Page 77 of Play Nice

“You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t get caught. Smoke. Throw a rager. Set off fucking fireworks. Knock yourself out,” I say, tossing him my lighter and giving him a wink. I head back inside. “Sorry, V. How’s seven thirty?”

—

We get drunk at dinner and then go barhopping, and somehow we end up at the cursed club Scorpio after midnight, which doesn’t bode well.

We’re with Kiera and Kaleigh. One of them does coke, but I can’t remember which one. I follow each of them into the bathroom at different points of the evening, hoping they’ll offer me something harder than liquor, but it doesn’t happen.

The music is corny and so loud it’s painful. No one’s dancing. They’re flailing.

“You want to go hit my vape?” Kiera shouts at me.

“Yeah,” I shout back.

She takes me by the hand and leads me outside. It’s raining a little. Misting.

“This place is the worst,” she says, taking out her vape. “But also kind of the best? I don’t know. I feel, like, alive. Like I’m seventeen again. Sneaking into clubs.”

“Right,” I say. It’s too quiet on the street. Too empty. Apocalyptic. “Makes me want to do coke.”

“I think Kaleigh has some.”

“Hard drugs and child labor pajamas. She’s a real kingpin.” I take a hit of her vape.

She pulls a face. “What did you just say?”

I exhale the mint-flavored vapor. “Relax. I’m not judging her. I asked for the drugs, remember?”

“No. You said…‘child labor pajamas.’ ”

“Yeah. Her partnership with SLIP.”

“That’s my deal.”

“Oh,” I say. I must have misread the text thread. “Congratulations.”

“I can’t believe you would say that. There’s no child labor,” she says, snatching her vape out of my hand.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Oh my God!” she shrieks. “There’s not!”

“If you say so. You would know, right?”

“I’m leaving,” she says, storming off as fast as she can in her Balenciaga knife pumps. I remember when everyone was up in arms about Balenciaga’s BDSM teddy bear scandal, for all of five minutes. No one in fashion cares about anything but fashion; they just pretend to to save face.

I’d call out to Keira and apologize, but what for?

I’m just bummed she took her vape.

“Scorpio,” I say, shaking my head. I go back inside and downstairs to find Veronica and Kaleigh at the bar, their arms crossed.

“Why would you say that to Kiera?” Veronica asks me, yelling over the music.

“Because I thought Kaleigh was the one with the SLIP partnership.”

“I would never. Never,” Kaleigh says. “Never ever.”

“She just texted the whole thread except for you,” Veronica says. “It’s bad. She’s pissed.”