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I shake my head because I can only imagine what that visit consisted of. Gabriel and I head to one of the only vacant booths. Already the dance floor is packed. Bodies grind against each other; the strobe lights shine across the room casting everyone in colorful hues.
I slide into the booth and Gabriel slips in beside me. His gaze bounces around the room and to the glass divider for the VIP section. Just like I knew it would be, it’s filled with the Royals and their bodyguards.
“Are you okay?” I ask Gabriel when I fill his body tense beside me. He looks down at me and smiles.
“Yes. What about you?” I look around the room at the alcohol flowing, and at the tables where the strobe lights don’t quite reach. The tables I know to be the supplier of my many intoxicated nights. I look, waiting for an itch or a burning need, yet nothing happens. Turning back to him, I smile.
“I’m good.”
He dips his chin at me. Not long after, a waitress comes to the table, one I know too well. If I thought I would get through this night without any hiccups fate has just proven that’s a lie.
“Hey Summer,” Clarissa sings. “Girl it’s been a minute. Where’ve you been?”
I look over to Gabriel who is watching me cautiously. Sometimes I feel like this man is so in tuned with my emotions he can pick up on them without me uttering one single word.
“Umm, around.” I wave my hand in a circle awkwardly.
Clarissa laughs. “I was telling one of the new waitresses about you the other day. Nobody partied harder than you. Remember the time you did those lines off that guys…”
“Coke,” I blurt out. “A Coca-Cola would be nice. Gabriel what about you?”
Clarissa turns her attention to Gabriel as if she’s just now noticing him. She grimaces before lifting up her tablet.
“Water,” he says in that monotone voice.
“That’s it, just a water and a pop?” Clarissa looks to me as if she’s expecting more.
When Clarissa knew me, I was taking Tequila shots like they were going extinct. I started my day with a bottle and often ended it passed out in the back breakroom. I understand her questioning my order.
“Give us time to look at the menu and we may order some food.”
She looks over to Gabriel before nodding her head. “Well just so you know, we have some of our service men in the building. If you want, I can place an order for you.” She winks.
Service men is what we called the dealers that were allowed in the club to supply the partiers. I had a pretty good relationship with the service men. I didn’t always have the money to pay, but dealers had no qualms about taking a blow job for a small bag of coke.
Swallowing the knot that has just formed in my throat I shut my eyes. The memory of those nights hit me. That feeling of being so high nothing seemed to matter to you. The feeling of floating that a few lines of coke brought you. It’s hard to explain.
Then another vision pops in my head. A high so pure there is nothing in the world like it. A vision of Gabe smiling up at me.
I open my eyes and shake my head. “No. I’m good. Just the pop is fine.”
“Are you sure—”
“Walk away.”
The tone of his voice and the way he’s glaring at Clarissa made me feel sorry for the woman. Clarissa, assumingly picking up on his threat, quickly rushes away.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I chuckle. “I wasn’t going to change my mind.”
He looks over to me briefly, before looking up at the glass VIP section. “Forever,” he says referencing his earlier statement.
Without a doubt, and with not much to base it on, I knew that no matter what, Gabriel indeed had my back.
“Let’s dance?” I say, bumping my shoulder into his side.
He looks down at me and then over to the dance floor. “Dance?”
I realized that it might be too much to ask of him. The dance floor is crowded, people are damn near all over each other. The lights are flashing over the gyrating crowd. Just like he didn’t want to push me out of my comfort zone, I don’t want to force him either.
