Lucky in Love (8 page)

Last but not least, I tackled the make-up. Being a somewhat simple girl in this aspect, I rummaged through my drawer filled with all the samples I had accumulated over the years while going shopping with Tara. Other than school, the mall had pretty much been our common ground since we had met. I managed to dig up some charcoal grey eye shadow which I generously spread across each eye lid. Satisfied with the outcome, I combined it with my standard black eye liner and mascara and I felt like I was just about presentable. I reached back into the drawer, felt around blindly, until I finally found something that felt like lip gloss. It was a pale pink with a hint of shimmer. I dabbed some on with my fingertips and then took a step back from the mirror to get the full effect. Examining my work, I had to admit it was a vast improvement from my appearance the night of the speed dating. If Trevor had found me appealing then, he would find me damn near irresistible after tonight!

After I finished putting away the hair dryer and the make-up samples, I stood by the bathroom door and listen for any sounds coming from the house. Once I was sure no one else had returned home yet, I opened the door and hurried back to my room. From there, I had a clear view of the driveway from my window, to which I planned to be glued until Trevor’s arrival. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to wait too long and he would show up on time, therefore giving us the opportunity to leave before any of my roommates (which as per Gabe’s advice, I had not yet informed Trevor about) were due to arrive.

Lucky for me, everything went off without a hitch. Trevor had actually arrived five minutes early and much to my relief, declined a tour of the house in order to be on time for the reservations he had made. While he had initially planned for us to take in a movie after dinner, he was pleasantly surprised, when I showed him the concert tickets that Noah had scored for us. Naturally, I omitted that teensy, tiny detail.

We had dinner at a lovely little Italian place, downtown. The food was delicious and the ambiance was enough to make me want to pack up and move to Tuscany. To make matters even more enjoyable, Trevor and I were having a great time together. He was kind and considerate with a quiet charm that made him far less alarming than, say, a guy like Noah. While he did plenty of talking, sharing stories and making me laugh; I also noticed that he was equally inclined to listen. Something I rather appreciated, since it was exactly a quality most men didn’t possess.

After dinner, we had some time before the show, so we decided to go for a little stroll in the moonlight. The restaurant was only a few blocks from the bar and a walk sounded like an ideal way to pass the time. Along the way, we stopped a few times to look in some of the store windows whose displays were lit up. We had just finished making fun of a rather ridiculous display of dog accessories inside of a specialty pet store, when Trevor slyly reached for my hand. Without even thinking, I instantly pulled away at his touch. Embarrassed by my reaction, I quickly mumbled, “I’m sorry”, but Trevor had already continued walking as though nothing had happened. We spent the rest of the walk to the bar in silence as I quietly beat myself up for acting like such an idiot. It wasn’t like I hadn’t ever held hands with anyone before! What was my problem? I liked Trevor, in fact, I liked him a lot! Why wouldn’t I want to hold his hand? I had spent half of dinner wondering what it would be like for him to kiss me, something he wasn’t likely to try now that I had reacted to his touch as though he was a leper. I couldn’t explain it. Not to myself and certainly not to Trevor, who didn’t seem very interested in talking about it anyway.

Finally we arrived at the bar, and the sudden change of atmosphere was all it took to turn things around. His face went from being sullen to excited, and immediately I felt my spirits lighten as well. Things were still going to turn out just fine.

“The band sounds great!  I can't believe you were able to get these tickets!” Trevor yelled over the loud music.

“I know!  I'm excited!” I called back, while looking around to see who was working. There were too many people on the dance floor for me to make out the bartender in the corner, but I could see that Noah and D. were working hard right up front at the main bar. Noah glanced up for a second, but didn’t react. I couldn’t tell if it had been intentional or if he just hadn’t been able to see me though the dim lighting.

“Why don't you try to find us some seats and I'll go get us some drinks,” Trevor suggested while pointing over towards the tables surrounding the already packed dance floor.

I nodded and yelled, “Sounds good! I'll just have a soda for now.”

“Oh come on, you can do better than that!” He cocked his head to the side trying to encourage me by looking as adorable as possible. It worked.

“Ok, just tell the bartender to surprise me.” I looked over at Noah again, hoping he had seen me and would go easy on my drink.

“That's better.” Trevor smiled, satisfied with my answer. Then he started working his way through the crowd over to the bar, while I was able to snag us a table with two seats just a few feet away from where we had been standing.

Noah had been watching Trevor approach the bar and quickly rushed over to him, ensuring that he would get there before D.

“What can I get you?” Noah asked, trying to act as normal as possible, even though he had grown agitated just by the sight of him.

“How about a draft for me and a surprise for my date.  Make it something fruity, but strong.  I'm planning on having a good time tonight!” Trevor smiled and the corners of his mouth curled up in a way that suddenly made him look more malicious than friendly. Still, Noah tried to remain casual.

“Oh yeah?  Who's your date?” he asked already knowing the answer. With the air of a fisherman who had baited an exceptionally, large fish, Trevor turned back and pointed at me.

“That hot little number over there.  She's wound pretty tight right now, but I'm sure I can get her to loosen up before the night is over,” he spouted off confidently.

“How's that?” Noah asked. If he had sounded more suspicious than curious, Trevor didn’t notice. He just patted his coat pocket and said, “Oh, I have my ways.”

Certain that Trevor was a scumbag, but painfully aware that he had absolutely no evidence to prove this, Noah decided to keep silent. Instead he had poured me a mix of straight juice while Trevor had been busy talking about his plans for the night. Plans Noah was sure, I knew nothing about. A moment later, he set both drinks up on the counter in front of Trevor.

“You're all set.”

“Thanks man.  Can I just start a tab?” Trevor was handing him his credit card.

