12
Oh Sean. Why do you do this to me? Every time. I mentally cussed Sean from my spot overlooking the garage on Han's loft. A grease covered Sean was hard at work on the Evo. He had been for four hours. I had spent most of that time sprawled on the loft couch waiting for him to hurry.
It was my seventeenth birthday and also Halloween. It was weird not having in of our strange family traditions today. I had refused to celebrate it with anything big like some people had wanted. Sean had been supposed to take me out for dinner, but instead had left me waiting for him in a nice, new dress and heels. I should have known better than to dress up.
I could feel the loft practically shaking with the sound of Han's Halloween party. A bunch of models were swarming the VIP room in tiny dresses and animal ears. I kept telling Han that he should just skipped the Halloween party and just have his big birthday party. He just laughed and told me it would it would still be the biggest party in Tokyo that night. Our birthdays were only two weeks apart.
I was in the middle of glaring at Sean's back when Twinkie walked up and pulled me in a hug.
"Happy Birthday, baby girl. Feelin' any older?"
"Yeah. After waiting on Sean these past couple hours I feel ancient." I exaggeratedly drew out the last word at his back. Twinkie started laughing, I had been making comments like that at him for the past hour and a half and it was driving him crazy.
"I heard that." Sean yelled. I rolled my eyes.
"You two are something else." He joined me on leaning on the railing. "You look good by the way." He pointed at my new dress. It was black and fit very tightly.
"Thanks. Figured I'd try something new."
We filled the next ten minutes with companionable chatter. Twinkie made several attempts to drag me out to the dance floor in the VIP room, but I stubbornly refused. Finally he gave me another birthday hug and walked back to the party to chase some models.
"Hurry up before I die of old age." I called down to Sean.
"I think old age is the least of your worries." Han teased from behind me as he tapped the side of my temple that held the scar from the encounter with the Osaka Yakuza. I jumped slightly. When I turned around I was expecting to see women hanging off of him, but he was actually alone.
"Yeah, heart attacks are also on the table." I teased back. He chuckled and handed me a full glass of champagne. I took it and started sipping.
"Why don't you come back to the party." He said as he glanced at Sean over the railing.
"He's got maybe fifteen minutes left, then a shower, then he'll be done." I answered.
"I'm done now. I'll be ready to leave in a minute." He said in exasperation. I thought I heard him mutter "demanding woman" under his breath as he walked to the bathroom, but I couldn't be sure. I smirked at his retreating back. Han pulled me toward the couches.
"Happy birthday." Han said as he sat beside me. I gave him a muttered thanks and continued to sip on the champagne.
"I know you said no presents, but-"
"No, Han." I cut him off. He ignored me and pulled a box out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He dropped in my lap.
"Everyone figured just one joint present wouldn't hurt." I glanced at Han who gestured at the box. I opened it and pulled out a very expensive looking pear shaped ruby with a diamond butterfly perched at the point on a silver chain. I stared at it in awe for a minute before pulling it out of its box.
"It's beautiful. I'm not used to big presents." I said as I held the ruby in my hand. . It was perfect for the dress I had picked out with Neela for Han's party.
Han pulled it out of my hands and fastened it around my neck. I pulled my hair out of the way for him.
"Not that big. You don't smile like that often.' He teased. I just shook my head slightly. "Neela said you didn't have any jewelry." Han commented as I struggled to look at the pendant. I really needed a mirror. I can't decide if I hate her matchmaking attempts or love them.
"I didn't. The only things I had packed were a cigar box full of pictures, a falling apart book of poetry, snacks, and a change of clothes. In hindsight, it should have just been clothes."
Han chuckled and threw his arm over the back of the couch like he did when the models were laying all over him. I wanted nothing more than to just put my head on his chest, but I forced myself to exercise some self-control and just leaned my head on the back of the couch. I yawned sleepily. I hadn't realized how tired I was until I sat down. Han dropped his arm around my shoulders when I didn't move closer. I rolled my eyes in annoyance, but didn't move.
"Sean always make you wait this long for dinner?" I felt his words rumble in his chest.
"If it wasn't Sean, it was Brent. One year on Brent's birthday, he took so long working on his car that Sean, Dad, and I ate his cake for dinner." He chuckled. "A lot of family dinners have taken place at Waffle House because it was the only thing open that late."
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I was almost asleep when I heard the music get louder. Twinkie appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Yo Han, everyone's looking for you." I moved off of him so he could get up. "Elle, have ya'll still not left yet?" He asked incredulously.
"I'm here." Sean grumbled as he walked up the stairs looking much cleaner.
