Here goes nothing, Alise thought to herself as she walked to Camila's waiting car in front of her home. It was the middle of March, so the sun had set a little more than an hour ago or so, and a chill hung in the air making her shiver. She always got cold very easily so she ran to the car and all, but dove into the passenger seat. Camila laughed.
"Chilly?" she asked snidely. She did a quick run down of Alise's outfit, and shook her head saying, "You look nice!"
"Thanks," Alise responded. She was wearing a black dress that went to about three inches above her knees and had long sleeves. It was very modest, and yet looked fantastic on her. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but she always looked better without it.
The homes in her 'neighborhood' were all spaced out about a quarter of a mile apart from each other. Alise always liked this because it gave everyone their privacy, but you could always easily walk from home to home. Tono's house was about two and a half miles from her's, so they decided to drive there instead of taking a chance walking home in the dark. Alise never liked going to his place. It seemed that trouble always followed Tono wherever he was and whoever he was with. She had a bad feeling about going tonight, and yet she didn't want Camila going alone.
"So who's coming tonight?" Alise inquired as they drove. Camila looked sheepishly at her.
"Well Tono, for obvious reasons, Saaaal," she gently elbowed Alise while saying his name, and then suddenly started to speed up, "Alejandra, Daniel, Felix, Isabella, Hector, maybe a few others-"
"Stop," Alise said fiercely. She looked at Camila with a pointed expression. "Who did you say? After Daniel?"
Camila tried to look confused. "Isabella?" Alise sighed.
"You know who I mean! Felix is coming?"
"Maybe..." she said guiltily."He doesn't even know if he's definitely coming."
Alise scoffed. "Of course he'll come! And when he does he'll bring booze, girls, and drugs! And three smokes and five beers later, he's gonna become a grabby, drunken mess! Somebody's gonna get hurt and unfortunately it won't be him!"
Camila continued to drive and stare out the front window, not wanting to look Alise in the eye. "You wanna go back?" she asked quietly. She knew Alise was right, but she still wanted to go.
Alise sighed. "No. I'm not letting you go to a party alone with that prink on the loose. He seems to gravitate towards you for some reason. He can't keep his hands off your ass."
Camila smiled. "Thanks, Lise. I owe you."
"Yeah, you do."
The rest of the short car ride was driven in silence, and after a few minutes they pulled into the jam-packed driveway of Tono's home. Tono's family had a little more money than most of the people in the neighborhood, and his house was generally larger also. When they pulled up, they noticed it was brimmed with people. Music was blaring inside so loud you could hear it crystal clear outside and lights were flashing in every room. There was already a group of guys outside walking around disoriented and suddenly one of them turned away from the group to throw up in a nearby bush. Alise turned to face Camila.
"A few others, huh?" she asked pointedly. Camila smiled guiltily. Suddenly, another drunken mess banged into the car on Camila's side, making the two of them jump. The man, who turned around and saw the two of them staring at him in the car, starting slurry apologizing "Sorrrry!" in English, and started to bang on the window as if they weren't paying attention to him. After a few seconds of this, Camila got tired of him pounding on her car and she rolled the window down.
"Hey, Sherlock! Quit banging on the damn car before I bust your ass!" she yelled back at him, also in English. His expression suddenly turned angry.
"Ah just trying to apologize, lady," he said, and then started to try and open the door, but Camila locked the door before could. However, not getting the hint that he couldn't get it to open, he continued to try and started slamming his hand on the door. Camila sent a scared look towards Alise.
"What do we do?" she asked quickly.
"Ummm..." Alise was trying to think of something, but suddenly, the man was jerked away from the door by a large silhouette.
"May ah help you?" the drunk started to say. The tall, dark figure had taken the drunk by the arm and lead him in front of the car away from the girls and onto the ground.
"Leave the ladies alone, sir," they heard him say calmly, and yet he still didn't take his hand off the drunk.
"Says who?" the drunk spat back, trying to look the man in the eyes, but he couldn't turn around.
"I do." He said this in a firm and hard tone that was frightening to listen too. At the same time, he pushed the drunk harder into the ground beneath him and he started to panic.
"Hey, hey I'm sorry man! Just let me go!"
The man smirked and pulled him up. "Go."
