THE TOWERS AT the Waldorf…
I thought I’d prepared myself for what I’d find when I stepped out of the taxi Caleb and I had taken from my dorm. But as it pulled inside a drop-off point and a valet opened our door and took care of the fare, I felt as though I’d left reality and entered a new world.
One where money wasn’t a factor and ease was the name of the game.
My car door being opened. The entrance at the Towers being held wide. A security guard taking the invitation West had given me and scanning the barcode before ushering me and Caleb inside and sending us up to God knows what floor, because there were no buttons to press. We’d somehow managed to arrive at the right floor, if the giggling girls and whooping guys pumping their fists in the air to the music pounding out of the open door to our left were any indication.
I noticed Caleb hadn’t left the spot where he’d stopped after getting out on the floor. I turned to see him eyeing the door like one might a gangplank and felt a slight twinge of guilt over talking him into coming here tonight.
It was obvious he had some kind of beef with West and his crew, but I’d been so caught up in making new friends and getting to know more people that I’d selfishly pushed that aside, figuring Caleb’s gripe was probably based around the obnoxious way West threw his money around.
The tight jaw and color blooming high on his cheeks at the sight of the open door, however, quickly changed my mind.
“Caleb?” I walked back to where he stood, his eyes still fixated on the door. “Caleb?”
He blinked and refocused on me.
“Look, we don’t have to go. We could leave now and find that dive bar.”
A deep frown formed between his brows as he reached up and readjusted his ever-present beanie. “Nah, it’s okay. You want to see what West and…the rest of them are about. We should go in.”
I couldn’t lie. I did want to know what a condo at the Towers was like and what kind of party someone like West threw. But I didn’t want to do it at the expense of my other friend’s feelings.
“Really. If you don’t want to be here, we can go.”
Caleb’s lips tugged into that half-smile of his, and he shrugged. “We’re here now. Might as well go and drink as much of their liquor as we can. Open bars are rare in New York, unless—”
“You’re a Park Avenue Prince?”
Caleb snorted. “Yeah, something like that. Everything is open when your mommy and daddy pay.”
He had a point. Every time I’d been out with West this week, doors had been opened, tabs had been picked up, and VIP seats had been held. It really was an open-door lifestyle. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever telling West—or the rest of them—no, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine that kind of lifestyle.
“Come on.” Caleb gestured toward the door. “Let’s go. The sooner we get in there, the sooner we can get out.”
While I knew Caleb was dreading every step he took, I was feeling a different kind of emotion altogether. My heart was thumping and my palms were a little sweaty, and as I gave myself another quick once-over, I realized I was nervous. I’d never been to a party like this. Hell, I hadn’t known parties like this existed. So I had no idea what I should be wearing or whether I should’ve brought anything.
The second I stepped inside the condo, though, the notion that I could contribute anything to a party like this became absolutely laughable.
West’s condo looked eerily similar to the club we’d gone to the other night, except this one had VIP views of the Manhattan skyline. The condo’s lights were off, and in their place were flashing spotlights that kept beat to the music the DJ was blasting. People bumped and grinded up against each other in the center of the space.
Now, I knew this was where West and his friend East lived, but there wasn’t one piece of furniture in the entire area that was currently full of drinking and dancing partygoers, and I wondered where the hell it had all gone. Surely they wouldn’t have moved out their entire living room just for a party.
Then again, I was learning never to underestimate these guys—though something about imagining West living in a place like this without a couch had me suppressing a chuckle.
“All right, if we’re gonna last more than five minutes, we need drinks and we need them now,” Caleb said, pointing out the bar. I nodded, following him through the throng of people, which was harder than it looked. This was where West would’ve come in handy—he’d make all those people part like the Red Sea.
Speaking of West, I hadn’t seen him yet, and that made me grateful Caleb had agreed to come with me. I couldn’t imagine navigating the party on my own.
“What’s your poison?” Caleb asked.
Bottles and bottles of liquor, wine, and beer were displayed, and though I wasn’t new to drinking socially, my mind went blank when I saw all the options.
“Uh. Whatever you’re having.”
That was easiest, and even if it turned out to be something I didn’t like, at least it was something new to try. Expand my horizons and all, right? Hell, that was what I was doing here in the first place.
A few minutes later, Caleb handed me a bottle of beer with a name I couldn’t even pronounce—German, maybe?—and I sniffed at it, frowning.
He laughed and tapped his bottle to mine. “Just try it.”
I took a hesitant sip, and pulled a face. Nope. That shit was foul. But I wasn’t about to say that, not when the alternative was having to fight my way back to the bar for something else.
“That’s…interesting,” I said, forcing myself to try it again. What was that I always heard about beer? It was an acquired taste. Just how much was I gonna have to drink to acquire the taste to this one?
“Every bottle of alcohol you can imagine, and you give him a bottle of piss?”
West’s voice rose above the crowd as he came up beside us, and relief swept through me. He smiled at me as he approached, and something looked different about him tonight. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, only that he gave off a more magnetic vibe that had your attention falling—and staying—on him.
When West’s eyes fell on the beer in my hand, his nose wrinkled in distaste. “Caleb Reeves, I thought you knew JT better than that.”
He lifted the beer from my grasp and handed it to Caleb before giving me his own drink, the same cocktail I’d had with him at the concert.
West’s hand moved to my lower back as he leaned in to my ear, and my body jolted in response. Whether it was from surprise at his touch, the heat of his fingers, or…something else, I didn’t know.
“Hold on to this one and I’ll get you something you’ll enjoy a hell of a lot more,” he promised.
