Chapter 3

After sharing an eye roll with Brooklyn, Addy turned to the blonde guy standing next to Adam. He had his phone out and was typing something on it. When he paused, she tapped his arm. 

 “Hey,” she said. “I’m Addy. You’re Jeremy, right?”

 He didn’t answer, so she leaned in closer and repeated herself in a louder voice. 

 “Hey, I’m Addy. You’re Jeremy, right?”

 He turned to her with an annoyed look on his face. 

 “Yeah, I’m Jeremy,” he said before turning back to his phone. 

 Addy sighed and rolled her eyes. Then she tapped his arm again. 

 When he turned around to look at her with an annoyed glare, she smiled her sweetest smile at him and asked, “Do you come to this club a lot?”

 He stared at her for a long moment before shrugging and saying, “I come here now and then with Adam and Ben.”

 “It doesn’t seem to be your thing tonight, though,” she said. 

 He shook his head, then smiled at her. 

 “I’m sorry about the way I’ve been acting,” he told her, fully turning around to face her. “I had a rough day at work, so I wasn’t in the mood to come out tonight.”

 He glanced at Adam making out with Shea, then looked back at Addy.

 “He convinced me to come, saying Shea had two pretty roommates that would be here tonight,” Jeremy continued. “I hoped it would take my mind off of work.”

 “What do you do for work?” Addy asked. 

 He glanced toward Ben, who was deep in conversation with Brooklyn, and said, “I work with Ben and Adam.”

 “Doing what?” 

 He glanced down before asking, “We work in the entertainment business.”

 Addy nodded with a doubtful look on her face. 

 Then he looked her over, from her face to her feet and back again. She felt self-conscious of her strapless top and miniskirt and shifted so that the table covered more of her lower body. 

 “You know, you could be in the movies,” he told her. 

 She nodded, then said, “Thanks, but it’s not my thing. I’m more into fashion.”

 Looking her over again, he said, “Such a shame. I think you’d make it big.”

 She smiled at him, shaking her head.

 He leaned in closer and asked, “Would you like a drink? You look thirsty.”

 Before Addy could answer, Adam leaned in and said, “That’s a great idea. I know I could use a drink. How about you, Shea?”

 Shea nodded and fanned herself again. 

 “A nice cool drink sounds good about now,” she said. 

 “How about you let us guys go get you ladies something to drink?” Adam said, looking around the table. 

Brooklyn and Addy looked at each other before nodding. 

 “We’ll be right back then,” he said. Turning to Shea, he added, “Don’t miss me too much.”

 She smiled at him and said, “I can’t promise that.”

 Brooklyn and Addy rolled their eyes at each other once more.

 The three guys left the table to head to the bar, weaving in and out of the people. The three friends watched them go. Then Shea turned back to Brooklyn and Addy. 

 “Are you two having a good time?” she asked. “Isn’t Adam the best? How are his friends?”

 “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the ladies’ room,” Brooklyn said. “Nature calls.”

 She made her way toward the toilets, passing the bar along the way. She saw the three guys huddled together as they waited for their turns to order the drinks. 

 On the way back from the toilets, Brooklyn saw the bartender put their drinks in front of the guys and walk away. She was making her way toward them to help carry them when she saw each guy reach into his pocket and pull out a small container. She watched in horror as they dumped the contents into one glass in front of them, leaving the other untouched. 

After witnessing the guys putting something into their drinks, Brooklyn turned away before they could see her and hurried back to the table.

 “Yay! Brooklyn’s back!” Shea said, throwing up her arms and grinning at her friend as she neared the table. 

 “What’s wrong, Brooklyn?” Addy asked, seeing the worried look on her friend’s face.

 Brooklyn reached out and grabbed both of her friends by the arms to pull them close to her. 

 “Whatever you do, don’t drink the drinks the guys are bringing us,” she told them in a low voice. 

 “What?” Shea asked, pulling her arm away. 

 “Don’t drink the drinks!” Brooklyn said. “Switch your drink with the guys’ drinks, but drink nothing! I saw them put something in one drink, but not the other.” 

 The smile fell off of Shea’s face, and she asked, “What? Are you sure?”

 Brooklyn nodded and said, “I was going to help carry the drinks back to the table when I saw the guys put something in them.”

 Shea and Addy looked troubled, but before they could say anything more, Brooklyn nudged them and said, “Here they come now. Act natural!”

 She pasted a smile on her face as Ben walked up to her and handed her a drink. 

 “Thanks,” she said and put it on the table. 

 Ben frowned but said nothing. He took a sip of his drink as he glanced out at the dance floor, then set the glass down. 

 Jeremy handed a drink to Addy, who smiled as she took it. She also put it on the table without taking a drink. Jeremy took a sip but held on to his glass. 

 Adam gave Shea her drink, then held his up to her. She took it from him and clinked his before putting the glass up to her lips. 

 Looking over his shoulder, she gasped and asked, “Isn’t that Vince Sherman?!”

 Adam, Jeremy, and Ben all turned to look. Jeremy set his glass down as he craned his neck to look. 

 “Where?” Adam asked, looking back at Shea. “I don’t see him.”

 “There,” Shea said, pointing into the crowd. “Right beside the girl with the bright pink hair.”

 He, Ben, and Jeremy moved away from the table to get a better look. Shea gave Brooklyn and Addy a look before switching her drink with Adam’s. Brooklyn and Addy did the same. 

 Adam looked back at Shea and said, “I don’t see him. Are you sure he was there?”

 Shea looked in the direction she’d pointed and frowned. 

 “I swore he was there a second ago,” she told the guys. “Sorry about that.”

 Ben and Jeremy moved back to their places and picked up their drinks.

 “I thought you girls were thirsty?” Adam asked, taking another sip of his. 

 “Actually, we’ve got to use the ladies’ room,” Shea said, picking up her purse and looking at Brooklyn and Addy.

 The two women nodded and picked up their purses as well, following their friend as she walked away from the table. 

 Instead of going into the toilets, Shea kept walking until they were outside the club. Then, without saying a word to the other two, she flagged down a cab. 

 “Come on,” she told them as the cab pulled up to the curb. “We’re going home.”

 The ride back to their apartment was silent as each friend thought about the events of the evening. 

 No one spoke until they got back to the apartment and shut the door behind them. 

 “I’m sorry, guys,” Shea said as she angrily kicked off her shoes. “I never thought Adam or his friends were the types that would drug a girl’s drink.”

 Brooklyn reached out to hug her friend, saying, “You couldn’t know. I’m just thankful I saw it before any of us took a drink.”

 Addy joined in the group hug and said, “Yeah, who knows what they would have done to us if we’d drank them.”

 Shea nodded and said, “I’m thankful we made it out of there with nothing bad happening.”

 “Not to us, at least,” Brooklyn said, giggling. “I can’t say anything about those guys, though.”

 The three friends giggled as they hugged before heading into their own rooms for the night.