Love and Fame Games (Book 1)

10 (Part Two)

Alexa Javier was the devil.

Her claim to have moved here from Texas was obviously a lie because the only place someone like her could have come from was the fiery pits of hell. How else would she be this skilled at torturing poor souls like mine?

What more did she want from me? I already wore clothes she had approved of, i.e., had appalled her the least, let her mess with my hair and put gunk on my face.

Not only that, I didn't make a fuss like I usually did when she dropped hints about playing spin the bottle. Didn't even bat an eyelash. I'd learned to accept playing that game as one of unavoidable things that I had to deal with once in a while when I reached a certain age. (Like zits: embarrassing and gross and sometimes even painful, and calling attention to yourself when dealing with either one made the experience a thousand times worse.)

I was gonna put on my big girl pants and suffer in silence. It wasn't a big deal. Just a quick peck that lasted a second, tops, and I would have been free for the rest of the night with the one I really came to party with: the chip-and-salsa platter.

But then, Alex, being Alex, decided to change things up a little.

This was so unfair. For maybe the first time in all two of my teen years, I tried to be a team player and not be a little bitch and look at where it got me: Inside Alex's front hall coat closet with a boy I was worried would start hyperventilating at any moment.

I had flipped a switch on the wall as soon we went in but the light in here barely gave a faint glow. My back was to one side of the closet and I could see that my companion was standing the same way, though fidgeting a little, on the other side. Maybe we both had the same idea and were trying to put as much space between each other as possible in this cramped space.

Why couldn't Alex leave well enough alone? Her party was already a success. Good turnout, even some older kids showed up, which I was sure made Alex happy. Everyone was having a good time, but not great. In other words, nothing or nobody was getting smashed.

Even Sonja was stepping up—replenishing snacks and Alex the upstairs bedrooms and basement, making sure no one was sneaking into the upstairs bedrooms and/or the liquor cabinet—instead of disappearing off somewhere and leaving to fend for herself as she usually did.

At around ten, the party seemed to be winding down. Some of the kids had already left and I thought I was home free. Spin the bottle was more of an icebreaker type of game, wasn't it? Maybe I'd missed it while I was in the bathroom or something; I sometimes lost all concept of time when I stepped inside of one.

It was my own fault for letting my guard down because the moment I did, the inevitable happened.

I was in the kitchen, getting ice, when Alex came rushing to my side. Her eyes were bright, cheeks flushed.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," she whispered in her breathy, excited voice. She grabbed the crook of my arm with one hand while she held a clear glass bottle that used to contain fancy lemonade by its long neck with the other. "Come on, we're just about to play."

She led me to the living room. All the furniture had been pushed to the walls and sitting in an imperfect circle on the floor were the players she had called together. I noticed they were all from our homeroom class. Including Alex and myself, there were nine kids in all. Sitting together on one side of the circle were all the guys. From left to right, they were Seth Frasier, Matt Engels, Tristan Lazaro and Ethan Scott. The four of them did everything together when we were younger and it didn't take long to fall back into their old ways when Seth came back.

On the other side of the circle were three other girls. There was Chloe Wasserman, who was blonde, blue-eyed, a ballet dancer and easily one of the prettiest girls in our school, right up there with Alex. Beside her was her best friend, Beth Dawson, who also took ballet. She was nice enough, but aside from being so much like Chloe, I wasn't sure what her deal was. The two of them were more Alex's friends than mine.