Read Online The Trouble With Flirting by Rachel Morgan - Free Book Online

cross my arms. “Don’t give me that look.”
    “What look?”
    “That look that says good girls like me shouldn’t be going out to clubs like The Banana Pearl . Or shouldn’t be going to clubs at all. Or wearing clothes like this. Or make-up like this.”
    “I don’t have a look like that.”
    “You’re giving me that look right now!”
    “Maybe you’re giving yourself that look,” he says.
    “What? That makes no sense.”
    He shrugs. “Whatever. If I was giving you a look, it would more likely have been a look that said, ‘Thanks for spending absolutely no time at all with your old friends.’” He pushes away from the fridge with a sigh. “It’s clear your new friends are more important.”
    Guilt needles my insides. Adam’s words sound awfully similar to the ones I said to Logan when I confronted him during orientation. “Hey, come on, that’s not fair. I’m trying to—”
    “Don’t worry about it, Liv,” he says. “It’s a little sad to think that soon we won’t have anything in common anymore, but that’s the way life is, right? People change.” He turns and disappears through the kitchen door.
    “Adam!” I shout after him. “Hey, don’t walk away like that.” I follow him, wobbling slightly on my heels. “This isn’t all my fault. It’s not like you’re always around. You disappear to that—that—hippy café place down the road—”
    “Which I’ve invited you to several times,” he says before turning into his room.
    “You can’t expect me to be available for everything at the last minute, Adam. I have plans . I’m a plan-making person.”
    “My point, Alivia,” he says, sticking his head out of the doorway, “is that you only ever have time to make plans with one person. That one person who is your gateway to all things Cool. Your pathway to—”
    Right on cue, Allegra’s headlights slide across the glass pane of the front door, and my cell phone starts ringing. I stomp—if it can be called stomping in impossibly high heels—into my room and grab my purse.
    “Enjoy The Purple Banana ,” Adam shouts before slamming his door shut.
    “It’s The Banana Pearl !” I yell back.

    ***

    The Banana Pearl turns out to be a less glamorous version of what I’ve seen in movies. Movies give you flashing coloured lights, sexy bodies, smoke machines, and the best dance music. The Banana Pearl got the flashing lights right, but the bodies are sweaty, the only smoke in here comes from cigarettes, and the music is so loud it’s more distortion than actual music. Or perhaps that’s the sound of my eardrums caving in.
    Movies. Full of lies, they are. Planes are quiet, people have actual conversations in nightclubs, everyone is beautiful, and sex is perfect. And not that I’ve had first-hand experience in the sex department, but I’ve heard enough to know that The Perfect Sex Scene doesn’t exist in real life.
    I hold onto Allegra’s hand as she pulls me past dancing bodies, people on high stools grouped around small round tables, and a lounge area. We reach the bar, where the music doesn’t seem to be quite as loud, but I still can’t hear anyone speak. I have no idea how one orders a drink here.
    We find our group of friends at one end of the bar. Charlotte, Amber and Courtney. Rob and a bunch of other people I vaguely know.
    But no Jackson.
    Why is there no Jackson?
    I cup my hands around Allegra’s ear and shout the question to her. She frowns at me and shakes her head. “What?” she mouths.
    I try again, but I get the same confused look from her. So I simply yell, “JACKSON!” until I see recognition on her face.
    She looks around, speaks to a few people—how? How does she speak to them? Am I the only one who’s nearly deaf?—then yells something into my ear. “Jackson … work … couldn’t come.”
    I miss at least half of what she says, but the message gets through: he couldn’t come. I try not to feel as though my whole evening has just fallen apart.