“Sure,” Noah replied flatly. While he wasn’t excited at the thought of seeing more of Trevor, he was relieved to know that no one else would be mixing my drinks that night.

“Great.  I'll be back,” Trevor called, as though he believed that Noah had become his new best friend. Noah waited for him to turn around and walk away before twisting his mouth into an angry scowl in response. Once he was sure that Trevor was well back on his way to our table, Noah went and stood by D. who was busy mixing up a large batch of margaritas for a group of at least ten women who stood crowding around the register.

“Hey D.  Help me keep an eye on
Lucky's date.” He leaned in close to D.as he spoke to avoid yelling.

“Why, what's going on?” He looked up, sudden concern shadowing his face.

“Not sure yet.  I just have a bad feeling,” Noah replied, wondering if he sounded ridiculous, or worse yet, jealous.  But D. just nodded.

“K, I'll watch '
em.”

Noah padded him on his shoulder.

“Thanks.” Then, he went back to tackling the crowd that had built up around his end of the bar.

About an hour went by, without much change. Trevor and I were enjoying the show while Noah and D.
were staying busy keeping everyone’s drinks filled. Mine included. Since I had realized that I was sipping on a beverage completely devoid of alcohol, I was happily sucking down glass after glass, sending Trevor back up to the bar on numerous occasions, which he didn’t seem to mind one bit.  Needless to say, all of that juice was bound to have an effect on me at some point, although not the effect Trevor had been hoping for. So, when the band took a quick break, I did the same and made a quick run to the ladies’ room.

I had barely left the table when D. spotted Trevor pulling something out of his coat pocket and pouring its contents into my drink. D. shot a look over at Noah to see if he had been watching.

“Did you just see that?” he yelled when Noah didn’t react.

“No. What?” Noah asked, instantly looking alarmed.

“I think he just put something in her drink!” D. didn’t have a chance to say anything else.

At that same moment Noah had spotted me returning to the table and without hesitating he jumped into action. Before D. knew what was happening, Noah had swiftly boosted himself over the bar top and came surging through the crowd like an angry bull about to take down his mark. And take down he did. All it took was one punch and Trevor was laid out flat on the floor, my drink, which had still been in his hand, smashed and spilled all over as it hit the ground beside him. Trevor had never seen it coming. Neither had I.

“What the hell is wrong with you?? What are you doing??” I cried. Stunned, I watched as D. and two of the bouncers came running over.

“Get this guy out of here!” D. yelled as he directed his security guys towards the door. I was beside myself. I had fully expected them to help us, not support Noah and his crazy behavior. Furiously, I began punching Noah in the chest, trying to get past him and over to Trevor, who was being dragged out, still unable to walk properly after the hit he had just taken. As I continued wailing on him, D. grabbed a hold of my arm and firmly led me into his office where I hysterically began shouting at him.

“I don't know what I was thinking bringing him here.  I should have known better than to bring a date here!  Noah is out of his freaking mind! He was so nice giving me the tickets, all – ‘why don't you bring your date tonight’?! And, for what?” I was pacing back and forth in the small space between the back of the desk and the office door, shaking my head around and wiping away the tears that had begun to fall during my tirade.

“Lucky, you need to calm down,” D. said gently.

“No!  I need to go and talk to him!  This is not ok! He had no right to do that!  I'm sure he thinks he was being all protective or something, but really what he was doing was possessive and… and sick!” I was pointing my finger accusingly at midair.

“Lucky, he
was
being protective.  That guy put something in your drink.” He was beginning to raise his voice a little, but I didn’t notice because I was already shrieking.

“Is that what he said?  Oh my God!  There is no way Trevor put something in my drink!  He isn't like that! Whatever he thinks he saw...he's wrong!” I said with complete certainty ringing through my voice.

D. looked down at his feet and then back up at me. He took a step closer and faced me head on. Then he quietly told me, “I'm the one who saw it.  I told Noah.”

Suddenly, I felt all the blood drain from my face. For a moment I felt as though I couldn’t breathe and my legs began to lose all feeling in them.

“What?” I muttered, as I fell back onto the small couch D. kept along the side wall of his office. D. sat down beside me and calmly began to explain what had happened.

“Trevor came up to the bar and was talking to Noah.  I guess he was talking about you and being pretty disrespectful and Noah had a bad feeling, so we kept an eye on you guys.  When you left to go to the restroom he pulled something out of his pocket and poured it into your glass.  I'm really sorry, Lucky.”

It took me a while to digest everything. Finally, as all the words came swishing together in my head, I leaned forward and buried my face in my hands, trying not to start crying for a second time.

“Oh.  I just...I can't believe this.  I really thought he was a nice guy.  How could I have been so stupid?” I stammered, angrily.

“You were not being stupid.  You were being really smart.  You came here.  This is your territory, you know people here care about you and will look out for you. That was the best thing you could have done.” He was rubbing my back with his hand to comfort me, but I didn’t even notice. I was too busy thinking about what he had just said.

“Yeah, but that wasn't even my idea!  I never would have come here if Noah hadn't brought me the tickets. Oh, my God!  What if we had gone somewhere else?!” I lifted my face from my hands in a panic.

“You didn't go somewhere else. You were here and we stopped him. Nothing happened. You're safe.  You want me to call one of the guys to come and get you?” D. was looking at me the way I assumed my father might have, had he still been around to do so. I knew he was right, that I was safe, but the last thing I wanted him to do was call Gabe or Jason. In spite of everything else I was feeling, humiliated was still rather high on the list.

“No, that's ok.  I just need a minute.  I'll be ok,” I said as reassuringly as I could muster, hoping that he would believe me.

“Ok.  I gotta get back out there, but you stay as long as you want.  Robbie's right outside working the front door, if you need anything.” He rose up from the couch and approached the door. He looked back one last time to make sure I was really alright.