A Beautiful Fate by Unknown Page B

how to get there.”
    Emily Martin I am going to hurt you.
    “Ari knows.” She hopped out of the car, opened his door and had him switch places with her. Ari climbed into the front and my mind went fuzzy. He smelled so delicious. Like summertime, baio should bottle him. Margaux would make a fortune.
    As soon as my engine purred to life, the gentle croons of Nick Drake rang out through the speakers. Ari smiled up at me and turned the tune down a little so he could tell me how to get to the bar.
    He gave me turn-by-turn directions and I pulled into a gravel parking lot fifteen minutes later. I started getting nervous. What was I thinking of, trying to sneak into some bar? This idea was so stupid. I looked at the group of people, I hardly knew, climbing out of my car. I looked up at the neon sign that was flashing Hellenes’ Hideout in blue and white. The sign had a dancing, fat man in a toga with a green vine wrapped around his head; he was holding a glass of wine. Every time the sign would flash, it would look like his wine was spilling out of his goblet. Emily and her crew started towards the front door where the bouncer stood. He had a big shaved head and a leather vest on. His face was full of silver piercings. Lovely . My door came open, breaking me from my panic attack. Ari held his hand out.
    “Coming?”
    “Uh, I don’t know.”
    “Don’t worry. Stay with me and you’ll be fine.”
    The prospect of staying by Ari all night made me forget all my qualms.
    I climbed out and Ari wrapped his arm around my waist, causing my stomach to do a million back flips, and walked me across the parking lot to the bar’s front door. Emily and her friends had all shown their ID’s and had been allowed in with no issues. Ari nodded at the door guy and he nodded back and let us in. No questions asked, no ID’s given.
    As soon as we walked through the door, Ari’s arm quickly released me and he took a giant step away from me. I could feel my heart sink – so much for staying by him all night.
    As soon as Ari let me go, I was quickly engulfed in a big bear hug from Rory. He picked me up off my feet and spun me around twice.
    “Ava!” He hollered. “I didn’t know you were coming. What an awesome surprise.”
    I smiled a weak smile at Rory and as he talked, he led me to a table close to where the band was setting up their equipment. Rory introduced me to his brother, Nick, and Nick’s friends, Collin and Misha.
    Nick looked just like Rory except that he was a little taller and maybe a little leaner. He was super friendly and told me how he had graduated from DPI two years ago and he was a full-time student at Pepperdine. Collin was quiet and didn’t say much to me, but he still seemed pretty friendly. He had short-cropped blonde hair and dark-rimmed, square glasses. Misha was sweetly pretty and quite talkative. She told us about being in school with Nick and about being good friends with the singer in the band, Rachel. She promised the show would be a good one.
    I sat down next to Nick, across the table from Rory. Ari took a seat next to Rory and talked amicably with Nick most of the evening. Emily stayed on the dance floor with Sophie, Viola and Sam. They stopped dancing just to get another drink or pee, as far as I could tell. I wasn’t sure how they were getting served beer, but then again I guess Emily could pull off anything.
    The band was surprisingly good. There were just two people – a girl named Rachel and her friend Nigel. Nigel played acoustic guitar and he and Rachel sang. They played many of their own songs but occasionally they did a cover to keep the audience happy.
    At one point, Ari got up and went to the bar and when he came back, he set a bottle of water in front of me. I looked up at him and smiled. He quickly smiled back, sat back down with his own water, and started right back up talking with Nick and Collin.
    Rory talked to me all night long and managed not to run out of conversation topics. He is