Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning Page B

bouncer and be doing some idiotic knuckle-bumping thing with him, when a simple handshake would do.
    “No problem, dude. Just that your girlfriend’s under eighteen and she’s not coming in.”
    “I am not his girlfriend,” I said scathingly, which got me another bewildered blue-plate special from Smith. “We’re just . . . like, whatever. And I am eighteen.”
    His arm tightened around me and I tried to smile in a mature manner. “Look, she’s eighteen. Take it from me.”
    There was one fraught moment of possibility, then Frank the wanker gave a bark of laughter. “Is that what she told you? Yeah, right. Look, go in, but if I see her drinking anything alcoholic, I’m chucking you both out.”
    Smith was all big with the thank-yous, like he’d granted us some amazing favor, but I just turned on my heel and stalked inside.
    “God, I get that all the time,” I backtracked when Smith caught up with me. “It’s so embarrassing.”
    “Yeah, it must be.” He nodded, then paused. “You are eighteen, aren’t you?”
    “Oh, don’t you start,” I whined. “I’m eighteen, just drop it. Please . . .”
    He held his hands out in front of him. “I’m dropping it.”

    “Good.”
    We elbowed our way through the crowd, and I didn’t know why they were so high and mighty about who they let in because the place is a total pit. All low ceilings and sticky walls that left this black gunk clinging to you. The air was thick with this damp fug and everything smelled hot and smoky, like there was a weird chemical being pumped into the atmosphere—it made me tense and excited at the same time. I could feel something slowly unfurling at the base of my spine and floating its tendrils through my body so that when Smith took my hand and tugged me toward a group of people sitting in the last booth along the back wall, my fingers tingled again.
    I realized that we were heading toward people whom I didn’t know but whom I was going to have to talk to, which was my absolutely least favorite kind of people in the world. Well, except for old people who crap on about the war.
    “Shouldn’t we go to the bar?”
    “What? No, come and meet everybody,” he exclaimed eagerly, like . . . like . . . like . . . He was a big, friendly, shaggy dog who’d got a dead bird in his mouth that he wanted to show his master. Which made me the dead bird in that scenario and as analogies go, it felt a little too close for comfort. Especially as we tripped nearer and I could see that “everyone” was a motley collection of scenesters, who looked like they did overtime appearing in mobile phone ads lounging elegantly around grimy clubs.
    “This is Isabel,” Smith said by way of greeting, and I limply waved a hand at them as he went through this collection of names that left no impression on me. There were a few nods in reply and I thought the worst of it was over, but then Smith pushed me onto an available five centimeters of seat. “Drink?”
    “I’ll come with you.” I tried to get up but his hand was on my shoulder, keeping me rooted to the sticky vinyl.
    “No, stay and get to know everyone. What do you want?”
    I couldn’t get through this in a state of stone-cold soberdom. “Get me a vodka and Diet Coke, and make it a double,” I said decisively, as if I’d drunk enough alcohol in my time to have a preference.
    To his credit Smith didn’t remind me that both our arses were on the line if one teeny sip of liquor passed my lips. He just rummaged in the back pocket of his jeans and chucked a packet of cigarettes at me.
    “Thanks for nicking mine last time, by the way.”
    “Don’t mention it,” I said breezily, waving him away because the quicker I got a drink in me, the quicker my social ineptness would transform into something approaching scintillating. That was the plan, anyway.
    I think the reason why cigarettes are a good thing—apart from speeding you off this mortal coil a few years before your time—is that they give