As soon as they arrived at the party, Patrick ditched Kat and made his way to the kitchen where the beer was. He didn't normally drink - he swore off drinking during his freshman year - but tonight he felt it was deserved. He didn't see any other way he could make it through this night.
He spent a good portion of his time just walking around, not bothering to speak to anyone (everyone seemed inclined to do nothing more than get out of his way in any case). He periodically took swigs from his beer bottle, choosing occasionally to swallow a shot of tequila as it came by on a fancy tray. Bogey Lowenstein was throwing a hell of a party.
It looked as though everyone from the senior class was there - and there were also many underclass students as well. From time to time Patrick saw Cameron and Joey mingling with kids, laughing and having a good time. He couldn't help but feel protective and tried to keep an eye on Cameron so that he'd stay out of trouble.
"Well, well, well," Patrick heard a feminine voice purr behind him. Whirling around he found Chastity Donner approaching, a wicked smile on her face as she sidled closer to him. "What have we here?"
"Hey what was that - did a wrinkle just pop up on your forehead?" he asked sarcastically, deliberately staring at her smooth forehead.
Chastity panicked for a moment, her hand going up to her hairline. She restrained herself from taking out her compact to inspect.
Patrick began to turn away, so Chastity murmured, "Where ya going?"
"Away," Patrick gritted out, every nerve in his body tightened into knots at being near his arch-nemesis.
"Your brother here?" Chastity asked, glancing around the living room.
Patrick whirled back to confront her. "You leave my brother alone."
Chastity smirked. "And why should I do that?"
Patrick was just about to tell her why when two fellow seniors began arguing loudly and one took a swing at the other.
Chastity cooed with excitement and called out, "Fight!" As she moved to follow the two fighting boys, Cameron came by her to watch the fisticuffs.
"Well, speak of the devil," Chastity said, flashing her brightest smile at Cameron. She put her arm through his and began to lead him away.
Patrick reached out and grabbed Cameron's other arm, pulling him abruptly aside. "Look, Cameron, there's something I need to tell you."
"Save it, man. I don't need you bringing me down while I'm having a good time. You're not my social director."
With that Cameron jerked his arm loose from Patrick's grasp and quickly moved next to Chastity and escorted her to another room.
Patrick sighed heavily and grabbed a full shot glass from a tray as it floated by. He quickly sucked it down and managed to grab another glass before the tray was completely out of reach.
As Patrick was about to down the next shot, Kat came up to him, frowning and saying, "What's this?" with a pointed glance at the shot glass.
Patrick held up the glass and mocked, "I'm getting trashed, girlfriend. Isn't that you're supposed to do at a party?"
Kat shrugged and said, "I say, whatever you want to do, man."
"Yeah, well, you're the only one." He downed the second shot and wiped his mouth as the tequila burned the back of his throat.
* * *
Bianca and Mandella took their rounds through the rooms at Bogey's house, and Bianca managed to find only a handful of people she knew. Mandella was trying desperately to chat up some boys, to no avail.
Bianca's heart sagged as she realized there was no way she'd find Cameron in the throng of students piled into Bogey's house.
She felt Mandella's hand on her back, nudging her. "What?" she asked.
Mandella's head jerked in the direction just over Bianca's left shoulder, and she said, "Follow the love, my friend."
Bianca turned and saw Cameron and his friend Joey standing near the stairs, talking to each other. With a quick smile at Mandella, she made her way over to Cameron.
* * *
"Where is she?" Joey asked impatiently, looking around the room.
"Who?" Cameron asked, smiling at a classmate walking by.
"Chastity."
Cameron was about the respond when Bianca stepped in front of him and said shyly, "Hey there, Cameron."
"Hey there, Bianca. Looks like your plan worked like a charm, huh?"
Bianca smiled beatifically at him.
"Oh, Bianca, this is my friend Joey. Joey, this is Bianca."
Joey smiled half-heartedly at Bianca, nodding without saying anything.
"I think we share an art instructor," Bianca said engagingly.
"Great," Joey said in a tone that suggested anything but.
"Hey Bianca, would you mind getting me a drink?" Cameron asked.
"Sure! What do you want?"
"Surprise me," he smiled.
