Sarah Dessen Read Online Free PDF Page B

bringing us in small increments up and back from the sky as the colors faded, slowly, and the stars began to show themselves.

    By the time we got to Bendo, it was nine o’clock and I had a nice buzz on. We pulled up, parked, and eyed the bouncer standing by the door.
    “Perfect,” I said, pulling down the visor to check my makeup. “It’s Rodney.”
    “Where’s my ID?” Chloe said, digging through her jacket. “God, I just had it.”
    “Is it in your bra?” I asked her, turning around. She blinked, stuck her hand down her shirt, and came up with it. Chloe kept everything in her bra: I.D., money, extra barrettes. It was like sleight of hand, the way she just pulled things from it, like quarters from your ear, or rabbits out of a hat.
    “Bingo,” she said, sticking it in her front pocket.
    “So classy,” Jess said.
    “Look who’s talking,” Chloe shot back. “At least I wear a bra.”
    “Well, at least I need one,” Jess replied.
    Chloe narrowed her eyes. She was a Bcup, and a small one at that, and had always been sensitive about it. “Well at least—”
    “Stop,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    As we walked up, Rodney eyed us from where he was sitting on a stool propping the door open. Bendo was an eighteen-and-up club, but we’d been coming since sophomore year. You had to be twenty-one to drink, though, and with our fakes Chloe and I usually could get our hand stamped. Especially by Rodney.
    “Remy, Remy,” he said as I reached into my pocket, pulling out my fake. My name, my face, my brother’s birthday, so I could quote it quick if I had to. “How’s it feel to be a high school graduate?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, smiling at him. “You know I’m a junior at the university.”
    He hardly glanced at my ID but squeezed my hand, brushing it with his fingers as he stamped it. Disgusting. “What’s your major?”
    “English lit,” I said. “But I’m minoring in business.”
    “I got some business for you,” he said, taking Chloe’s ID and stamping her hand. She was quick though, pulling back fast, the ink smearing.
    “You’re an asshole,” Jess told him, but he just shrugged, waving us in, his eyes on the next group of girls coming up the steps.
    “I feel so dirty,” Chloe sighed as we walked in.
    “You’ll feel better after you have a beer.”
    Bendo was crowded already. The band hadn’t come on yet, but the bar was two deep and the air was full of smoke, thick and mixed with the smell of sweat.
    “I’ll get a table,” Jess called out to me, and I nodded, heading for the bar with Chloe behind me. We pushed through the crowd, dodging people, until we got a decent spot by the beer taps.
    I’d just hoisted myself up on my elbows, trying to wave down the bartender, when I felt someone brush up against me. I tried to pull away, but it was packed where I was standing, so I just drew myself in a bit, pulling my arms against my sides. Then, very quietly, I heard a voice in my ear.
    It said, in a weird, cheesy, right-out-of-one-of-my-mother’s-novels way, “Ah. We meet again.”
    I turned my head, just slightly, and right there, practically on top of me, was the guy from the car dealership. He was wearing a red Mountain Fresh Detergent T-shirt—NOT JUST FRESH: MOUNTAIN FRESH!—it proclaimed, and was smiling at me. “Oh, God,” I said.
    “No, it’s Dexter,” he replied, offering me his hand, which I ignored. Instead I glanced around behind me for Chloe, but saw she had been waylaid by a guy in a plaid shirt I didn’t recognize.
    “Two beers!” I shouted at the bartender, who’d finally seen me.
    “Make that three!” this Dexter yelled.
    “You are not with me,” I said.
    “Well, not technically,” he replied, shrugging. “But that could change.”
    “Look,” I said as the bartender dropped three plastic cups in front of me, “I’m not—”
    “I see you still have my number,” he said, interrupting me and grabbing one of the