"Finally." I teased. I hauled myself off the couch.
"Dang, I'm real glad we let Neela pick that out." Twinkie pointed at the necklace. I walked over and pulled him into a hug.
"Thanks, Twinkie." Our wonderful, little happy moment was ruined by Sean's obnoxiousness.
"Hurry, I'm hungry." Sean called as he walked towards his Evo. He flicked my ear as he walked by. I glared at him around Twinkie before rushing to join him. I called out my goodbyes and thank yous over my shoulder as I took the steps two at a time.
Z
"I love that on you." Neela said when I tried on my dress for Han's party with the necklace the next day. "Were you excited when Twinkie gave it to you?"
"Han did, actually. And, yes, I was. I didn't know what to do, I'm not used to big presents." I replied with a smile.
"Han gave it to you?" She grinned mischievously. "We were going to throw you a party, but Sean told us you would hate it. We settled on one gift."
"Which you did a good job with." I told her as I looked in the mirror.
"It was a big day for you; you're finally old enough to have a driver's license." She joked. I grinned in response. I had been driving since I was twelve. "How was Han's party?" I watched her expression change to a smirk in the mirror. She'd been trying to fix us up since the day after I got my skull cracked by the guy in Osaka.
"I didn't go. I sat in the loft and tried to get Sean to hurry up. It was past midnight by the time we got to dinner."
"So Han left the party to wish you a happy birthday." She stated. I knew where she was going with this.
"So did Twinkie." I pointed out. "Han only left for a minute."
"Not what Twinkie said." She said in a sing-song voice.
"What is with you two?" I huffed. "Nothing is ever going to happen between me and Han. Ever." I added emphasis on the last word. She just shook her head. "He doesn't date younger girls. He mentions it to D all the time."
Based on her face she obviously didn't believe me. She probably knew about our make out session on his bed last week.
"He also mentions you to Twink. He doesn't do that about anyone else."
"He mentions Reiko to Twink." I reminded. She sighed in exasperation.
"I will make sure you are Han's girlfriend if it's the last think I do. Not fling, either. Girlfriend." She stood up from her spot leaning on my bed and came to stand beside me in the mirror.
"Not ever gonna happen." I replied. It was true. Han and I had a pseudo conversation about me not staying away from him, but it hadn't gone past that. He also hadn't tried to kiss me at all since last time. The only thing different was that he wasn't ignoring me anymore.
"Let's make a bet." She said cockily. "Give me six months." I turned to face her completely.
"Deal."
Z
The sheer amount of people rippling like the ocean to the loud, pounding bass made my head spin. The VIP room was filled with spindly legged models in dressed that came nowhere close to covering their behinds. There were plenty of people I'd never met before-mostly models who had gotten in from Milan, Paris, or wherever and Japanese guys in suits crammed against the walls with glasses of champagne. I started to panic a little when I couldn't find anyone I knew in the mass of people.
I clutched Han's present in a death grip with one hand and fidgeted with the cream colored fabric of my dress with the other. I scanned the swarming crowd hoping I would see at least one familiar person, but I didn't have any luck. I could tell where Han was because of the models surrounding him and blocking my view, but walking towards him would look desperate and would give the models a great excuse to tear me to shreds. I was feeling like an overdressed little kid at an adults' party.
I forced my feet to move from my spot by the door and walked unsteadily over to the gift table in my way too high new heels. I thought I caught a glimpse of the back of Earl's favorite button up shirt, but I wasn't really sure. I set Han's new watch on the table stacked with neatly wrapped presents. I hadn't had any gift ideas for Han until three days ago when his favorite watch slid off and shattered on the concrete floor. I found him a replacement fairly easily.
I started nervously messing with my necklace. I gave the crowd a second look for anyone familiar, but quickly gave up. I really hated parties. I hated being alone in crowds. This was like the ninth level of hell for me.
"Damn girl, if you weren't almost a midget I wouldn't have recognized you." I breathed a sigh of relief when Twinkie wrapped his arm around my shoulder. We pushed through a couple of dancing models towards and empty round chair. There wasn't room for both of us to sit side by side, so I wound up perched on his knee.
"Is it always like this?" I asked Twink. He cupped his hand around his ear and pointed towards the speakers. The music was almost unbearably loud as close to the speakers as we were.
"You've seen the girls at the races. You've seen the girls at the parties. This is all the girls together. Models flew in from everywhere to be here." He gestured towards the crowd. "Han is the most eligible bachelor in Tokyo. You got a lot of competition."
I started laughing when he gave me his most serious look. I laughed even harder when he tilted his head to the side even more and tweaked his eyebrows. I lightly punched him in the arm and shook my head.
