Page 30 of The Other Side of Paradise (Story of Paradise #2)
Allison
We didn’t find any other girls. I wasn’t trying to. Neither was Stella, really.
We joined the floor up on the roof and we danced, Stella sticking close to me, and she leaned in close at points to whisper what I thought of this girl or that girl. I never even looked.
I didn’t care, anyway, and it wasn’t long before she stopped asking, just dancing, moving between the floor and the side of the party, a million people around as it packed fuller for the night but we only talked to each other.
And when it was almost midnight and we left, Stella was a little bit tipsy on a good two drinks, so I offered to drive her back to the resort—it was only a ten-minute walk, but I didn’t want to ditch her while a little drunk to go walk alone at midnight.
Yeah, right. I just wanted to squeeze in a few more minutes with her. Either way, though, she beamed at me and said, “You’re an angel, Allison.”
“I’m patently not. I’m like a scruffy little demon that got kicked out of hell for not even being good at evil and now just kind of drifts around.”
“I bet you could be good at evil, if you committed yourself.”
I laughed, opening the passenger side door for her on my car, the parking lot quiet around except for the distant thump of music from the top of the building and the sounds of bugs and birds in the trees.
“That’s a great compliment. Especially coming from you, the one who’s actually evil. Now get your evil self in the car.”
“Whew, flirting hard.”
I was. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I closed the door for her when she got in the passenger side, and I took the time walking around the car to try to wedge my thoughts back into place.
I was just taking Stella back to her room to make sure she got there safely. There was nothing weird to read into this whole… thing, tonight. She was just looking for some fun dancing.
God, I was so fucking confused.
I got in the driver’s side and started the car, just a few minutes down the road to the resort, where there was still quite some party going on at the poolside bar, but luckily Stella’s room was around the other side, and I got to park on the far side, under the shade of the tall palms around the spa center.
“Walk me to my room, I’m too drunk and I’ve forgotten my room number,” she said.
“You’re not that drunk. And I was going to walk you there anyway. What’s your room number again?”
“24. Ah, shit,” she laughed, raking her hand back through her hair, sweeping it sloppily out of her face. Fuck me, though, flushed-face and messy-hair Stella asking me to go back to her room with her was… good god.
“C’mon, trouble. I’m taking you to your room. Just to make sure you don’t peel off to go make out with someone.”
She laughed. “There were a million hot people at the lounge, and I didn’t make out with one.”
“Uh-huh. Any standouts?”
“You, obviously,” she said with a wink, and I at least had the escape of shutting off the car and stepping out around to her side of the car to gather my thoughts.
“Well,” I said, coming around to where she slipped out of the car, her sleek silvery dress riding up a little as she slid off the seat and down onto the pavement, “congratulations on getting the standout hottie to come back to your room.”
She put a hand to her chest, beaming at me. “You’re making a move on me? I didn’t think you had it in you, Allison.”
“I’m kidding—I mean—what does that mean? I know how to make a move.”
She laughed. “You do not. Okay, let’s go.”
Ugh. I didn’t. I went with her back to the room, past the little botanical garden and up to the boardwalk that led between the rooms, and she swiped her card through the lock, pushing the door open, and I lingered there at the door, watching as she walked through.
“Well, I guess… thanks for tonight,” I said, and she turned on me with a mischievous glint in her eyes, and she took me by the lapel, and my heart jolted when she tugged me over the threshold and into the room.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry? I thought you said you were off tomorrow.”
“I—well, I am,” I blurted, face hot. Stella’s bedroom…
right. It was a little messy, her suitcase lying open on the floor with clothes and personal effects in it, stuff laid out randomly on the shelves, but housekeeping had been through—the bed was made and the bathroom was tidy, wiped down.
It smelled nice… something between lilac and vanilla.
“Take off your shoes,” Stella said, shutting the door behind me. “We’re playing a game.”
“A game. What—kind of game?”
“A game where you sit your butt down and stop trying to run away,” she laughed, giving me a playful shove. “Unless you really need to go somewhere? I can survive on my own if you want to ditch me.”
“No—I don’t.” I hoped that didn’t come across sounding too desperate, like no I would love to spend as much time as you want doing anything you want me to. I think it did. Oh well.
I took my shoes off, and I dropped down on the little couch by the sliding glass doors, where the flowy lavender curtains were sheer enough to show the water rolling in the distance, down the winding slope that led to the beach.
Stella stumbled a little bit while standing on one foot to take her shoes off, but she caught herself on the corner, kicked her shoes off, and made it over to where she pulled a bottle of Bacardi from a cabinet, showing it off.
“This kind of game,” she said, and I flushed.
“A drinking game? You’re already a little tipsy and I cannot handle my liquor.”
“All the better,” she said, trying to twist off the cap and not making it, pursing her lips as she strained to get it open, and she eventually took a handful of the hem of her dress and used it for grip—never mind the fact that that dress probably cost more than I’d spent on clothes total in my life, I only thought about that for a millisecond until the movement lifted her skirt up enough for me to see her underwear while she did it, a soft mint green color with sheer sides.
I… stared. I tried not to, but I did, and I’d forgotten what she was saying when she finally broke the seal, opening the cap and holding it up.
“Very efficient. Barely need to go through any for us to get drunk. Were you staring at my panties?”
“No—I was just—I was worried you’d damage the dress.”
She laughed. “The dress is fine. It’s a good material, it can take it rough.”
“Uh… uh-huh.” She definitely did that on purpose. Why did Stella have me back in her room to flirt with me? I was dying.
She took a set of shot glasses, and she shoved an end table around to the front of the couch, right in the middle, where she set out four shot glasses, and I watched in morbid fascination as she poured out a shot of Bacardi into each one.
“That’s… that’s a lot of rum.”
She set the bottle down with them and dropped onto the other end of the couch, grinning at me.
God, she looked so fucking sexy with her face a little pink and her hair messy, polished look all thrown off from a night of dancing and…
“I know,” she said. “The game goes until all the rum is gone. The question is, who ends up taking how many shots?”
“I could not take more than two.”
“Well, better get me to take at least two, then,” she said, and she leaned in towards me. “So, here’s the game. It’s super simple. I ask a question. You have to either answer it truthfully or take a shot. Then you ask me a question. What do you think?”
Shit, I was about to take four shots of rum. I laughed nervously. “I have no idea what kind of question you wouldn’t want to answer.”
She flicked her hair back. “Then you’re going to have to do your best to keep up. Okay, you go first. What’s my first question?”
Oh, god. I blanked. “What are the first twenty digits of pi?”
She laughed, swatting my leg. “ I don’t know is a valid answer. This isn’t a trivia game, you dork. Try again.”
Okay, right. Yes. I guess… this was my chance to be able to ask whatever kinds of questions I wanted about Stella.
No matter how inappropriate. In fact, the more inappropriate the better.
It wasn’t remotely noble of me to use this to scout out information that was going to turn me on, but what the hell else were you supposed to do with a game like this?
I fussed with the edge of the table. “Okay, um. How many people have you been with?”
“Okay, good start.” She sat back, twirling her hair around her finger, where she was haloed in the soft orange glow of the floor lamp. “I’ve dated three, but if you’re just talking about sex, seven.”
She had so much more experience than I did… “You genuinely have zero reservations, huh?”
“You should have zero reservations too, unless you want to get shitfaced tonight. Okay, my turn,” she said, eyes lighting up. “How many people have you been with?”
I groaned, a hand over my face. “Um. I’ve dated two. I’ve slept with… two.”
I could see her calculating it in her head—I had mentioned I’d slept with someone who I hadn’t dated. I helped her out.
“My first girlfriend and I were like… chaste.”
“Oh, I get it.” She laughed. “You were fifteen, right? You’re so sweet and innocent. I was absolutely having sex at fifteen.”
“I was fifteen, she was fourteen…” Stella was twenty-one. She’d been having sex for six years. Was that average? God, maybe I was a loser.
“Oh, okay,” she said, relaxing. “Okay, your turn, your turn. Ask a question.”
My face was hot, and I picked at the edge of the table more intently. “You said you’ve slept with seven people, so… which one was the best?”
She laughed, eyes sparkling. “Oh, god, that’s a good one. His name was Ken.”
“Like, Barbie and Ken?”
“Yup. His parents were Japanese, he was born in the US, they thought it was a good name that was both Japanese and American, and they weren’t prepared for how many people would make jokes about the doll. We were friends, he was in my geography class in my last year of high school.”
“And you started dating?”