February 29, 2007
Some boys would tease the girl they like. Others are simply jerks.
She was wearing red shoes again. Mahogany red ballet flats, to be exact. Her rose-printed dress looked perfect with her present footwear. Last night, on the other hand, was obviously unplanned on her part, considering how she was wearing denim shorts and white collared blouse. Her oxford shoes were the color of faded red lipstick—the shade a girl’s lips would be right after a kiss.
Matt groaned inwardly. Exactly what he wanted to think about.
A soft sigh escaped from his lips as he turned away from the girl walking beside him. He went back to recall yesterday’s encounter. Her shoes seemed weird at first but her legs made up for the sudden burst of color in her feet.
Legs which were currently covered by her long dress today.
Thank god.
They were led to one of the private rooms at the back—though not too far back—of the restaurant. The server took their orders then immediately left. Grace took a seat on one of the cushions, imitating the way the Japanese would; while Matt sat cross-legged.
Silence filled the room for all of five seconds before Grace closed her eyes and exhaled—as if preparing for a big confession.
“Last night,” she began, “I got drunk.”
“I know,” Matt interrupted with a smirk.
She glared in response then continued, “I can’t quite remember everything that’s happened. So I was hoping you’d enlighten me.” Her eyes wandered away from his as soon as she ended her request.
He widened his grin, if only to annoy the girl in front of him. “After all the trouble I went through, you’ll come to me and say you don’t remember a damned thing.”
It wasn’t quite what she expected to hear and she got irritated, as Matt expected. “You know, sometimes I think you’re born just to make other people’s lives miserable. If you had no plans to tell me, why’d you go and ask me to meet you?” she asked in a raised voice.
Before he even had time to digest her rant, she stood up and got ready to leave.
“Sit.”
She stopped and stared at him. He looked back, a hint of his temper visible in his eyes.
“What?”
“Sit. Down,” he commanded, cocking his head towards the direction where she was previously seated.
She released an exasperated sigh. “I swear you’re the most arrogant jerk in Heartlake City,” she grumbled but did as she was told.
“Or so I was told,” Matt replied. “By the haughtiest female drunkard of Heartlake City, nonetheless.”
“Will you just tell me what happened?” she demanded, knowing perfectly well who he was referring to.
At that moment, the waiter arrived with their food—a set of futomaki and ebi nigiri—plus green tea for each of them. They kept silent until the waiter had finished laying down their orders on the table and left.
“Do you remember a thing from last night?” Matt asked as he took a sip of his tea.
“I just remembered joining a drinking game with your friends. That’s it,” she answered, taking a piece of futomaki.
“Then you got drunk.”
“Hmph.”
“Actually, that’s about it.”
It brought Grace’s head up—her expression inquisitive—and Matt debated in his mind how much he would tell her. He took another sip from his tea, delaying the inevitable.
“You threw up and I practically had to drag you just to get you into my car,” he added.
Matt watched her face closely and it was obvious she had guessed that that was what happened. When she didn’t say anything after a few seconds, he assumed she was trying to come up with a way to ask her next question. There was no way she would accept such a vague answer about last night.
“Did I, well, do anything stupid?” came the dreaded question.
He didn’t bother to answer immediately. Instead, he finished a piece of futomaki and another of ebi nigiri before he looked up at Grace. Why is it so freakin’ hard to tell her? he thought. His eyes strayed towards her neck and saw her swallow in anticipation. He needed to know how much she could recall so he said with as straight a face as he could, “What exactly do you mean by stupid?”
“Argh!” Grace screeched as she slammed her hand on the table. “Honestly, Matt! Can’t you answer a question directly?”
He raised a brow in reply. “You want to hear a particular answer. What is it?”
Her face screamed guilty and she looked away. “I seem to remember something embarrassing from last night…”
A smirk formed around his mouth. “Now who’s not answering directly?”
Grace’s head immediately snapped to face Matt. She looked utterly annoyed. “A kiss.” She bowed down before she continued, “But I don’t remember who it was with or if it’s even real.”
So. She doesn’t remember.
“Actually, it was real,” he confirmed.
He watched closely as her eyes slowly widened while her right hand ascended to touch her lips in shock.
“With whom?” she whispered.
The horror Matt saw on her face almost made him take back his words and tell her it was a joke. He sighed. There really wasn’t any point in lying to her. His eyes wandered towards the door as he let out another sigh.
“Me,” he admitted in a quiet voice.
