Page 8 of Truth or Tequila (Grand Slam 1)

Chapter Four

seb

“Seb Miller! Seb Miller!” My childhood friend Ricky screams at me as I walk toward the table. As usual, my friends have chosen the most visible table at this stupid bar. They enjoy my fame way more than I do. “Oh my God, can I have your autograph?”

“Sit down, asshole,” I laugh as I shove him on the shoulder.

Everyone on the lower deck is looking up and taking my picture. It’s weird and annoying. The bar’s designed to make the VIP level highly visible to the guests on the deck below. That always seems ironic to me since they do everything they can to hide the bar from people who aren’t lucky enough to get in.

To get to the VIP entrance, you have to walk by a row of palm trees that block the bar from public view. People peer between the tree trunks at arriving celebrities. I always feel like they’re looking at me through the bars of my cage at the zoo.

“Did you have to choose this table?” I sigh as I sit down. “And this bar? It’s the worst.”

“If by ‘the worst’ you mean the most amazing place on earth, then yes, we had to choose it,” Ricky says without looking at me. He’s still waving at the fans below.

Ricky’s one of my three remaining friends. The other two, Paul and Stone, are smiling at me from the other side of the table. We’ve known each other from our grade school days back in Michigan. They still live in the little town where we grew up. They visit me every couple months to make sure I’m not letting the fame go to my head. Besides my parents and my little sister, they’re the only people I trust anymore.

We had another guy in our group growing up, but I had to cut him loose. He asked me for autographed baseballs for his family and then sold them. He made about twenty grand. The crazy thing is that if he needed money, I would have given it to him in a second—no questions asked. I’ve known him since we were eight years old. When you get famous, you have to watch everyone.

“Quite a crowd in front,” Stone says, handing me a beer from the iced bucket in front of him. “Anyone get an autograph?”

“Yeah.” I take a long drink. “A little girl named Belle.”

“Did you see any older girls in the crowd that might get more than an autograph from you tonight?” Ricky raises his eyebrows and grins like the Cheshire Cat. I throw my bottle cap at him.

“Naw, nothing caught my eye.” My mind flashes back to the blonde in the white dress. She caught my eye. I hope Joe got her into the bar because I need to know a lot more about her.

“Nothing you even want to pass onto me?” Ricky loves coming to visit because he gets to bat cleanup for me. I’m never interested in the fangirls that flock around. Ricky, on the other hand, is very interested.

“I wouldn’t subject even my worst enemy to a night with you,” I say, taking a long drink of my beer.

“Well, no worries, easy picking here tonight.” Ricky points past me to the table that’s just over my shoulder, one level down. “Bachelorette party below, and not a loser in the bunch.”

I shake my head. “Why are you the way you are?”

“Because God blessed me with all this greatness when I was born—”

“Can you not leave at home next time?” I turn to Paul and accept the fist bump he offers.

“You know I try every time, but somehow he always makes it onto the plane,” Paul says, looking over my shoulder. He nods. “What’s up, Joe? Good to see you again.”

“Hey, fellas. Glad you made it in okay.” Joe leans down and whispers to me, “White dress just cleared the VIP entrance.”

I nod and try to look subtly over my shoulder. I see her immediately. She’s looking up at me. The minute she sees me looking, she looks down and takes off across the deck. Her long dress is blowing behind her as she power walks to her table. Some guy catches the tail of her dress as she passes his table. She almost falls backward as he tugs at it. He says something to her and all the guys at his table laugh.

I’m about to run down there and break his hand. My body tenses up until she whips the dress away from him and kicks him hard in the leg. She says something back to him and points at everyone around the table. They all stop talking and look down. Damn, she keeps getting more attractive.

She looks up at me and sees me grinning at her like a maniac. I try to control my face, but it’s not possible. There’s something about her that’s made me lose any little bit of swagger that I thought I had. I see a slight smile come to her lips before she looks down again. She starts walking in my direction. As she gets closer, I hear an ear-piercing voice below me.

“Everyone stop what you’re doing!” The woman in the neon orange dress at the bachelorette table—who’s been staring at me since I got here—is screaming. “The queen has finally arrived. And all eyes are on her as usual.”

Orange dress isn’t wrong about that. My eyes haven’t left the blonde once. She ignores orange dress and runs around the table to hug the woman wearing a crown. I’m guessing she’s the bride-to-be.

“It’s not my fault I’m late!” the blonde says as she collapses into a chair, fanning herself with one of those fold-up fans. “Security was holding everyone back so some guy could get in.”

“What guy?” Orange dress looks up at me and winks. I look away. She’s the kind of fangirl I hate.

“Do I know, Savannah?” The blonde lets out a long sigh. I can’t help but stare at her chest as it rises and falls. I would do anything to get a better look. “You know I don’t know who anyone is. That’s your department.”

“Was he an actor or singer?” Orange dress looks up at me again. “Or maybe even an athlete?”

The bride starts laughing. “Like she knows who an athlete is, Savannah. She hates sports.”

“I don’t hate sports,” the blonde says, accepting a glass of champagne from the waiter who annoyingly also seems to be looking at her chest. “I just don’t obsess about them like you do. And I don’t care who the guy was. All I know is he made me late. It’s his fault, not mine.”

I smile to myself as I turn back around to the guys. I made her late. Damn, I’m going to have to find a way to make that up to her. I have so many ideas of how I can do just that.

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