Mad Valentine: A Bad Boy Romance (Mad Valentine Trilogy Book 1) (5 page)

XI. This Old Thing

Thankfully, Victor’s friends’ band, The Slings, was pretty good, and I found myself rocking out despite Mimi. I was also grateful that Mimi had conspicuously not taken up my offer to hang out with Maggie, Archie, and I, or any of the band guys. She had her own circle, some of whom knew Victor. He spent some time making the rounds, saying hi to them, glancing over at us often.

But sooner or later The Slings took the stage and I felt a rush of excitement for the main event. These guys were our friends—well, by one degree of separation—and I wanted to support them. I danced my ass off. At one point, some drunk kid actually tried to grab my ass on the dance floor and I shoved him away with relish. I gave him a look that said
Want me to kick your ass, douchebag?
I wouldn’t call myself aggressive, per se, but I liked to think that I could take care of myself. Smiling as the little sexual harasser fled to the bar, I peered around me and mentally dared any other guy or girl to try something.

“Nice move!” yelled Maggie, who was dancing near me, over the music.

“Thanks!” I yelled back. “I’m gonna get another beer. You want anything?” Maggie shook her head.

“Archie?” I yelled. Maggie tapped him on the shoulder and mimed a drink. He shook his head. So I turned and made my way to the bar. I made a face at the ass-grabber, and he shied away from me, slinking to the far end of the bar. That felt good.

“A Stella, please,” I said to the bartender. I felt hot and sweaty, but I was digging the music and I felt back in control. I paid for my beer, turned around, and leaned back, resting my elbows on the bar. I could see Maggie dancing—she had her hands up in the air and was swaying her hips. She couldn’t help but dance like a schoolgirl, even at a rock show. There was Archie—he was holding his own at least, head-banging at times and throwing the sign of the devil. And then—I inhaled sharply—there was Victor, weaving his way through the crowd toward me.

I found refuge in my beer.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the bar next to me.

“Hey,” I said. “Your friends are great!”

“Yeah? You like them?” he asked, looking pleased.

“Hell, yeah!” I said. “I think I might become a groupie.”

“Well, don’t forget where the lyrics come from,” he said.

“Oh, my god! You’re right! These are your songs!” I remembered. “No wonder they’re so good.”

Victor laughed and ordered a beer.

“So, where’s Amy Winehouse?” I looked at him sideways over my pint glass.

Victor looked taken aback, and then he relaxed into a throaty chuckle. He looked back at me, an eyebrow raised. “No need to be catty, El.”

I hadn’t meant to be; it just slipped out.

“Sorry, I was just joking,” I said.

“She left a while ago.”

“She didn’t stay to hear your friends play?”

Victor shook his head. “Nah, it’s not her thing.”

“Okay,” I said, staring out at the crowd and drinking my beer. Victor also sipped his beer. There was an uncomfortable silence between us.

“I saw you shove that guy on the dance floor,” he said. His voice was suddenly hard. I looked up at him and saw a coldness that I’d never seen before in his eyes. It was a little scary. “Did he try something on you?”

“Well, yeah, but he was just being a little shithead,” I replied. “He tried to grab my ass. I don’t think he would have done anything really bad.”

Victor didn’t respond. He nodded slowly, but the steel in his eyes didn’t go away.

“It’s no big deal,” I said, feeling uneasy and looking out again at the dance floor. “I can handle ass-grabbing pricks by myself.”

Victor didn’t respond. When I glanced up at him to see why he was quiet, I found him staring at me, his dark brown eyes warm again.

“What?” I said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You are such a pistol,” he said, a smile spreading across his chiseled features. “In your nice dress and all.”

I looked down at myself. I was wearing a short black dress paired with a silver necklace and heeled cowgirl ankle boots, an extra effort I had made that night. But even though I had felt attractive looking in the mirror at home, I was no bombshell like Mimi. It pricked my pride.

“Oh, this old thing,” I said over my beer.

