how to love // z. m.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Well.

I'm a slut now.

Or, at least I look like one.

"Well, well, well," I heard a voice say behind me as they clapped slowly. "Nice outfit, Toni. It really suits you."

I rolled my eyes as I turned to see Addison smirking at me. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Eh," she shrugged. "It's not every day I see you get dressed up, I guess. And I can kind of see why. You look a bit out of place. Like a rebel in pink."

"Cotton candy in a graveyard, that's for sure." I pulled up the top of the dress, hoping it would remove some of the cleavage, but if anything, it made it more prominent. Blech.

"So, Toni." Addison pushed her hair back behind her and leaned in closer to the mirror, checking her reflectionto make sure that she looked okay. Not that she needed to check. "Your boyfriend got you that little number? Did he get you that ring too?"

Oh, right. The ring.

I bit my lip and twisted the ring around my finger. "Yeah..."

"Is there something you're not telling me?" Addie raised an eyebrow suspiciously, eyeing my hands, the ring. "Are you the next Shay to have a bachelorette party?"

My eyes flashed over to her and my stomach twisted into a huge knot, my legs loosing all feeling. "No!" I gripped the sink and leaned over it as if I were going to look closely to my reflection like Addison.

"Then what is that?"

"A promise ring..." I mumbled, looking away.

"Ah, so it'll happen sometime." Addison crossed her arms over her chest.

I stood up straight, my legs regaining strength. "Yeah. I guess it will, won't it?"

"Give it a year or two," Addison said, turning away from the mirror and starting to walk over to the door. "I'll be a maid of honour."

I scrunched my nose up and shook my head. "Just... no. Don't talk like that." But the look on Addison's face was just priceless, so I collapsed into a fit of giggles, and then she joined in.

"What are you guys laughing at?" I heard Macy's voice say as the hotel room door opened.

"Not at; about," Addison corrected, wiping tears from her eyes that had appeared from laughing too hard.

"Whatever," Macy sighed, then began to smile. "I can't wait until we get to the club. Can we leave now?"

"Well..." I walked out of the bathroom and picked up my phone on the coffee table in the room. 8:47 p.m. "Yeah, I guess we could leave now."

"YES," Macy pretty much shouted and ran out of the room.

"Kids," Addison sighed. "They grow up so fast."

"Not fast enough..." I muttered, and Addison cracked a smile.

"Okay," she said. "What's our game plan for this club? We can't dance with any guys, because neither of us are single. But we're---"

"You're not single?" I interrupted. I mean, I know that Addison and Niall had... hooked up or whatever, but are they really boyfriend-and-girlfriend now?

"No," Addison smiled proudly, then continued from where she left off. Literally. "---going to want to have fun, of course. Neither of us are of drinking age so we can't get drunk on anything but, say, lemonade. Non-alcoholic."

"We can dance," I suggested lamely.

Duh. Of course we're going to dance.

"Duh," Addison rolled her eyes. "Of course we're going to dance."

Whoa. Deja vu or what?...

"Then let's come up with an elaborate plan to find a way to become DJ's of the club, if not for one night," I grinned deviously.

"There's the Toni I know," Addison sighed, but I could tell she wanted to smile. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'll tell you later," I said. "Right now, we've gotta get down to the lobby."

Once we made it down there, the whole lounge area was filled with women of all ages. Well, not really. There were none that looked over, say, thirty-five. But there were certainly a lot of women there, and only a few I recognized, so most were probably friends of Andy's in Georgia.

"Addison! Toni!" Andy ran over to us and gave each of us a hug. "I'm so excited! Now everyone's here. So we can go!"

I grabbed Andy's arm before she could run away again. "What are we going to do with Macy?" I whispered.

"See that woman over there?" Andy pointed to a woman who looked to be the oldest of everyone here. I nodded, "She has a daughter around Macy's age. She's going to take then to this teen club. Some dance crew is performing. Iconic something..."

"Okay, good," I said, and let go of her arm, "Now, let's go!"

___________________________________________________________________________________

The line to get into the club was crazy long. Girls ages 17-21 deemed prominence. Luckily, we had reserved slots.

"You can go in," the bouncer nodded us in, and Andy thanked him for us all, though some of the older women used their carefully trained manners to say thank you, as well.

When we walked in, there were strobe lights flashing and people dancing. A stage had been set up at the front of the room, near where the DJ had his booth set up. I looked over at Addison and we nodded to each other. We were both pushing our ways through the crowd to the booth, when a mic crackled on.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Classic DJ salutation. Well, at least he didn't say 'yo yo yo'. "Y'all havin' a good time?"

The crowd screamed. Lots and lots of girl screams, especially. Why are there so many teenage girls here?

"I'm sure you all know about our guest performers of the night, yeah?" The DJ continued, and the screams got even louder. "Right, right. And are you ready for them to come out?" My ears almost popped. "Alright then! Without any further ado, all the way from England --- and Ireland ---"

Wait. Oh my God.

"One Direction!"