Bianca turned away and headed into the kitchen, not seeing Chastity approach Cameron and lead him away into another room, Joey sulking along behind them.
When she came back to the foot of the stairs with a cold soda, she only found Mandella with a sad look in her eye. "Extremely rude maneuver," she said, gesturing to where Cameron and Chastity stood chatting in a corner.
"I'm an idiot," Bianca lamented, putting the unopened soda on one of the stairs. "He doesn't want me at all. He wants Chastity Donner. I'm such an idiot!"
Mandella patted Bianca's shoulder before saying, "Well, at least you're self-aware!"
* * *
"So I've got a summer shoewear gig lined up that's going to be huge."
Cameron tried to look excited, but couldn't quite muster it. Frankly, he was discovering that Chastity Donner liked talking about one thing and one thing only: herself.
"Neat," he finally said.
Unaware of his boredom, Chastity continued, "The best thing, though, is that I'll probably be working the runways next year - my agent said that the Elite Agency is very interested in my portfolio."
When Chastity waved at someone over his shoulder, Cameron quickly seized his opportunity and said, "I'll be right back," before scuttling away from his captor. Finding Joey, he complained, "Is it just me or does this party all of a sudden suck?"
* * *
Kat tried to take away the shot glass from Patrick. If her calculations were correct, he had three beers and five shots of tequila. Not a good mix.
"Let me have that," she urged, reaching for the glass one more time.
"Get your own, dammit," Patrick muttered, keeping his glass well out of her reach.
Kat sighed in exasperation, hands on hips as she perused a very drunk Patrick Stratford. "That's not fair," she said, "You're taller than me."
Patrick managed a slurry grin, his eyes at half mast.
Very sexy eyes, I might add, Kat thought to herself.
She felt a hand on her arm and turned and found Chastity Donner grinning at her. Kat allowed herself to be led away from Patrick, but turned so she could watch him as he half-stumbled into the dining room, which was being used as a dance floor.
"A deal is a deal," Chastity crowed, slipping some bills into Kat's hand. "I don't know how you did it, but I'm impressed."
"Impressed with what?" Kat asked as she impatiently pushed the money into her back pocket.
"He's almost acting like a human," Chastity replied, nodding in Patrick's direction.
Kat glanced over towards Patrick again and found him climbing onto the dining room table as a new thumping track began playing.
Chastity crowed with delight and began laughing at Patrick as she moved toward him. She looked back at Kat with a wide grin on her face, at Patrick's expense.
Kat rushed to the edge of the dining room table and glared up at Patrick who was dancing by himself, completely oblivious to the fact that he was basically doing a table dance for his fellow students.
Suddenly he straightened up and in doing so banged his head sharply on the chandelier hanging just next to his head. Kat gasped as he began a slow descent to his knees, and she caught him as he slumped over in her direction.
The crowd applauded, thinking this was part of the act. Horrified at his accident, Kat managed to drag his heavy body from the table and out into the backyard, where she plopped his body into a lawn chair.
Kat slapped him gently on the face, saying, "Patrick? Can you hear me?"
Patrick moaned and knocked her hand away, muttering, "Yeah yeah yeah. I'm fine."
His head wobbled to the side and Kat said, "You are anything but fine right now, young man."
Patrick moved to get out of the chair and slurred, "I just need to lie down for a while."
Kat held him up, not allowing him to pour himself onto the ground. "You fall asleep, honey, you may not wake up."
She propped him back into the chair and bit back a smile when he grinned boozily at her. Nice smile, she thought, He should flash it more often.
From behind Kat heard, "We need to talk."
Kat turned and saw Bianca standing there, in an obvious sulk.
"I don't have time right now, Bianca," Kat retorted, gesturing towards Patrick. "I'm a little busy."
"It's off. The deal's off."
Just then Patrick's head flopped back, his eyes closed, mouth open. Kat reached behind his head and ran her fingers into his thick hair, bringing his head forward to a more natural position. At the same time she said to Bianca, "What are you talking about?"
"He wants Chastity, not me. So forget about the whole thing."
Exasperated, Kat let go of Patrick's head and moved over to Bianca, grabbing the younger girl by both shoulders. "Do you like the boy, Bianca?"
