Page 7 of Gabriel's Salvation

“My friend’s older brother makes them for cash, so I paid him $30 for it.”

“Well then it seems a waste not to use it,” Carly says with a wink. “ You owe it to Stacey to celebrate her birthday in style.”

For the next hour we drink, chat and have fun. After some persuasion, the girls got me to agree to let them give me a makeover to make me look older.

“All done,” Molly says, stepping back to admire her handwork.

“What do you think?” she asks, guiding me over to the full length mirror on the back of the bedroom door.

I barely recognize the person staring back at me. My long blond hair cascades down my back in loose curls, and my usual minimalistic makeup has been transformed into smokey eyes and dark red lips. And they've dressed me in one of Lexi’s short red dresses. Unfortunately while Lexi is relatively small in the chest department, I'm a little more filled out. I wouldn't exactly say huge. But in this dress, my C cups look more like DDs.

“I can't wear this, Justin will kill me,” I gasp, trying to pull up the tight fabric, hoping to hide my now huge chest. What do I have to lose? Maybe this is what I need to do to get his attention?

“Screw him, I think you need to show my brother what he’s been missing.”

“You’re right, fuck it,” I shrug.

“That's my girl,” Lexi says, clapping her hands.

“Now down your drink we gotta go,” Carly says, thrusting yet another full glass into my hands.

“One last finishing touch,” Lexi says as she opens her wardrobe and removes a shoe box from inside. Rummaging around she finally shouts “Got it!” before walking over to me and pinning a big 21 TODAY badge to my chest.

“Now we can go!”

I walk downstairs and stand in the doorway of the lounge. “Hey Justin, I'm going out with Lexi and her friends, do you want to join me?”

“Fuck’s sake, I’m busy,” he snaps, not even turning his head to look at me.

“Fine, then I'll go without you,” I snap back, slamming the door behind me.

We make our way to one bar, where we meet Lexi's long-term boyfriend, Brett and a couple of his friends. “Wow, is that you Freckles?” Brett says, looking at me wide mouthed.

“Nope, for tonight it's Stacey,” both Lexi and Molly giggle.

“Well then, since it's Stacey's 21st, I think we need to celebrate properly,” he laughs, throwing his arm around my shoulder.

“Alex, the birthday girl needs a cocktail,” Brett proclaims to his friend who heads straight to the bar then returns a few minutes later with a huge fishbowl and eight straws.

Together we down 1…then 2…then 3 fishbowls, before two of the guys say they have to leave.

“Let's move on to another place,” Carly suggests, “I know a bar with the hottest bartender.”

“Cause that's exactly how I choose my bars,” Brett grumbles.

“Come on grumpy pants, it's just round the corner,” Carly laughs, poking her tongue out at him.

Once inside we waste no time finding a huge booth in the back.

“I've got an idea, truth or dare,” Lexi says cheekily.

We play a few rounds, Carly is made to rub a bald guy's head, Brett is made to find another random guy to swap shirts with, and his friend Alex gets made to get the number of some old cougar. But now it's my turn.

“You've gotta get the hottest guy in here to buy you a drink,” Lexi challenges.

“Fine.” I look around and there aren’t many options. There are a few guys in their mid-twenties near the jukebox, but I quickly decide not to approach them. I'm not shy by any stretch of the imagination, if anything, my friends would say I'm too confident and flirty. But it's one thing being flirty with the dumb guys around school, it's a whole different thing doing it with grown men.

I scan the room some more and spot a couple of possibilities, and am just about to make my way over to two guys sitting a few tables over when Carly suddenly shouts, “Him!”

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