"You think she's here?" Simon leaned in close and spoke too loudly in his ear, over-compensating for the volume of the music.
Alex sat on a small folding chair – his ass damn near falling asleep – and took a swig off his beer. "I wouldn't know, would I?" he groused.
Overeager and anticipating the opportunity to see his mystery woman again, Alex had insisted on arriving at Suzie Quinn's Halloween party early. Three miserable hours later and he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of showing up at all. He had absolutely no good reason to believe that she would be here tonight other than the fact that Suzie and Andrew were friends and kept much of the same company.
He had kept his erotic little secret to himself after Andrew's party, not telling anyone about the woman who had led him into a closet and jerked him off but refused to tell him anything about herself, including her name. Then she turned up at the mall, pulling him down a service corridor and giving him head then and there. After that, Alex revealed everything to his brother, Danny, and best friend, Simon, and they began a mission that rivaled covert military operations to find out who this woman was. Nothing had come of their efforts yet, but if she'd been at Andrew's party six weeks ago, somebody had to know her, must have invited her. And perhaps she'd been invited again tonight. Maybe.
But now, it was already past midnight and all Alex had to show for his efforts was a stupid, borrowed pirate costume that reeked of Simon's Drakaar Noir and an aching bladder from too much beer.
"Hey, don't bitch at me, mate," Simon said amicably, a slight lilt in his British accent. "I've done my share to find this bird for you."
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry, man. I'm just getting annoyed."
"Course you are. You got your willy all in a twist, thinking she was going to pull you into some dark corner again. Blue balls'll make any man snap at his best mate. Believe me, I'm looking to relieve some of my own pressure tonight."
"What happened to Celia?"
Simon made a dismissive noise, "Stuck up bitch."
Alex smiled, remembering that he hadn't liked Simon's latest girl when he'd met her at Andrew's party. "I could've told you that."
"So why didn't you?"
"You've got to call me more often."
"What?" Simon dug the plastic elbow pad of his Darth Vader costume into Alex's arm. "And interrupt your busy schedule of getting blow jobs in shopping mall toilets?"
Alex breathed a laugh. "It wasn't in the toilets."
"Whatever, mate."
"Well, speaking of toilets." Alex stood up and snapped his cane out straight. "With any luck, I shall return much later, a much happier man."
"May the force be with you, young padawan."
A slight sense of déjà vu overcame him as he made his way around the corner to the bathroom. He kept expecting to feel her hand on his arm, smell that perfume he'd never smelled on anyone else, but the hallway in Suzie's house was not as secluded as Andrew's. There were too many people around. He hated having to work his way through crowds, especially when house parties started to pick up and drunks were weaving and staggering in his way. It added a fresh dimension of challenge to navigating unfamiliar areas. He breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door, dampening the volume of the music.
When he stepped back out, Alex was immediately swept up in the movement of bodies around him, carried in the opposite direction he wanted to go, closer to the dining room. Somebody slipped an arm around his waist and said "hi" in his ear.
"Hello," he grinned. Having never heard her speak above a whisper, he could not be sure this was the woman he'd been waiting for but his hopes were high and the odds were looking good, all things considered.
The stench of beer plumed out like a cloud of car exhaust as she leaned heavily against him and slurred, "I don't get your costume."
As a joke, he'd worn a patch over each eye.
"I'm a pirate," he said. "And I'm blind." This wasn't quite the level of repartee he was used to from her, but then, she'd never been this drunk before.
"But how can you see like that?"
"I can't." He held up his cane. "I'm blind." Definitely not her.
"So, your costume..." she hesitated.
"I'm blind," he said slowly.
"Like, for real blind? Not a costume, blind?"
"For real blind."
"Oh."
Alex smiled thinly and pressed forward, letting the crowd take him from her grip. She did not try to stop him. He turned to orient himself back toward the safety of boredom in the living room but, again, the crush of people forced him around, into the dining room. Something was drawing them here in greater numbers. He steadied his feet as best he could and listened for clues, though he had a bad feeling he already knew what was happening.
Above the din of music and conversation, the voices of three men were growing increasingly heated. Though he couldn't make out exactly what was being said, there was no doubt this was an alcohol-fueled confrontation.
Alex took a step back from the raised voices, trying to feel behind him for a wall, table, anything to anchor himself to, but there was only a moving wall of bodies. The cacophony was unmistakably building to a fight. Instead of trying to placate the combatants, people around were egging them on. This would turn physical very soon and it was no place for him to be standing around.
He reached out to his left, hoping to find the wall that led him down this corridor, but the surge of bodies and the sound of fists connecting had already started. He was swept in the sudden crush of people acting as one animal, being pulled closer to the fight instead of away from it.
Trying to push against the wave would have been difficult enough, but pressed in like this, his cane was useless and he stumbled and rocked on his feet. It was not often that panic hit him but he was well aware that if he fell there would be little chance of getting back up unharmed.
