Chapter 3

WE MAKE IT TO THE Underground just as night falls, but not before driving around in Damon’s souped-up truck to various houses. He would pull into the driveway, get out and stay inside no more than three or four minutes and never say a word when he came back out. At least, not about what he went inside for, or who he talked to—the usual stuff that would make these visits normal. But not much about Damon is usual or normal. I love him to death. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known Natalie, but I’ve never been able to accept his drug habits. He grows copious amounts of weed in his basement, but he’s not a pothead. In fact, no one but me and a few of his close friends would ever suspect that a hot piece of ass like Damon Winters would be a grower, because most growers look like white trash and often have hairdos that are stuck somewhere between the 70’s and 90’s. Damon is far from looking like white trash—he could be Alex Pettyfer’s younger brother. And Damon says weed just isn’t his thing. No, Damon’s drug of choice is cocaine and he only grows and sells weed to pay for his cocaine habit.

Natalie pretends that what Damon does is perfectly harmless. She knows that he doesn’t smoke weed and says that weed really isn’t that bad and if other people want to smoke it to chill out and relax, that she sees no harm in Damon helping with that. She refuses to believe, however, that cocaine has seen more action from his face than any part of her body has. “OK, you’re going to have a good time, right?” Natalie bumps my backseat door shut with her butt after I get out and then she looks hopelessly at me. “Just don’t fight it and try to enjoy yourself.” I roll my eyes. “Nat, I wouldn’t deliberately try to hate it,” I say. “I do want to enjoy myself.” Damon comes around to our side of the truck and slips his arms around both of our waists. “I get to go in with two hot chicks on my arms.” Natalie elbows him with a pretend resentful smirk. “Shut up, baby. You’ll make me jealous.” Already she’s grinning impishly up at him. Damon lets his hand drop from her waist and he grabs a handful of her butt cheek. She makes a sickening moaning sound and reaches up on her toes to kiss him. I want to tell them to get a room, but I’d be wasting my breath.

The Underground is the hottest spot just outside of downtown North Carolina, but you won’t find it listed in the phone book. Only people like us know it exists. Some guy named Rob rented out an abandoned warehouse two years ago and spent about one million of his rich daddy’s money to convert it into a secret nightclub. Two years and going strong; the place has since become a spot where local rock sex gods can live the rock n’ roll dream with screaming fans and groupies. But it’s not a trashy joint. From the outside it might look like an abandoned building in a partial ghost town, but the inside is like any upscale hard rock night club equipped with colorful strobe lights that shoot continuously across the space, slutty-looking waitresses and a stage big enough for two bands to play at the same time. To keep The Underground private, everybody who goes has to park elsewhere in the city and walk to it because a street lined with vehicles outside an ‘abandoned’ warehouse is a dead giveaway. We park in the back of a nearby Mickey D’s and walk about ten minutes through spooky town. Natalie moves from Damon’s right side and gets in between us, but it’s just so she can torture me before we go inside.

“OK,” she says as if about to run down a list of do’s and don’t’s for me, “If anybody asks, you’re single, alright?” She waves her hand at me. “None of that stuff you pulled like with that guy who was hitting on you at Office Depot.” “What was she doing at Office Depot?” Damon says, laughing. “Damon, this guy was on her,” Natalie says, totally ignoring the fact that I’m right here, “I mean like all she had to do was bat her eyes once and he would’ve bought her a car—you know what she said to him?” I roll my eyes and pull my arm out of hers. “Nat, you’re so stupid. It wasn’t like that.” “Yeah, babe,” Damon says. “If the guy works at Office Depot he’s not going to be buying anybody any cars.” Natalie smacks him across the shoulder playfully. “I didn’t say he worked there—anyway, the guy looked like the lovechild of…Adam Levine and…,” she twirls her fingers around above her head to let another famous example materialize on her tongue, “…Jensen Ackles, and Miss Prudeness here told him she was a lesbian when he asked for her number.”

“Oh shut up, Nat!” I say, irritated at her serious over-exaggeration illness. “He did not look like either one of those guys. He was just a regular guy who didn’t happen to be fugly.” She waves me away and turns back to Damon. “Whatever. The point is that she’ll lie to keep them away. I don’t doubt for a second that she’d go as far as to tell a guy she has Chlamydia and an out of control case of crabs.” Damon laughs. I stop on the dark sidewalk and cross my arms over my chest, chewing on the inside of my bottom lip in agitation. Natalie, realizing I’m not walking beside her anymore runs back towards me. “OK! OK! Look, I just don’t want you to ruin it for yourself, that’s all. I’m just asking that if someone—who isn’t a total hunchback—hits on you that you not immediately push him away. Nothing wrong with talking and getting to know one another. I’m not asking you to go home with him.” I’m already hating her for this. She swore! Damon comes up behind her and wraps his hands around her waist, nuzzling his mouth into her squirming neck. “Maybe you should just let her do what she wants, babe. Stop being so pushy.”

“Thank you, Damon,” I say with a quick nod. He winks at me. Natalie purses her lips and says, “You’re right,” and then puts up her hands, “I won’t say anything else. I swear.” Yeah, I have heard that before…. “Good,” I say and we all start walking again. Already these boots are killing my feet. The ogre at the warehouse entrance inspects us at the door with his huge arms crossed in front. He holds out his hand. Natalie’s face twists into an offended knot. “What? Is Rob charging now?” Damon reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, fingering the bills inside. “Twenty bucks a pop,” the ogre says with a grunt. “Twenty? Are you fucking kidding me?!” Natalie shrieks. Damon gently pushes her aside and slaps three twenty dollar bills into the ogre’s hand. The ogre shoves the money into his pocket and moves to let us pass. I go first and Damon puts his hand on Natalie’s lower back to guide her in front of him. She sneers at the ogre as she passes by. “Probably going to keep it for himself,” she says. “I’m going to ask Rob about this.”

“Come on,” Damon says and we slip past the door and down one lengthy, dreary hallway with a single flickering florescent light until we make it to the industrial elevator at the end. The metal jolts as the cage door closes and we’re rather noisily riding to the basement floor many feet below. It’s just one floor down, but the elevator rattles so much I feel like it’s going to snap any second and send us plunging to our deaths. Loud, booming drums and the shouting of drunk college students and probably a lot of drop-outs funnels through the basement floor and into the cage elevator, louder every inch we descend into the bowels of The Underground. The elevator rumbles to a halt and another ogre opens the cage door to let us out. Natalie stumbles into me from behind. “Hurry up!” she says, pushing me playfully in the back. “I think that’s Four Collision playing!” Her voice rises over the music as we make our way into the main room.