"I'm not competing." I answered, trying to stop laughing.
"So far you haven't had to." Twinkie answered. I rolled my eyes and started scanning the crowd again.
People watching was a great hobby to have in Tokyo. You never knew what you were going to see. So far, not much was going on, but when the champagne was almost gone, drunk watching would get entertaining. I started looking for familiar people in the crowd, but I still didn't see anyone. I couldn't even see the birthday boy from behind the ever growing swarm of skankily dressed models. I started scanning the crowd for my Sean.
"Looking for Han?" A grinning Twinkie yelled in my ear. I rolled my eyes.
"Sean. Usually if there's cake, he's somewhere close."
"You missed the cake." I gave him a horrified look. He laughed unsympathetically. "You're late."
"You saved me some right?"
"Eliana? Eliana Gonzalez?" A man's shocked voice stopped Twinkie from answering. I twitched at familiar voice and glanced over to see the surprised face of Shi, my dad's former crew member. He was a tall, clean cut Chinese man in an expensive suit
"Shi?" I whispered. Something in the back of my brain screamed that this was wrong. I wasn't supposed to talk to my family members according to Kamata. Shi was also best friends with my uncle, so I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to him anyway.
"You don't look like the little girl I left in Arizona." He commented.
"It's been a while." I answered.
He was right; I really didn't look like myself. I was a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl, with the exception of my few girly moments. Tonight I had on a cream, strapless ruched mini dress that actually fit my skinny frame. It showed off my tiny hips gracefully and ended just above mid thigh. Its light color made my tan skin stand out. The ruby hung around my neck and added a splash of color.
Neela twisted my hair into a low, wavy pony tail. I had cut my bangs that morning to hide the obvious white scar above my temple. Neela had also lined my eyes in more eye liner than I had ever worn in my entire life. The end result was gorgeous, but it really didn't feel like me.
After several minutes of catching up with Davis, I finally remembered Twinkie. I felt my face blaze red hot as I attempted to stammer out introductions. They shook hands and Twinkie left to go somewhere else. As Davis and I took the chair Twinkie and had vacated, I saw him walk past Sean and Neela who had just walked through the door to the garage. I made a mental note to bug her about it later.
Z
"But that was before I spent the summer in the Virgin Islands. You remember my beach house there?" I smiled and nodded when he looked at me for an answer. I rolled my eyes the second he went back to his favorite topic: himself.
He had yet to ask why I was here. I had a sneaking suspicion he knew and didn't care. I had tried to get away many times, but I was crammed in back part of the chair with him perched at the very edge. There was no way for me to gracefully get around him in this stupid short dress.
His flirty, arrogant personality usually drove me insane, but I was so glad I was talking to someone from home I didn't even care at first. He filled me in on all the things I missed in the last couple months. I started to feel homesick all over again hearing all of the things I missed out on.
That excitement quickly wore off. His arrogant, slimy personality started to grate on my nerves. His stories started to shift from family members to what he'd been doing since I'd last seen him. They also started to get outrageously exaggerated.
I thought I heard my name mentioned between Twinkie and another guy, but Shi obnoxiously chose this moment to creepily put his hand on my thigh. His obnoxiously flirting and complete disregard for personal space were pissing me off. I opened my mouth to threaten him when someone cut me off.
"Eliana. There you are." Han said a little too loudly. He gave Shi a quick nod and pulled me out of the chair. Shi was forced to move to let me out. "You weren't going to talk to the birthday boy?"
Han didn't wait for my reply before leaning down and kissing me. I tried to pulled back almost immediately expecting only a peck on the lips, but Han wouldn't let me. I blushed bright pink and tried to shove him off. Han never did anything like this in public and I was freaking out knowing everyone was watching.
"Down boy. He got the point." I hissed in his ear when he finally let me go. I felt him smirk against my cheek as he pulled me toward a grinning Twink.
"How do you know him?" He asked quietly.
"My dad's team member and my uncle's best friend. He was a used car salesman from Hong Kong that sold the cars he boosted. He's a pretty good driver and he was good when the team got in a rough spot, but he's just-" I gave a disgusted shudder and trailed off looking for a word to describe him. Han let me trail off without finishing the thought.
He put his hand in the small of my back and pushed me towards Twinkie. I glanced around the room to see most of the models around the fringes of the dance floor now had a deadlock stare on me as the slowed to swayed instead of dancing like they were before. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end slightly as I got a little uncomfortable.
"There he is." Twinkie pointed to an oil stained Sean who was dancing with Neela. She had pulled him back to dancing with her instead of confronting me for my show of PDA.
