“Where’s your cup?” Raul asked, leaning in against her ear.

“I’m done.” She responded, stretching her neck to speak against his ear.

“Really? Why?” She felt his lips graze her ear, so she took advantage of needing to stretch to speak in his ear to pull away from his lips.

“I’ve had enough. Plus, it makes me have to keep going to the bathroom, and the lines are ginormous now.”

Feeling his hand against her lower back, Raul leaned into her ear again. “Try some of this then.”

She pulled away to see him pointing at his own cup, and she stared at it quizzically. That whole time she’d assumed he was drinking beer like everyone else. He pointed toward the area where the kegs were. “They also have soda over there for the non-drinkers and for those of us who prefer the hard stuff.” He lifted the flap of his vest open to reveal a flask. “Meet Jack.”

Charlee’s drinking experiences were few and far between: the party last year where she drank some beer, but not nearly as much as she drank tonight; wine coolers with Drew every now and then; and a handful of other times Drew had dragged her to parties, but she never actually drank hard stuff.

“Try it,” Raul said, handing her the cup. She took the cup, smelling the contents, and he laughed. “It’s just Jack and Coke.” She took a sip. It wasn’t bad, so she nodded, handing it back. “Drink more than that.” He said, refusing the cup. Charlee took it back and took a longer drink. It tasted mostly like soda, but it did have a slight aftertaste. Otherwise, it wasn’t half bad. “Best thing about it is,” he said, his lip grazing her ear again, but she didn’t pull away this time letting him finish, “you won’t be running to and from the bathroom.”

She handed the cup back, nodding. “Good to know,” she began to say against his ear but froze when she felt his lips on her neck. She jerked her head back when she felt his tongue on her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he smiled. “But after the second or third time of having your neck this close, I couldn’t hold back anymore.” He pulled her closer to him and whispered. “It tastes as sweet as I thought it would.”

Charlee gulped, staring at him. Nothing. It felt nothing like when Hector’s lips had been on her neck. Hector working his mouth down her neck had made her warm and ache in places she never imagined would have any connection with that part of her body. Feeling Raul’s on it had made her shiver, but not in a good way. Stop comparing!

“Thank you,” was once again the only two words she could think of, but she did think of something else that would help her get through this instead of running for her life.

She reached her hand out for his cup, and his satisfied smile made her smile too. Already, she could feel the difference in the buzz this was giving her compared to the beer. It was faster, but it was also numbing, and she liked that. Tonight she needed numb.

Chapter 19

It took a while for Hector to find Nestor when he went back to the training room. Gus and Santos told Hector that Nestor had taken off almost as soon as Hector had. Since he hadn’t been able to find Charlee, Hector thought maybe Nestor had pulled a fast one and found her first.

Luckily for his own sake, Nestor wasn’t that stupid. Hector found him working the girls still lingering around in the crowd again. Once Nestor told him what party he’d told Charlee and Drew to meet him at, Hector rushed out of there. He’d already told Lisa that something had come up tonight and they’d have to grab a burger another time.

As he crawled through the traffic near the house party where Nestor said the keg party was, Hector was already grinding his teeth. He had time to think of what exactly he’d say to her when he got there, but what he wanted to say versus what he could were so far apart that just coming after her almost felt wrong. Then he remembered the real urgency in getting to her, and that pushed any and all hesitation aside. All he could think of was all the other Nestors that would be there, counting on the girls getting too drunk and losing their inhibitions.

It was pathetic really. The only reason Hector went to keg parties was for the booze because they didn’t card you, not to get laid. First of all, Abel had always put the ultimate fear in him that too many things could go wrong if you f**ked a drunk girl: One: she could later claim it was date rape, and in a way, it sort of was. Two: typically if you’re partying with someone who’s that drunk, it means you’re pretty hammered yourself, which would then lead to sloppy sex, and sloppy sex could mean forgetting to use protection or putting it on wrong. If that happened, you had STD’s and pregnancies to think about. No f**king thanks.

But aside from all that, Hector completely agreed with Abel that it was a douche thing to do. Besides, sloppy, drunk girls were not his thing.

Hector finally found a parking spot around the corner from the party. He jumped out of his truck in a hurry. As he stalked down the sidewalk and into the driveway of the house, he realized this was insane. He couldn’t possibly protect her from every ass**le at every party she ever went to. But he had a feeling she’d showed up at 5th Street for him tonight. He still didn’t know what her intentions could’ve been exactly. But he didn’t think that it was something she’d done on a whim. So now he felt responsible for anything that happened to her tonight, especially in his neighborhood. He knew for a fact she wasn’t from around here.

He spotted Drew first. Her platinum-blond hair was hard to miss in the crowd of all brunettes and a few bottle blondes. She was dancing, but the place was so crowded she and the guy she danced with were off to the side. Walking toward Drew, he still wasn’t sure what he’d say to Charlee, but alarms were going off already because, even as he glanced around, he didn’t see her anywhere.