A horrified gasp was the response he got and it triggered his desire to leave as soon as possible. Matt tried to mentally list possible excuses to leave without being totally rude.
Nothing came up.
“Sorry.” He turned to gaze directly to her eyes, hoping that she saw some sincerity from his. “I had several drinks myself…Sorry, I was stupid last night. Sorry.”
Grace was on the verge of tears by the time he said the third “sorry” but there was confusion mixed in her expression.
“It…wasn’t my fault?” she clarified.
He took another breath then he said, “I kissed you first.”
“I don’t understand.” It was obvious that she was getting more confused as he answered her questions. “Why?”
For some reason, he couldn’t quite tell her she actually asked to be kissed. “I was drunk.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. I can feel it.”
Matt pursed his lips, wanting to end her questions. “That’s all there is to it.”
“But—”
Before she could say anything more, however, Matt’s phone began to ring. He tried to reject it the first time but it rang again so he decided to answer it.
“Excuse me.” He stood up and walked to a corner at the left of the door. “Kane.”
“We need everyone to gather at the Empire’s entrance asap. It’s about Rachelle.”
Matt’s hand tightened on his phone as he realized what Kane was talking about.
“I’ll be there in at least 20 minutes.” Then he hung up.
Grace must have heard the sense of urgency in his voice because when he looked back at her, she was already taking out a few bills to pay her share of their food.
“I’ll pay, Grace.”
“No need to be modest,” she answered.
He took out his wallet and placed his share together with Grace’s money. They walked out of the restaurant in awkward silence but before they actually had to go their separate ways, Matt pulled her to a stop. Somehow, he felt the need to apologize again.
“I’m really sorry about last night, Grace.”
She didn’t look directly at him but gave a small smile as she removed his hand from her wrist. Without saying another word, she turned and walked away.
It made Matt wonder if she had forgiven him or not.
*****
Kane, Lance and Matt were already waiting outside the Empire Bar’s entrance when Nick and Rachelle arrived. When she found out that Kane was the one who called Nick, she couldn’t quite erase the feeling that somehow, tonight was going to make everything that had happened a lot clearer.
“I’ll come with you,” Rachelle imposed.
“No. You’re too emotionally attached to the situation. We’ll handle it first then we’ll let you know what happened,” Nick explained.
“You and Matt really ought to stop treating me like a child,” she snapped. “This is about me and I’m coming whether you want me to or not.”
Without giving Nick the chance to stop her, she picked up her bag and made her way to the door. His footsteps followed her not long after, and she sighed in relief. Rachelle wasn’t quite sure he would give in to her ultimatum. He asked her to wait while he told his parents he was leaving, and then they were on their way to where the others were.
They saw the three guys’ annoyed expressions as soon as they joined them. Rachelle lifted her chin up in defiance. It was the only way she could tell them that she couldn’t allow them to leave her in the dark.
“What’s she doing here?” Matt asked Nick irritably.
“She insisted,” Nick answered with a shrug.
“You’re too soft on her. As usual,” Matt retorted.
Rachelle just ignored them and began to observe the other two members of their group. They looked edgy yet it was obvious that they couldn’t wait to go inside and find, most probably, the culprit.
“So what exactly are we doing here, Kane?” Rachelle demanded.
“Last night, Lance and I found the person who posted the scandalous letter and photos in the internet. We cornered him this morning and turns out, he was just some sort of pawn,” Kane answered.
“He told us the girl who asked him to do it is called Kathryn. And she visits the Empire every Saturday and Sunday,” Lance added as he took his phone out. He browsed a little until he found the page he was looking for. It was a photo. “This is how she looks like,” he said as he allowed everyone to see who their enemy was. “Do you know her, Rach?”
This was the first time Rachelle had ever seen the girl in the picture and she shook her head. It made her even more confused as to the reason why her reputation had been attacked.
“Nevertheless, we’d know who she is as soon as we got ourselves inside,” Matt remarked impatiently.
They had to pass through registration as they were not in the bar’s guest list. However, considering who they were, they got inside with no further difficulty. There weren’t too many people yet so they didn’t have too much trouble seeing the faces of the bar’s guests. They began to move a bit farther from each other to get better views.
The boys were all still scanning the crowd when a surprised gasp brought their attention to Rachelle. Her eyes were fixed on the couple seated at the farthest corner of the bar—a private section underneath an indoor veranda. They followed the direction of her gaze and were all immediately consumed by anger.
Together with the girl in the photo was Rachelle’s boyfriend.