Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [19]
“Hey, guys,” I said, nodding to them. My breath came out like smoke against the cold.
“We’re just waiting for one more person.” Cisco elbowed me in the side. I cocked my head and stared at him quizzically. “In the meantime,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small card, “you’ll need this.” He pressed the card into my hand and I looked down.
“A learner’s permit?”
“Correction, my sister’s learner’s permit. She got her license when she went to Michigan State. You look enough like her. For the rest of the night, you’re Angie Marie Fernandez. I forgot to ask you if you had fake ID.”
“Okay, I’m Angie Marie. And look, I’m still an Aquarius. That’s nice,” I said, smiling as I looked down at the card. Apart from the same dark hair, we looked absolutely nothing alike. I was mentally telling myself to get over my internal freak-out about going to a bar when I heard Cisco call to someone.
I looked up and saw a figure stroll over slowly from across the street. I really hoped my eyes didn’t look like the Frisbees they felt like.
I was suddenly very happy that I’d spent so much time trying to look my best. At Vincent Academy, Brendan Salinger looked like the hottest guy in school. Outside of Vincent Academy, he looked like the hottest guy in Manhattan. Maybe the state. It didn’t help my pathetic case that he was completely my type. I’d always liked dark hair. Brendan wore a dark T-shirt pulled over a long-sleeved gray one, and had some sort of leather cuff on his wrist. Of course, his hair was still messy. It was legitimately messy too, not that look-what-I-can-do-with-gel look. Total wash-and-go hair. I doubted he even owned any hair products. Brendan carried a black hoodie under his arm, and greeted Cisco with one of those one-handed, back-pump bro-hug things. What was the deal with those things, anyway?
Brendan bent down to kiss Samantha on the cheek and I was instantly jealous. I tried to remind myself that he likely just knew her from school—she graduated last year, after all.
Then, those green eyes were focused on me.
“Hey, Brendan,” Cisco began. “Have you actually met Emma yet?”
His eyes stared into mine. “Not officially.”
“Hey, what’s—uh, what’s up?” I tried to act nonchalant, but my voice cracked midgreeting.
Brendan’s eyes were so serious, staring at me, but a smile played on his lips—those ridiculously soft-looking lips!—before forming a short, curt greeting. “Hey, Emma.”
Cisco rounded us up and we walked down the block to a small dive bar, marked by a sputtering red neon sign reading Idle Hands in the window. The bouncer’s eyes flitted to my face briefly when looking at the expired learner’s permit. He rolled his eyes and waved me inside. No one else seemed to have any trouble either, so we headed into the slightly crowded, dark bar. An old Green Day song pumped out of the jukebox, and the crowd was a mix of underage kids downing pitchers of cheap beer and old men playing cards and drinking scotch. Peanut shells crunched on the floor under the heel of my boots, and I almost slipped on one, catching my balance just before I completely humiliated myself. I stopped to scrape the shell off as everyone else walked past me and filed in, one after another, at the bar along the wall on the left. Cisco was first, greeting a short, cute brunet whom I assumed was Gabe.
“Thanks so much for coming, you guys,” Gabe said with an anxious laugh. “Just remember, we’re really not that good. But hey, we get a cut of whatever the bar makes tonight, so as long as we don’t get booed off the stage we should be okay.
“And you must be Emma.” Gabe smiled, looking at me warmly as I was still trying to scrape the peanut shell off my heel. “I’ve heard a lot of nice things about you.”
“All lies,” I said, grinning. “I paid Cisco off.”
Gabe laughed, and said, “Well, hope you’re not expecting much tonight. We’re really not that good. So yeah, don’t hate me.”
I smiled back at him. After finally getting the shell off my boot, I looked around to hop on a bar stool and realized the only one left was between the