"Glad you finally answered my question." I flicked him on the bicep. He jerked away from me. Han shook his head and poured me a glass of champagne.
"Behave and enjoy the party." He pecked me on the cheek before ducking into the crowd again.
Z
I tottered unsteadily on my death trap shoes as I swayed with the music beside Alden. I could feel the red flush from laughter on my face. I had a little too much champagne and wound up on getting dragged on the dance floor by Twinkie. I was completely shocked that for the first time ever at a party like this I was actually having fun.
Sean had talked to me for a second about staying away from Davis and then disappeared off with Neela. I had actually made friends with a few of the less jealous models. I caught a glimpse of Nozomi, Han's fling that I ran off, clinging to the lapels of his tan blazer trying to talk to him. I looked back ten minutes later to see her red with fury and glaring at me.
I was purposely ignoring that corner of the room and putting all my focus on standing up in those shoes. I felt someone touch my back and almost slipped. Someone put their hands on my hips to steady me. I turned my head around to see Han.
"Thought you didn't dance." He teased.
"Twinkie talked me into it." I tried to step away but he tightened his grip on my hips. I pulled his hands off and moved away. People knew we had something going on, but I didn't want them to know too much about it.
I was having an awesome time when my phone rang. I cursed my bad luck and slipped out the garage door to answer it. I was praying that it wasn't Kamata. I dug it out of my dress pocket to see D's number. I groaned at flipped it open.
"Hello."
"You're at Han's party with Neela, right?" His accent filtered through the earpiece. His voice lost the usually arrogant edge, which gave away his concern. For once the wanna be bad boy sounded desperate.
"Yeah." I answered flatly. Oh, please don't do what I think you're gonna.
"Watch Neela. Keep her and that gaijin away from each other." He ordered. Oh, someone's feeling threatened.
"Look, I don't work for you. Even if I did, that is just wrong. She's not cheating on you. You're freaking out over nothing." I wandered over to Sean's hoodless Evo and ran my hand over the exposed engine. He'd really redone a lot.
I could almost see D run his hands through his short hair and sigh from his place behind his desk. His hesitation told me he was irritated and about to come down here himself. D was really predictable; especially when it came to stalking his girlfriend.
"Look, you haven't asked for my advice but you're going to get it." I moved away from Sean's car as I talked. I didn't want engine grease on me and I knew he didn't want me adjusting anything. "This was supposed to be a fun girls' night where she helped me look like a girly girl and we came here and had fun. If you get possessive and try to break that up, it doesn't make you look good. You will look desperate and girls don't like desperate."
"Which is why I told you to keep him away from her." He said stubbornly through clenched teeth. I rolled my eyes and completely tripped, smacking hard into the floor. I pulled myself up gracelessly and pulled at my hair. I'm really glad no one saw that.
I pulled myself up on Han's perfectly organized desk and rubbed my aching ankles. I took my time looking at my now bruised knees to make D sweat a little.
"I don't like it." I finally told him. "But just for tonight, since I'm here with Neela, I'll save you the trip."
"You'd better make sure nothing happens." He snapped and hung up.
"Humh, rude bastard. Didn't your mama tell you not to be an ass then hang up on people?" I asked my phone as I closed it.
"Did you just agree to spy on Sean and Neela?" I jumped from shock and almost sent my phone crashing towards the concrete. After some fumbling I finally caught it. I looked up to see Han looking at me with an unreadable expression.
"I decided I'd save D and Jackass the trip. But I might have a little problem with keeping my promise." I stated innocently. "I can't seem to find them right now and my feet are hurting, so I'm not going to go look. Guess they'll have to handle themselves." I shrugged. Han started chuckling.
He walked over until he was right in front of me. He ran his thumb over my soon-to-be-bruised knee.
"Guess you saw that, huh?" I felt my face flush.
"I've seen worse." His hand moved up to my lower thigh. I squirmed a little. "Why'd you call him D? I'm usually the only one who does that."
"I don't think 'king' is going to be in his title much longer, do you?" I smirked and nodded my head at Sean's Evo. Han laughed.
"Shouldn't you be back at your party?" I asked when he didn't move to leave.
"Shouldn't you be keeping tabs on the kids?" He shot back.
"I drive fast cars with illegal crap in the trunk for the real Yakuza. Stalking people is the wangster's grunts' job." I answered.
"Yeah, you're not exactly stealthy enough to stalk people." He joked and pushed his thumb against my wounded knee.
"Oh, go back to your hoes." I answered when I couldn't think of a comeback. He chuckled.
"I think I'm good here." He leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine.