The Rush (The Siren Series) - By Rachel Higginson Page 0,17
chest-high counter.
I didn’t mind it back here. The air was fresher and cooler and it was decidedly less populated since most of the crowd was currently trying to press into one solidified organism, like the human centipede, against the stage. It wasn’t going to work, but there was no use telling that to them.
“Water!” I yelled when I caught the bartender’s attention. He gave me a questioning look so I waved my wristband his way and he nodded in a disappointed but resigned way.
Once upon a time, before I could hold my liquor, Nix had taught me to order a Blue Dolphin when at a bar, which was essentially water on the rocks. He said ordering it that way would make me sound more sophisticated. When I ordered water now, I did it with a smile and hoped to God it made me sound as immature and pathetic as possible.
I gulped the deliciously cold tap water down in two huge swallows as soon as the bartender handed it to me. Before he could get the chance to walk away I made a circle motion with my pointer finger and yelled, “keep ‘em coming!”
That earned me an amused but slightly predatory grin from the college-aged bartender with floppy black hair and neck tattoos. I had a thing for tattoos, it was like a weakness of mine, but I was so off the clock tonight.
So I turned my head away from Mr. I Dig Minors bartender and out to the riotous crowd. This was it; this was why I loved Wednesdays. There was too much adrenaline pumping in the shared air for people to really notice me. I mean, if I was talking one on one to someone they got the vibes, but usually people were so absorbed in the music I was hardly noticed at all. And the smells of cheap liquor and vomit helped put them off the scent.
Not to mention I had a deep and abiding love affair with music.
All music.
It didn’t really matter what kind or how good. If it, whatever it was, was put to music I could easily lose myself completely. Seriously from bad pop to heavy rock to my favorite classical composers, I loved it all.
Well maybe except the Jazz Flute. Regular flute was fine. But jazz…. that was an entirely different circle of hell as far as I was concerned.
An ugly, confusing, shrill sounding circle of Hell.
Just don’t tell Ron Burgundy I felt that way.
It was during this perusal of my environment that my eyes fell into, not to, but into the gray depths of Ryder Sutton. I felt my mouth fall open; literally my bottom lip detached from the firm hold my top lip had on it and my jaw followed.
He glared at me from across the room. Glared at me. He had his back to the far wall and one foot propped up with his knee bent. His arms were folded across his chest and even from here I could see ripped biceps tensed and flexed. He was in the same outfit he wore earlier today, the only difference was his hair was slightly bigger. It wasn’t like his hair had multiplied or anything, but it just stood out from his head a bit less controlled…. crazier…. no…. sexier. Like he had his hands in it, or someone else had their hands in it.
Like Kenna Lee, who had just walked passed me without even noticing I was here and straight to her cliché-rebel-boyfriend. Ryder then proceeded to take his eyes off me, put them on his girlfriend and then rock her world by pulling her into the most disgusting display of public affection I had ever seen.
Gross.
I so did not get people kissing in front of other people.
Hell, I didn’t even get how people liked other people enough to like kissing them.
Romance was weird.
In my life, romance didn’t even exist.
The bartender handed me my second glass of water and when I was finished with that one, I slammed it down on the bar like I had just finished the proudest kind of awful-tasting-shot. This earned a throw your head back kind of laugh from Neck Tattoos, to which I had to agree, I was hilarious.
It was amazing how escaping my life for even just three hours took the weight off my shoulders and allowed me to have some fun. If I could let this loose after three hours, imagine ultimate freedom in two years.