Scoring Off The Ice (Ice Kings #2) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,80

is crazy. Unfortunately, I pound a few more times and get no response and I give up.

The noise could be scaring Angelo.

My fist is sore as I slump back to my own place. My heart is hurting worse. Something has happened. Something horribly wrong.

Mikah would never treat me like this. And I will figure out exactly what’s going—

After I get really, really drunk to forget this sensation of feeling like he’s just shredded my heart into unrecognizable pieces.

The Roxbury is not where I want to be but it’s the perfect place to forget the shitstorm I left behind an hour ago. I’ve been morose through dinner and thank goodness for Pippa and Maggie who have done their best to keep my mind off the story I told them. None of it makes sense and I keep replaying it in my mind, flashes of him and his expression flicker through as brightly as the strobe lights on the ceiling above.

I usually love the Roxbury, the 80s and 90s club where the music is loud and the drinks are cheap and tonight since it’s still relatively early, even cheaper. Maggie found a coupon on Facebook, so we not only get free cover and get to skip the line, we’re given one free drink when we get inside.

Pippa has her arm looped through mine and pulls me through the quickly crowding dance floor to the back. The second floor is filled with tables as well as a VIP seating area. Even been there before for birthdays in college. It’s where we celebrated Maggie’s because she’s a fiend for 80s music. Odd considering none of us were born before 1997, but whatever. Tonight, she’s left Asher at home and she’s trying to do her best to pull me out of my funk. Which I’ve now explained in full, along with how I originally met Mikah.

It feels like a relief to finally be able to tell my friends everything, and yet at the same time, it’s a dull stab to my chest at having to relive it with how the night has gone.

But I’m determined to push past this. I don’t know what’s gotten into Mikah, but I know how he feels about me, and I know I love him.

Whatever is going on with him, I’ll give him space and then try to talk to him.

We’ll work it out, we have to.

“Drinks!” I shout and throw my hand in the air. First, I need to forget it ever happened. Drink my way into oblivion. Tomorrow, I’ll deal with everything that happened.

“That’s my girl!” Pippa yells and we meet Maggie at the bar who already has three shot glasses lined up.

I roll my eyes at the thick foam on top of the small glasses and arch a brow at her. “Really?”

“You know nothing gets the night started right like a really good blowjob.”

“Hell yeah!” three guys to the left of us cry out, eyes widening but glazed showing this is definitely not their first stop of the night.

I ignore them, pick up my shot, and toss it back. I will take the shot, but not without hands like it’s supposed to be done. Maggie and Pippa follow and then we order another round of drinks. Vodka club soda for Pippa, rum and Coke for Maggie. I grab another shot, tequila this time, and wash it down with a Long Island Iced Tea.

At my drink order, Maggie arches her brow at me. I take the shot without salt or lime and take a large sip of my Long Island. “I said I was getting drunk.”

“Yeah, but there’s drunk and then freshman-sorority-girl ugly drunk.”

“I’ll slow down with this. Promise.” She’s right. I want to get drunk and dull my pain, not end up puking in the rundown bathrooms by eleven.

“All right. Dance time?”

“You got it!”

We weave through the crowds, drinks in hand, sliding single file into the middle of the dance floor. I’m glad I called them back. I might not really want to be here, but there’s no way I could have survived the night so close to Mikah, so far away, spending it by myself and being miserable.

I needed my friends. Good music where we can dance like fools.

We circle together, and shout along with lyrics, laughing at the ridiculousness of some of the people, both women and men, who come dressed for the appropriate decades. Bright colors, bangs so high they never should have existed, scrunchies galore adorn wrists and high ponytails and shirts tied