Drip Drop Teardrop, a Novella (2 page)

Avery shook her head in
disbelief. “Are we really having this conversation?”

“
No, we’re
really getting into this club right now cos’ I’m freezing my bony
little tush off,” Jemima growled and shoved past them. They watched
as she flirted with the doorman. They seemed familiar with one
another. She pointed back at them and then brushed a piece of
invisible lint off the doorman’s lapel. It was such a clichéd move,
Avery shook her head.

It worked.

Jemima waved them down
and they hurried out of the line to the entrance, ignoring the
yells of complaints from everyone else in line, afraid if they
didn’t move fast enough Mr Doorman would change his
mind.

The bass of
the music could be heard like a faint heartbeat in the distance as
they checked their jackets. Avery shivered in anticipation. A
security guard gripped the handle on the double doors where the
heartbeat pounded behind, each thud of the bass like a taunt
beckoning Avery inside. And then the door was wrenched open, the
music shooting through Avery in thrumming waves, vibrating in the
air around her, demanding her hips to catch the undulations. Sarah
grabbed her hand and they took off down the stairs and through the
crowds clustered around the tables scattered on the edges of the
main dance floor. She allowed Sarah to pull her into the throng of
bodies moving to the beat of Rihanna’s
Only Girl (in the World)
, giving
herself over body and soul and letting the beat wash away her
stress and grief. Here was good. Here she was just one of hundreds
of people enjoying the heady bliss of the dance floor.

Soon Jemima found them
and yelled that the guys were getting them drinks. Avery wasn’t
sure how long it took them but it was a while before they returned
with a round of JD and diet coke for the ladies, courtesy of Aaron
being twenty one and Adam and Josh having fake ID’s. Avery threw
back the whisky and coke and broke through the crowds so she could
abandon the glass on a nearby table. She didn’t want anything, even
a little glass, getting in the way of her freedom on the dance
floor.

The guys danced with them
for a while, and Avery’s elbow found Josh’s stomach a couple of
times when he danced too close. Just as he was beginning to destroy
her buzz, the guys decided they were too hot and went off in search
for a table.

Sometime
later Jemima persuaded them to leave the dance floor to get another
drink and find the boys. Eventually they found them upstairs at one
of the low tables and sofas that overlooked the dance floor below.
They already had a round of drinks waiting for them. Avery stood
with Sarah a little away from Jemima and the guys, who lounged on
the sofa,
sipping
the JD and coke this time as they swayed their hips in time
with the music. As she surveyed the huge club, Avery felt a prickle
of awareness and her eyes automatically sought out the
cause.

Her breath caught in her
throat.

It was him
again.

The last
couple of months at the club Avery had become aware of this guy
watching her – well, her friends said he was - but every time she
looked over at him his gaze was elsewhere. He was pretty hard to
miss. It wasn’t just the fact that he was so tall and wide of
shoulder. Or that he was always dressed in this stylish suit that
looked as if he should be melting in it. It wasn’t his longish
silky black hair or eyes that seemed to burrow through the crowds
with power. No. It
was
the hideous, long scar across his stark face. It cut from
just above his right eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose and
deep along his left cheek in a diagonal slash. In the flashing
light of the club that’s all she ever seemed to see. That ugly
scar. That ugly scar that made people turn and look at him with a
mixture of fear and awe. The stir he caused made Avery shrink from
him in her natural disinclination to be centre of attention. While
she swore she found him repellent, at the same time her eyes were
weirdly drawn to him. She couldn’t stop wondering what colour his
eyes were.

A heavy arm thumped down
across her shoulder making her spill her drink.

“
Hey, pretty
lady,” an unfamiliar voice slurred in her ear and she drew back
from the breath that stank of alcohol and looked into the face of a
very drunk guy.

Irritated, Avery tried to
pull away from the stranger but he clung like a burr.

“
You wanna
dance?” His hips gyrated at her and she heard Sarah giggle beside
her. She threw her an ‘I am not amused’ look.

“
No thank
you.” She tried to get out from under his arm again but her dark
hair got caught in his grubby hand. “Will you let go,” she snapped.
Why was it drunken guys thought it was OK to manhandle strange
women in public?

“
Hey, baby,
chillax, I just wanna dance.”

She grimaced.
“
Chillax?
Really?” She tried to shrug him off again and only ended up
spilling her drink.

“
She said get
off her, man!” Josh was suddenly in the guy’s face, pushing him
aggressively away from Avery so she lost her balance and would have
fallen if Sarah hadn’t been beside her.

“
Hey, man,
chillax, chillax.” The guy could barely open his eyes he was that
far gone.

“
Chillax?
I’ll fucking chillax, man.” Josh made to lunge for him but Adam
thankfully grabbed his arm, pulling him back. “You better take
off!”

The drunk stumbled down
the stairs away from them, half the people at the nearby seats
glaring at him and the other half at Josh. Avery was with the
latter half.

“
Jesus,
Josh.” She thrust her empty glass at him, her cheeks burning with
embarrassment. “I didn’t need your help.”

Josh glared at her,
completely taken aback by her attack. “The guy wouldn’t get off
you! I heard you ask him to a dozen times!”

“
I was
handling it,” she hissed, wishing she could melt into the floor so
people would stop staring. This was why she had broken up with the
idiot.

“
No, you
weren’t. You’re just a little thing, Avery.” Josh moved to brush a
hand down her arm but she jerked away from him. “You’re not strong
enough to deal with guys like that.”

A flush of
anger crawled up from the pit of her stomach, up across her chest,
spreading up her neck like a rash of indignation. She was so fed up
of people telling her she wasn’t strong enough.
You’re not strong enough to cope with college and work,
Avery. You’re not strong enough to cope with a sick aunt, Avery,
maybe we should look in to getting you some help. You’re not strong
enough to beat off some drunken guy, Avery!
These people had no idea who she really was - the crap she
had gone through and was still going through. And all she wanted
tonight was to freakin’ dance without people staring at her
expecting her to fall to pieces!

“
You’re not
my boyfriend, Josh, and you won’t be
ever
again,” she snarled, ignoring
Jemima punching the air in support, clearly glad Avery was finally
telling him off. “So stop pretending we are something,
OK.”

He looked like a wounded
puppy but Avery refused to feel bad. He’d used that look too many
times to manipulate her in the past. No wonder he thought she had
no backbone. “But, Ave-”

“
No. No ‘but
Ave’ anything. I am going back down to the dance floor and if you
follow me and try to dance up my butt again, so help me God I will
kick you in the nuts.”

She swept past him
hurriedly and down the stairs, hearing Sarah rushing to catch up
with her. Once on the dance floor Sarah gazed at her wide-eyed,
clearly desperate to laugh. Avery threw her a sheepish shrug,
wondering where that blast of anger had come from, and then
hi-fived the hand Sarah held up to her. They burst out laughing.
God, telling Josh off had felt so good. Chuckling, she spun around
letting the music take over again, stripping her life down to just
this moment, on this floor, with this music in the air.

A little while later she
felt a tug on her arm and Sarah was gesturing at her. She leaned in
and Sarah yelled in her ear, “Hey! That guy is here. He’s staring
at you again!” She pointed through the crowds and Avery followed
her gaze to the tall, dark scarred guy across the room. This time
when she looked he didn’t look away. Their eyes locked and Avery’s
heart began racing like crazy, a hot tingling flush completely
different from the heat she felt from the dance floor seized a hold
of her, and for a minute she couldn’t breathe, the sound of the
music growing muffled, like she was under water or something. And
then she blinked and he was gone, the hotness disappearing with
him. She took a huge gulp of air and turned to Sarah
wide-eyed.

“
You OK?”
Sarah shouted, looking concerned. “He’s really creepy, Avery. And
he looks really dangerous all scarred up like that. Maybe we should
tell someone!”

Avery managed a weak
shake of her head, not entirely sure what had just happened to her.
But the last thing she wanted was drawing attention to the
situation. Trembling, she had to force her body to respond to the
music again until eventually her muscles relaxed into it, her heart
racing at a normal speed for the exertion she was putting it
through. At some point Sarah told her she was going to get another
drink and Avery threw her a nod in response before spinning back
into the throng of dancers, not caring she was alone; she just
closed her eyes and let the music sluice over her.

The beat of
the Black-Eyed Peas began to wind down as the mix of the next song
seeped into it, and Avery opened her eyes in disappointment as Paul
Weller’s
You Do Something to Me
came on. She wasn’t the only one confused by the
song choice, but pretty soon people shrugged it off and coupled up,
swaying to the sexy romance of the music.

Avery sighed and turned
on her heel, intending to leave the dance floor. She walked
straight into a brick wall of a chest. This beautiful, fresh woodsy
smell fluttered up her nose and she tilted her head back slowly,
her eyes taking in the dark suit, crisp white shirt, the
broad-shoulders, the strong jaw. And then that face. That scar. For
a moment she could look at nothing else. It was so deep the skin
around it seeming to curl into itself, slightly red compared the
paleness of the rest of his face. It was a hateful disfigurement.
It was hard to see past it. But as that unfamiliar heat crawled up
from her lower belly Avery managed to unglue her eyes from the scar
and catch his gaze. His eyes bored into her with an intensity that
freaked her out. His eyes were black. Jet black. Fragments of light
flickering and reflecting back at her from them. Now that she
wasn’t so transfixed by the scar she could see he was older than
her by the sharp, strong planes of his face. He was so pale. And
that scar… she shivered.

He scared the crap out of
her.

“
May I have
this dance?” He asked in a soft accent she couldn’t quite place –
it sounded English but it wasn’t.

Her jaw dropped. Creepy
scarred guy wanted to dance with her? She felt her throat closing
as she glanced around. Just as she feared, people were watching.
Her heart began to escalate as the old irrational terror came back.
Her aunt had tried to get her to see a psychiatrist about it but
that would mean someone being completely focused on her and well…
wasn’t that really the whole fruit of her fear. Avery felt a panic
attack come on as people grimaced at her for talking with creepy
scar guy.

But then he touched her
wrist.

Delicious
heat, like dipping into a hot bath on a cold, rainy day, rushed up
her arm and her chest opened, her heart slowed. Turning back to him
his face was still taut but his eyes seemed… kind? Calm flooded
over her, and despite her fear Avery found herself nodding.
Why am I nodding?
She
asked herself distantly. He slowly reached out and placed a strong
hand on her waist, drawing her close. Her breath hitched in her
throat as she raised her arm, placing one hand on his shoulder and
the other in his left hand. Her tiny hand got lost in his huge one
and he smiled softly at her, knocking the rest of the air out of
her body. She was so sure he was hideous but when he smiled… the
scar seemed inconsequential.

His wicked smile widened.
“Breathe,” he whispered softly, and pulled her tight against him so
that her head rested against his shoulder. She shuddered as he
breathed her in, positive he must feel her heart thumping against
his chest. The hand at her waist slid gently up and down her spine
and she shivered, wanting to burrow closer to him. The hot tingles
unfurled across her body and she felt this overwhelming need to
melt into him. Even as her mind told her he frightened her,
repulsed her even, a fog of intoxication descended around her as
they moved perfectly together. Her mouth quirked up in surprise as
he repeated the lyrics to the song in her ear. In that moment all
she wanted were those lips of his on hers.

No
, she jerked back, shivering at
the thought. She didn’t really want this creep anywhere near her
right?

He tugged her back,
almost as if he knew what she was thinking, his hands tightening
around her angrily. “This is right,” he growled in her
ear.