The Classix

(OLD) Chapter 31

Note: Should we honestly be calling it Famoux Saturdays now? I'm the actual worst.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: I'm boring you to death chapter by chapter with unnecessary dialogue and a lack of solid plot line. More specifically, we're about to go to a party for Cartney's album release. It's not like we've been to a million parties in book 1 or anything.

emeray

    If you were administer a poll to the masses of Delicatum asking whether or not Cartney Kirk believes all days should revolve around him, there is no doubt in my mind that these masses would respond in a big, resounding yes. Brutally-honest-yet-delightful guy is supposed to be conceited in that way––supposed to believe himself to be something of the sun. And so, when Cartney and I enter Ace arm and arm, Gerald and Lex following close on our coattails, we assume our fitting positions. He becomes the sun. I become, of all things to become, a ray of this sunlight. The people become planets.

    And around and around us they go.

    As faces I vaguely recognize from past occasions send us their smiles and extended palms for to shake, Cartney leans in close to my ear. "You don't think I'm gonna, you know, die tonight, do you?"

    "Pardon?"

    "You know. DEFED."

    "Cartney, your morbidity is astounding."

    "More like my realism. A whole party about myself seems like the perfect place to have me murdered." He stops his musing to greet a man with tall black hair, apparently an old acquaintance, before continuing our ascent into the party. As we go he gestures behind him with, expression wild. "Did you just see that?"

    "You said hello to a friend."

    "You know well enough that I don't have friends, Ray. That asshole hates my guts, and yet he just told me that I'm 'one of the best.'"

    "And you told him you believed it."

    "What else am I supposed to tell him?"

    Gerald catches up to us, nudging Cartney with his shoulder with a grin. "You know, most people just say thank you instead of agreeing."

    "Former maid to Emeray, this conversation doesn't concern you."

    "I was her bodyguard, you know."

    Cartney begins a rejoinder, but is cut off by a woman in a blinding silver jumpsuit. She practically lunges in front of us, spurting out something about how talented Cartney is and how proud I must be of him.

    "You two are such a power couple," she insists.

    "Oh, yeah we are," agrees Cartney, eyeing Gerald as he says it. "Arguably the most powerful couple there is."

    "Definitely." The woman's smile is too large; it makes me uncomfortable the longer I look at her. Luckily, she doesn't stick around much longer. "You have a good night!"

    "Take care."

    She runs away as quick as she came. Cartney turns to me. "Did you see that? Everyone's loving the hell out of us tonight, Ray."

    A conversation I had with Foster comes back to me. It was right around the party Abby threw as a photoshoot for my spread with The X, when I was nervous that nobody was going to like me:

    They're going to smile when they see you, laugh at your jokes, and listen to everything you have to say with incomparable interest. But we can't know who genuinely likes us.