His fingers brushed along my lower back as he pulled away and walked to the bar, and as I watched him go, I realized what was different. Every time I’d seen him, West had been wearing what I’d consider a “rich preppy” style—lighter colors, fitted slacks, and button-ups. But tonight he was in all black, including the pinstripe pants that clung to his hips and ass. The tight black t-shirt he wore showcased the muscular physique he didn’t usually put on display, and—
“You’re staring.”
I blinked, focusing back on Caleb. “No, I’m not. I was just…making sure he was really heading to the bar.”
“Uh huh.” He studied me as he took a long pull of his beer, leaving my bottle to dangle between his fingers at his side. The crowd only seemed to grow as we stood there, packing into the condo so that no matter where you stood, there was a body bumping into yours.
Someone tripped into me from the side, and I caught her with my free hand, helping her stand back upright.
“I’m so sorry. These heels…” She trailed off as she looked up at me and smiled.
“No problem,” I said, still gripping her for balance. “You good?”
Her smile grew as she batted long, dark lashes. “No, I’m Phoebe. And you are…?”
“JT.”
“Nice to meet you, JT. You go to Astor?”
“Yeah, just started. You?”
“No, I’m at Columbia. Not too far away for a lunch date.” She punctuated that with a wink, and I couldn’t hide my surprise at the way she got right to the point.
Phoebe was a knockout, that was for sure—long black hair to her waist and a tiny strapless top that left little to the imagination. There was no way a girl like her was hitting on me, not with the room full of better-looking guys that had several zeroes in their bank account.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other sometime,” I said, giving her a small smile, along with an out to go hook a bigger fish.
Confusion marred her brow, but she nodded and took a step back. “See you around, JT.”
As she disappeared back into the crowd, Caleb said, “Not your type?”
“Huh?”
“She’s hot.” He gestured with his bottle in the direction Phoebe had just disappeared. “She not your type?”
“Oh, I mean, I think she’d be any guy’s type if he had a pulse.”
“Not mine.”
I narrowed my eyes as Caleb took a swig of his beer, but when he didn’t elaborate further, I decided to let it go. It had been hard enough to get him to come to this party to start with—I wasn’t going to start being a busybody.
“I just got out of a relationship,” I explained when he didn’t say anything else. “Not a serious one, but, you know, a high school thing. She went to L.A. and I came here—”
“Ah, but it was a her.”
I chuckled and took a sip of the drink West had left me with. “Yeah, why?”
“It’s just with the way you were looking after West, and how he’s been all up in your business, I thought that maybe…”
“Maybe what?” I’d just been watching him go and get a drink. I knew West was into guys, but I wasn’t watching him like that. I was just keeping an eye on the only other person I knew at the party.
“I thought you might be into guys,” Caleb finally spelled out loud and clear, in case I hadn’t picked up on his not-so-subtle line of questioning.
So much for not wanting to be a busybody.
“Nope. Always dated girls. You?”
Caleb coughed around his swallow of beer. “Girls too. But I don’t really go for the dark-haired types.”
Phoebe definitely hadn’t been for him, then. “Gotcha. Well, I’m not really looking to hook up the first week of college anyway.”
“Now where’s the fun in that?”
I whirled around to see West standing behind us with two glasses in hand. “Of course you’d say that.”
“Of course I would.” He handed one of the glasses to me as he took my empty tumbler and palmed it off to one of the passing staff. “I told you, I’m here to show you how to have fun through college.”
I chuckled and took a sip of the new drink. “Mmm, this is good.” I licked my lips as the sweet, creamy flavor hit my taste buds. “White Russian?”
“Sure is. You like?”
I nodded and took another sip, and West’s eyes fell to my mouth. Not wanting to do anything that might mislead him, I flashed him a friendly grin. “I do. It’s one of my favorite drinks.”
“You see, Caleb?” West thumped him on the arm. “Friends pay attention.”
“A little too much attention,” I thought I heard Caleb mutter before a pissed-off voice interrupted the three of us.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing showing up here tonight?”
My eyes shifted past Caleb’s shoulder to where one of West’s friends—Travis, I think he said his name was—stood with his arms crossed over his maroon shirt, a dark look plastered on his face. Caleb’s entire body stiffened, and when he didn’t immediately respond, Travis grabbed at his arm and spun him around.
“I asked you a question.”
Just as I was about to step up and ask Caleb if he was cool, he spat out, “I was invited. So back the fuck off.”
“Bullshit.”
“He’s not lying. I did invite him.” West shrugged and took a sip of his drink.
Travis aimed a fulminating look in West’s direction. “You, shut the fuck up.”
“Geez, man. Angry much? You might want to work out that…frustration.” West grinned around the rim of his glass then winked at me. He was such a shit stirrer, but at the same time I was starting to see he’d been telling the truth about the whole Caleb situation. In less than two sentences it had become crystal clear who in this group of “princes” Caleb had a problem with.
News flash—it wasn’t West.
“A word,” Travis said between clenched teeth, and Caleb glanced over his shoulder at me.
“You gonna be okay for a second here?”
West slung an arm around my shoulders. “He’s going to be just fine. I’ll take care of him.”
Caleb’s eyes shifted between West and myself, and I thought it a little odd he was worried about me when he was the one in the middle of a shouting match. “I’ll be back.”
“Take your time. I’m sure you and Travis have a lot to catch up on,” West said.
Travis vibrated with his irritation. “Fuck you, LaRue.”
“If only that could solve your problem.” West grinned at me. “Come on, do you like cheddar cups with avocado feta mousse?”
