Page 94 of Wrecked

“Well, we usually play basketball at this time,” he said.

“I’m usually not grounded,” I joked.

“I was thinking…you have to practice, and since basketball is homework, I don’t think your parents would mind if I tutored you.” His face was stone-cold serious.

I tilted my head at him. “Uh, as much as I appreciate the creativity of your rule-breaking, I don’t think that would fly.”

“I’ll allow it,” a little old lady said from the porch.

I yelled to her, “We don’t even have a hoop!”

“Great! Then, we’ll work on defense,” Adam said as he started dribbling the ball around me.

I rolled my eyes and pointed up at Grandma. “This is all on your watch.”

She sat back, as if she were about to watch a riveting show. “If you get in trouble, I’ll take the fall.”

When I looked back at Adam, he had a grin on his face. “So will I.”

Taking the boulevard further down, there is an abandoned paper factory. The building has been used sporadically through the years. A movie was filmed here. The town was so excited. The production took twelve weeks, but you would have thought it was a year by the way people revamped their businesses and dressed differently in anticipation of celebrities strolling by.

That movie eventually finished filming, and the building was abandoned once again.

For a short time in high school, it housed a club. On Thursdays, they had teen nights. We went there a few times. Adam’s mom or my dad would drop us off. Even after Brad and Adam had their licenses, we would still get dropped off. Our parents didn’t like the idea of us walking to our cars in the darkened areas. We weren’t up to anything secretive, so we welcomed the free rides and cabbed it home.

As I’m staring at the building, I can’t help but fight the haunting feeling as I recall the last time we were here.

“Come on.” I tried pulling Suzanne up with me onto a giant speaker.

It was four feet tall and just as wide. Girls were always dancing on top.

She voraciously shook her head. “No way! I’ll look like an idiot up there.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and climbed up onto the speaker. Suzanne pulled down my skirt to make sure I wouldn’t show off my backside.

As soon as I got up there, I started to dance. My arms and elbows shot out to the sides. Swaying my hips and mixing in some samba and hip-hop moves, I let the music take over me—the pulse of the song swimming through me, the beat making my feet slide and my back twerk. I ran my hand through my hair and swished my head to the side. My knees rose up as the beat kicked it up a notch. Using every move I had in my choreographed body, I felt the rhythm, felt the energy…felt alive.

As I danced, Suzanne danced with me from the floor. She thumbed over toward the bar and mouthed the words, I’m gonna go find my brother.

I nodded, letting her know I’d heard her. Brad was somewhere in the club, too. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I looked around, trying to find his dark hair.

When I spied the front of the bar, I saw Adam. He had his back to the counter, and he was staring my way. I waved, and he waved back.

I gyrated and ground my body, my moves getting more sensual with each song. I closed my eyes and let my hand roam down my throat and across my chest. The low-cut top I was wearing made my skin visible all the way down to my breastbone. It was a backless halter with a long gold chain down the back. I’d worn another shirt over it, so my parents would let me out of the house, and then I’d ditched it as soon as I got in.

When I opened my eyes, Adam was still at the bar, still looking my way. We had been spending more time together lately. The four of us would go on double dates, and Adam and I would play basketball after school.

His eyes were straight on mine as I got a little more daring. My hands moved down my stomach and over my thighs, sliding up the insides as I dipped my ass, nearly touching the top of the speaker, and then I shot up with a curve to my back.

I was having fun, dancing and being crazy, when a guy climbed up beside me. The speaker was too small for the two of us, so I knelt down to climb off. The guy pulled me by the shoulders and tried to make me stand. I shoved him off and jumped down.

Pushing through the crowd, I tried to make my way to the bar. The easiest way to make it through a sea of dancing people was to dance as you walked. My fingers glided along the back of some girl’s mesh shirt, and I got bumped into an overly sweaty guy.

Someone came up from behind me, circling my waist and pulling me back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I didn’t know the voice, and I didn’t like his tone.

Turning around, I saw it was the guy who had climbed onto the speaker with me. I moved to the side and tried to get around him when he grabbed my forearm. I looked down at his fingers on my skin.