Bianca nodded glumly, eyes downcast.
"Then go get him. Don't let anyone make you feel like you don't deserve what you want."
Bianca looked up at Kat, seeing the earnestness in her eyes. Then Kat let her go and went back to Patrick's side, kneeling beside his chair and softly slapping his face to wake him up.
Kat was oblivious to Bianca as she stood Patrick up, feeling his knees wobble as he leaned heavily against her. "Come on, buddy boy, we need to get you walking."
"That's so patronizing," he protested mildly.
"Leave it you to you use multi-syllabic words even when you're drunk."
Kat spotted a pair of swings in the backyard and led him in that general direction.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Patrick asked, trying to focus on each step he took.
"I told you," Kat replied easily, enjoying the feel of Patrick's arm as it wound around her waist.
"You don't care if I die!" he proclaimed as Kat settled him into one of the swings.
"Sure I do," Kat countered, sitting in the other swing next to him.
"Why?"
"Well, because then I'd have to go after guys that actually liked me."
"As if you could find one," Patrick said cruelly.
Kat merely laughed and said, "See - there's that. Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?"
Kat looked over just in time to see Patrick pitch backwards in the swing and dove to catch him before his head hit the hard ground below.
"You're like a weeble!" Kat said. Pausing a moment she finally asked, "Why do you let her get to you?"
"Who?"
"Chastity Donner."
"Ugh. I hate her."
"I can tell. She must have done something pretty bad to make you mainline tequila all night. You don't seem the type to do that. I figured you were above all that."
"Well, you know what they say -" Patrick never finished his phrase, his head dipping against the chains holding him in the swing. His eyes were closed and it was obvious to Kat that he had passed out.
She rushed up from her swing and grabbed Patrick's shoulders, standing in between his legs as she held onto him and shook. "No no no, sweetie, you have to stay awake."
Patrick's eyes popped open and he stared up at her. "What?"
Kat sighed with relief, smiling down at him. Patrick smiled back, taking note of the sparkle in her eyes. "You have pretty eyes. They have a little bit of green in them."
Without saying anything further, Patrick suddenly lurched out of the swing and puked on Kat's shoes.
"How romantic," Kat muttered.
He spent a good portion of his time just walking around, not bothering to speak to anyone (everyone seemed inclined to do nothing more than get out of his way in any case). He periodically took swigs from his beer bottle, choosing occasionally to swallow a shot of tequila as it came by on a fancy tray. Bogey Lowenstein was throwing a hell of a party.
It looked as though everyone from the senior class was there - and there were also many underclass students as well. From time to time Patrick saw Cameron and Joey mingling with kids, laughing and having a good time. He couldn't help but feel protective and tried to keep an eye on Cameron so that he'd stay out of trouble.
"Well, well, well," Patrick heard a feminine voice purr behind him. Whirling around he found Chastity Donner approaching, a wicked smile on her face as she sidled closer to him. "What have we here?"
"Hey what was that - did a wrinkle just pop up on your forehead?" he asked sarcastically, deliberately staring at her smooth forehead.
Chastity panicked for a moment, her hand going up to her hairline. She restrained herself from taking out her compact to inspect.
Patrick began to turn away, so Chastity murmured, "Where ya going?"
"Away," Patrick gritted out, every nerve in his body tightened into knots at being near his arch-nemesis.
"Your brother here?" Chastity asked, glancing around the living room.
Patrick whirled back to confront her. "You leave my brother alone."
Chastity smirked. "And why should I do that?"
Patrick was just about to tell her why when two fellow seniors began arguing loudly and one took a swing at the other.
Chastity cooed with excitement and called out, "Fight!" As she moved to follow the two fighting boys, Cameron came by her to watch the fisticuffs.
"Well, speak of the devil," Chastity said, flashing her brightest smile at Cameron. She put her arm through his and began to lead him away.
Patrick reached out and grabbed Cameron's other arm, pulling him abruptly aside. "Look, Cameron, there's something I need to tell you."
"Save it, man. I don't need you bringing me down while I'm having a good time. You're not my social director."
With that Cameron jerked his arm loose from Patrick's grasp and quickly moved next to Chastity and escorted her to another room.
Patrick sighed heavily and grabbed a full shot glass from a tray as it floated by. He quickly sucked it down and managed to grab another glass before the tray was completely out of reach.
As Patrick was about to down the next shot, Kat came up to him, frowning and saying, "What's this?" with a pointed glance at the shot glass.
Patrick held up the glass and mocked, "I'm getting trashed, girlfriend. Isn't that you're supposed to do at a party?"
Kat shrugged and said, "I say, whatever you want to do, man."
"Yeah, well, you're the only one." He downed the second shot and wiped his mouth as the tequila burned the back of his throat.
* * *
Bianca and Mandella took their rounds through the rooms at Bogey's house, and Bianca managed to find only a handful of people she knew. Mandella was trying desperately to chat up some boys, to no avail.
Bianca's heart sagged as she realized there was no way she'd find Cameron in the throng of students piled into Bogey's house.
She felt Mandella's hand on her back, nudging her. "What?" she asked.
Mandella's head jerked in the direction just over Bianca's left shoulder, and she said, "Follow the love, my friend."
Bianca turned and saw Cameron and his friend Joey standing near the stairs, talking to each other. With a quick smile at Mandella, she made her way over to Cameron.
* * *
"Where is she?" Joey asked impatiently, looking around the room.
"Who?" Cameron asked, smiling at a classmate walking by.
"Chastity."
Cameron was about the respond when Bianca stepped in front of him and said shyly, "Hey there, Cameron."
"Hey there, Bianca. Looks like your plan worked like a charm, huh?"
Bianca smiled beatifically at him.
"Oh, Bianca, this is my friend Joey. Joey, this is Bianca."
Joey smiled half-heartedly at Bianca, nodding without saying anything.
"I think we share an art instructor," Bianca said engagingly.
"Great," Joey said in a tone that suggested anything but.
"Hey Bianca, would you mind getting me a drink?" Cameron asked.
"Sure! What do you want?"
"Surprise me," he smiled.
Bianca turned away and headed into the kitchen, not seeing Chastity approach Cameron and lead him away into another room, Joey sulking along behind them.
When she came back to the foot of the stairs with a cold soda, she only found Mandella with a sad look in her eye. "Extremely rude maneuver," she said, gesturing to where Cameron and Chastity stood chatting in a corner.
"I'm an idiot," Bianca lamented, putting the unopened soda on one of the stairs. "He doesn't want me at all. He wants Chastity Donner. I'm such an idiot!"
Mandella patted Bianca's shoulder before saying, "Well, at least you're self-aware!"
* * *
"So I've got a summer shoewear gig lined up that's going to be huge."
Cameron tried to look excited, but couldn't quite muster it. Frankly, he was discovering that Chastity Donner liked talking about one thing and one thing only: herself.
"Neat," he finally said.
Unaware of his boredom, Chastity continued, "The best thing, though, is that I'll probably be working the runways next year - my agent said that the Elite Agency is very interested in my portfolio."
When Chastity waved at someone over his shoulder, Cameron quickly seized his opportunity and said, "I'll be right back," before scuttling away from his captor. Finding Joey, he complained, "Is it just me or does this party all of a sudden suck?"
* * *
Kat tried to take away the shot glass from Patrick. If her calculations were correct, he had three beers and five shots of tequila. Not a good mix.
"Let me have that," she urged, reaching for the glass one more time.
"Get your own, dammit," Patrick muttered, keeping his glass well out of her reach.
Kat sighed in exasperation, hands on hips as she perused a very drunk Patrick Stratford. "That's not fair," she said, "You're taller than me."
Patrick managed a slurry grin, his eyes at half mast.
Very sexy eyes, I might add, Kat thought to herself.
She felt a hand on her arm and turned and found Chastity Donner grinning at her. Kat allowed herself to be led away from Patrick, but turned so she could watch him as he half-stumbled into the dining room, which was being used as a dance floor.
"A deal is a deal," Chastity crowed, slipping some bills into Kat's hand. "I don't know how you did it, but I'm impressed."
"Impressed with what?" Kat asked as she impatiently pushed the money into her back pocket.
"He's almost acting like a human," Chastity replied, nodding in Patrick's direction.
Kat glanced over towards Patrick again and found him climbing onto the dining room table as a new thumping track began playing.
Chastity crowed with delight and began laughing at Patrick as she moved toward him. She looked back at Kat with a wide grin on her face, at Patrick's expense.
Kat rushed to the edge of the dining room table and glared up at Patrick who was dancing by himself, completely oblivious to the fact that he was basically doing a table dance for his fellow students.
Suddenly he straightened up and in doing so banged his head sharply on the chandelier hanging just next to his head. Kat gasped as he began a slow descent to his knees, and she caught him as he slumped over in her direction.
The crowd applauded, thinking this was part of the act. Horrified at his accident, Kat managed to drag his heavy body from the table and out into the backyard, where she plopped his body into a lawn chair.
Kat slapped him gently on the face, saying, "Patrick? Can you hear me?"
Patrick moaned and knocked her hand away, muttering, "Yeah yeah yeah. I'm fine."
His head wobbled to the side and Kat said, "You are anything but fine right now, young man."
Patrick moved to get out of the chair and slurred, "I just need to lie down for a while."
Kat held him up, not allowing him to pour himself onto the ground. "You fall asleep, honey, you may not wake up."
She propped him back into the chair and bit back a smile when he grinned boozily at her. Nice smile, she thought, He should flash it more often.
From behind Kat heard, "We need to talk."
Kat turned and saw Bianca standing there, in an obvious sulk.
"I don't have time right now, Bianca," Kat retorted, gesturing towards Patrick. "I'm a little busy."
"It's off. The deal's off."
Just then Patrick's head flopped back, his eyes closed, mouth open. Kat reached behind his head and ran her fingers into his thick hair, bringing his head forward to a more natural position. At the same time she said to Bianca, "What are you talking about?"
"He wants Chastity, not me. So forget about the whole thing."
Exasperated, Kat let go of Patrick's head and moved over to Bianca, grabbing the younger girl by both shoulders. "Do you like the boy, Bianca?"
Bianca nodded glumly, eyes downcast.
"Then go get him. Don't let anyone make you feel like you don't deserve what you want."
Bianca looked up at Kat, seeing the earnestness in her eyes. Then Kat let her go and went back to Patrick's side, kneeling beside his chair and softly slapping his face to wake him up.
Kat was oblivious to Bianca as she stood Patrick up, feeling his knees wobble as he leaned heavily against her. "Come on, buddy boy, we need to get you walking."
"That's so patronizing," he protested mildly.
"Leave it you to you use multi-syllabic words even when you're drunk."
Kat spotted a pair of swings in the backyard and led him in that general direction.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" Patrick asked, trying to focus on each step he took.
"I told you," Kat replied easily, enjoying the feel of Patrick's arm as it wound around her waist.
"You don't care if I die!" he proclaimed as Kat settled him into one of the swings.
"Sure I do," Kat countered, sitting in the other swing next to him.
"Why?"
"Well, because then I'd have to go after guys that actually liked me."
"As if you could find one," Patrick said cruelly.
Kat merely laughed and said, "See - there's that. Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?"
Kat looked over just in time to see Patrick pitch backwards in the swing and dove to catch him before his head hit the hard ground below.
"You're like a weeble!" Kat said. Pausing a moment she finally asked, "Why do you let her get to you?"
"Who?"
"Chastity Donner."
"Ugh. I hate her."
"I can tell. She must have done something pretty bad to make you mainline tequila all night. You don't seem the type to do that. I figured you were above all that."
"Well, you know what they say -" Patrick never finished his phrase, his head dipping against the chains holding him in the swing. His eyes were closed and it was obvious to Kat that he had passed out.
She rushed up from her swing and grabbed Patrick's shoulders, standing in between his legs as she held onto him and shook. "No no no, sweetie, you have to stay awake."
Patrick's eyes popped open and he stared up at her. "What?"
Kat sighed with relief, smiling down at him. Patrick smiled back, taking note of the sparkle in her eyes. "You have pretty eyes. They have a little bit of green in them."
Without saying anything further, Patrick suddenly lurched out of the swing and puked on Kat's shoes.
"How romantic," Kat muttered.
