s when I realize that I was the one who just growled.
Crap.