Without hesitation, the drunk started to run away, stumbling in his still hazy state. The man turned towards the girls and smiled. They then realized who it was. Camila turned to Alise and smiled brightly.
"Our hero!" she squealed and the two began to exit the car.
Sal was your typical 'Mr. Tall, Tan, and Handsome.' He was about 6'3, lean yet muscular, had dark skin, hair, and eyes, and was incredibly nice to look at. Camila used to joke that he could be the newest model on the Abercrombie and Fitch shopping bags. Or at least his abs could be. Either way it'd make for a happy public. The two girls walked over to him.
"Glad you could make it," he said in Spanish, smiling at the two and they both embraced him. Alise and Camila grew up with Sal, and for the past few years, he had developed a thing for Alise. She did like him, just not like that. To her, he was the brother she never had. And though Camila knew she felt this way, she always liked to make a big show if he was coming to a social gathering, thinking it was hilarious that she didn't like the man with the face of a Greek god that liked her back.
"Thanks for that," Alise said smiling at him.
He laughed. "No big deal. I couldn't let my ladies be hurt by a drunken dick, now could I?"
"I would hope not," Alise responded laughing herself. "Speaking of drunken dicks, is Felix here?"
Sal tried to suppress a laugh. "Got here about 10 minutes ago."
"Alone?"
"Ha! Nope. He came with two girls named Juana and Lola, two packs of cigarettes, and a keg bigger than my truck. In fact, he's the reason for most of the drunken episodes you will see here tonight."
"Fabulous."
Camila decided to end the conversation. "Well I don't know about you two, but I'm cold and I like this song," she said regarding the music that was currently blasting through the house. "I'll be inside, if either of you care to follow me." She started to walk into the house, past the group of drunken guys.
"Coming?" Alise asked Sal.
"After you."
Alise was able to avoid Felix and Tono for a good hour and a half before she accidently ran into both of them in the living room. The two had been best friends since they were young, and their troublemaking went hand in hand. Even when they were kids, she knew they weren't good people to be hanging around with. In fact, she believed that it was the two of them that prompted her father to get her to take a self defense class. She hoped she could get through the night without seeing either of them, but unfortunately she turned the corner right into them, both of whom were incredibly drunk and laughing hysterically at something that happened to the two before she came face to face with them. When they saw her, their eyes lit up.
"City girl!" the two of them yelled together, and they started to hug her uncomfortably. Any form of physical contact with them caused her to tense up, which she did, and they noticed.
"Aww, what's wrong, city girl?" Tono asked, mocking hurt. He smelled of beer and stale crackers. "You think the big city makes you all special now? You don't want us to hug you anymore?"
"Never did, Tono," she said back. "Please let go of me." The two pulled back.
"Don't be that way, city girl," Felix said. "Here, let me change your mind about us country folk again." He started to come towards her with his hands and she knew exactly where this was going. She took a step back.
"Touch me and I scream," Alise said. Felix stopped.
"Well then. And here I thought you used to be a little fun, Brown. Guess I was wrong! Seems you've gone off and become some tart bitch!"
Alise stayed quiet and stuck her ground. She knew that Felix wanted her to freak, and she wasn't going to give him a show.
"Now, now," Tono interjected trying to defuse the tension, "it seems here that we all need to get reacquainted. I think we should take a little walk!"
"A walk?" Felix scoffed. "Why in the hell would I want to go on a walk at 9:30 at night?"
Tono smiled. "You know those meteors that hit last night?"
"Yeah."
" Well, one of them landed on my land! About two miles past the fence!"
Alise chocked an eyebrow. "You were supposed to call the police about that," she decided to add. Tono looked at her and rolled his eyes.
"Aaa, I will. Eventually. But for now, I think we should check it out! This thing was huge! At least the size of my house!"
Felix shrugged. "Sure, what the hell." He turned to Alise as Tono said, "Alise?"
She exhaled. "I don't know." There was no way in hell she was going to go out on a happy hike with these drunks alone.
"Come on, city girl! You can bring you friend along, what's her face, umm, Claudette!"
"Camila."
"Whatever. What do you say?"
Alise thought for a moment. She didn't really want to go, but she didn't want the jerks to think she was backing down. Camila would be with her, and she would definitely ask Sal to come too. She sighed.
"I'll do it."
Hi everyone! What do you think so far? As always, I own nothing!
~Mel