“You’re beautiful,” said Victor. He was looking at me intently, and I suddenly felt very self-conscious.

“C’mon, stop making fun,” I said, waving the comment away.

I could feel Victor’s gaze lingering on me for a moment more, then he looked out at the crowd.

“Well, there’s one thing we can agree on,” he said. “You can certainly take care of yourself. Unlike some people.” His voice was hard, and he took a long sip of his beer. I speculated as to whom he was talking about. I guessed Mimi, remembering what Dustin had said about women who needed Victor. But I didn’t want to go down that path. I had managed to have a decent time so far that night and I wanted it to stay that way. So I didn’t say anything.

Suddenly, we heard the band thanking the crowd and the crowd cheering. The set was over, and people trickled off the dance floor.

XII. Midnight Radio

“I’m feeling good!” cried Archie as he and Maggie joined us at the bar. He was sweating and happy. I was glad to see Archie having fun and I gladly turned my attention away from the tension in Victor’s voice to Archie’s silly grin.

“Line up your best tequila for my friends here, barkeep! They’re on me!” he said, slapping the bar.

“Archie, you can’t afford his best tequila!” I hissed, nudging him with my elbow.

“Make that your second-best tequila, barkeep!” Archie corrected cheerfully.

“And add three more, please,” I added. “Seven total.”

Archie looked at me.

“They’re not for me, they’re for the band,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And I’ll pay for them.”

When Dustin, Jose, and Mike joined us at the bar, we all toasted a successful show and downed our tequilas. Victor got the next round, and Maggie insisted on another, although Victor only drank the first shot.

“I’ve got some important lives in my hands tonight,” he said when we ribbed him. “I’m not going to drive drunk.”

But that didn’t stop me or “my entourage,” and we continued to pound them back. At one point, I was laughing drunkenly when I saw Victor whisper something to Mike, the huge drummer, and they both looked down the bar at the guy who had grabbed my ass. He was hunched over his beer, looking pathetic. I almost turned back to my friends with a snicker but out of the corner of my eye I saw Victor slip out of our circle. Suddenly, a cold shiver rand down my back as I watched Victor approach the forlorn-looking guy. The guy looked up in fear as Victor towered over him and leaned in just inches from his face. Victor said something to the guy, reaching out and gripping the guy’s right hand. Panic built in me as I saw the guy wince and squirm in pain but Victor didn’t let go. I was paralyzed with a thought:

Oh, my god. Is he going to break his hand?

But I was drunk and confused, and before I could do anything, Victor had dropped the guy’s hand. It fell limply to his side. The guy stared up at Victor, nodding frantically, his eyes wide with fear. Deadpan, Victor slowly stepped away and rejoined our group, slipping in behind me.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I tried to process what I’d seen. Was Maggie right? Was Victor really a violent sociopath? Could he not be trusted? But surely, he had only threatened that guy for my sake…Did that make his actions dangerous or noble? Was it both? I tried to explain away what I’d seen, but it was difficult. So instead, I tried to push it out of my mind completely.

*

By the time we were walking out of the bar, Maggie, Archie, and I were what some might call “drunkety-drunk-drunk.” I didn’t tell my friends about what I’d seen Victor do; it seemed best to keep it to myself while I was still figuring him out. We said goodbye to the band, who piled their equipment and themselves into their old, primer-covered van and drove off, blasting Black Sabbath as they went. Victor led us to his car and opened the passenger-side door.

“I think I like the bassist, Jose,” said Maggie, giggling as she got inside. “Can you put in a good word for me, Victor?”

I laughed and snorted as I half-sat, half-collapsed into the passenger seat. Victor closed the door after us. In a moment, he was sliding in behind the wheel and starting the car.

“Okay, you drunks,” he said, “which way to Maggie’s house?”

“You could just take us all back to my place,” I replied, settling comfortably into my seat.

Victor threw the car into reverse but held the brake, putting his arm on the bench seat and turning to look at me.

“Well, El, I was hoping to spend a little more time with you,” he said. “Or would some other time be better?”

I stiffened, his question registering in my tequila-dulled mind. The car filled with the tension of us all knowing that Victor wanted to be alone with me. Suddenly I could feel Maggie and Archie’s eyes boring into the back of my head as they waited for my response.

The memory of Victor gripping the guy’s hand at the bar replayed itself in my mind and I felt a vague thrill of fear. But I also couldn’t resist the way he was looking at me, taking me in with those soft brown eyes. I realized with shock that the very things that made Victor seem dangerous excited me. I felt my heart palpitate as I realized that I wanted to be alone with him just to see what would happen.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, giving into the side of me that was inflamed with curiosity. “Right?” I turned to my friends in the back. Maggie was staring at me with her mouth open and Archie waggled his eyebrows at me while wearing a shit-eating grin. I ignored him and looked at Maggie.

“Mags, it’s okay if he drops you guys at your place, right?” I looked at her pleadingly. Maggie snapped her mouth closed and rolled her eyes, sighing dramatically. “Yeah, I
guess
so,” she said, drawing out all the vowels. “You and I had an agreement, Ellen…”

She looked at me dead in the eyes, and I grit my teeth, afraid she would spill the beans right there in front of Victor about how I’d promised that I would stay away from him.

“Maggie…” I said through clenched teeth.

“But fine,” she said, throwing daggers at the back of Victor’s head. “I can’t tell you what to do. Victor, you can just turn right at the intersection when you pull out of the parking lot.”

Having made her statement, Maggie shot me a look, settled back purposefully into her seat, and directed Victor to her apartment.

Oh, my god. Mortified.

I sat for the rest of the ride in extreme discomfort. With the top of the convertible down, the cold wind rushed around my face but even that couldn’t cool the burning of my cheeks. When we were finally in front of Maggie’s apartment, I awkwardly got out of the car to let my friends out. As Maggie slid across the seat, she stopped midway and pointed her finger at Victor.

It was like I was watching in slow motion—I knew what that finger meant, and it meant Maggie was going to say something drunk and embarrassing. I tried to stop her, but she spoke the words before I could grab her.

“You better take good care of Ellen,” she said. “If you hurt her I will personally kill you. With a bowling ball.”

“Oookay,” I said, turning crimson and yanking Maggie out of the car. “Thank you, Maggie, it’s been really great, please just go to bed now.”

Maggie stood on the sidewalk swaying slightly, but she stood her ground. “I mean it,” she told me quietly, slurring. “I will do it.”

“I know, Mags. I appreciate it, but you didn’t have to name your goddamn murder weapon!” I said in a fierce whisper. Maggie murmured something but was too drunk to carry on, so I hugged her and Archie goodbye and watched them walk up the path, propping each other up.

After they disappeared into the apartment, I stood outside for just a moment longer, hoping the cold air would erase my embarrassment, calm my nerves, or at least sober me up. It did none of those things. Giving up, I got back into the car as composedly as possible. I knew it was ridiculous—my best friend was acting like an overprotective mother, based on nothing but some unsubstantiated rumor and Victor’s tattoos. I realized in a sobering moment that he must get judged like this all the time.

But I was also feeling butterflies at the thought of Victor wanting to be alone with me. I felt like a schoolgirl on her first date—and I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt that way. I hoped to god Victor couldn’t hear the pounding in my chest. Trying to prove my calmness, I looked at him with a breezy smile. But given my state of intoxication, it may have looked more like a grimace.

“Please don’t pay any attention to Maggie,” I said, trying to do some damage control. “I’m sorry she’s so rude; she’s just drunk. We had a lot of fun. Thanks again for inviting us.”

“I like your friends,” said Victor, driving again. “Actually, no. I like Archie. Maggie scares me.”

I laughed, and he did too.

“What did she mean about an agreement you had?” he asked, taking a furtive look at me.

Uh-oh.

“Oh, just some silly pact we made about going home together when we’re drunk,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.” It was only a little white lie, but for some reason it wrenched my insides to lie to Victor.

“You guys are really close. Seems like you always look out for each other,” he said. He leaned back farther in his seat. I watched, entranced, as he ran his hand through his wind-tousled hair.

“So, where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” he said simply.

We drove through some streets I didn’t recognize. We made our way up a hill and the scenery around us turned from student housing to trees and brush. Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t know where he was taking me, and I was alone, drunk, and vulnerable. Again, the threatening scene at the bar replayed in my mind and the rumor I had heard about Victor—about his vicious streak—echoed in my ears. But as my eyes drifted to Victor’s hand firmly gripping the wheel and his dark eyes intent on the road, and as I remembered how he had declined drinks to be a responsible driver, and how he had looked at me with an inexplicable softness earlier that day, I realized I trusted him.

As I was adrift in these drunken reveries, I felt the car pull over and come to a stop. Victor killed the engine but kept the key in the ignition and looked over at me.

“We’re here,” he said. I looked out the windshield to see that we had come to a ridge that looked over the entire city of Merritt. It sprawled out before us like a swelling sea of twinkling lights.

“A lookout point?” I said, incredulous. “What are we, teenagers in the 1950s?”

“I like to come here at night and listen to the radio,” he said, turning on the radio. It was the old AM/FM kind with a dial, and it made garbled sounds as it came to life. Victor found an AM station playing oldies.

Victor looked at me with a smile. “Like in the 1950s,” he said. The radio station was playing “Sleepwalk”—it was so perfect I couldn’t believe it. Victor turned up the radio, then opened the door and got out. As if I were sleepwalking too, I followed him.

He leaned on the hood of his car, his hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket. I copied him, crossing my arms against my chest.

“So this is where you come to listen to music,” I said, looking out over the lights. As cheesy as it was, it was pretty magical. The tall trees to the side spread their branches overhead and framed the sea of lights in a forest pastiche. After a few moments of drinking in the view, I felt Victor’s eyes on me. I turned to him and smiled. I suddenly felt shy under his gaze.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“You know, I meant what I said earlier.”

“About what?”

“You are really beautiful.”

I flushed and quickly looked down, too drunk to come up with a good response. In the end I found myself just saying, “Thank you.”

“Sleepwalk” ended and Patsy Cline came on the radio, crooning about a midnight walk. A chill ran down my spine and I shivered. Victor noticed and took off his leather jacket.

“Here,” he said. He moved to stand in front of me and put the jacket over my shoulders. “You’re cold.” He rubbed his hands up and down my arms to warm me up.

Feeling him standing so close to me, and the warmth of his body still on the jacket, and his hands touching me, albeit through thick leather, I felt my heart beat faster. When he eventually stopped rubbing my arms, I raised my eyes to his. He kept his hands on me as he looked down at me. We held each other’s gaze, and the air grew heady. Slowly, as if in a trance, he raised his hand, letting his fingertips graze my cheek. He let his fingers trace a path down my neck, inside the collar of the jacket, and turning his hand over, he let his knuckles glide across my bare collarbone. I closed my eyes, relishing the ever-so-slight contact of his skin to mine. I found myself moving closer to him, my body responding to his touch. But when I opened my eyes again I saw his jaw set with tension and his eyebrows furrowed.

He spoke first, retracting his hand. “Hey, you know what? It’s late. And you’re drunk. I should take you home.”

His words felt like a slap in the face. I blinked rapidly and I tried to reorient myself, my mind racing to figure out what had just happened. I nodded and wordlessly got back into the car. Victor followed.

“Okay, get me back to the south side of school and I’ll tell you how to get to my house.” I said, trying to sound calm but feeling drunk, and hurt, and confused.

Victor cleared his throat, started the car, turned down the radio, and drove us back toward town.