Dante’s Girl (The Paradise Diaries #1)(17)
Author: Courtney Cole

“Well, here’s to an excuse to shop!” Mia toasts, clinking her bottle to mine.  “I never need one, but it’s always nice to have.”

I laugh at her because it’s apparent that she’s buzzing.  She was pretty reserved this afternoon and now she’s practically exuberant.  She’s done a complete one-eighty.

“Thanks,” I tell her.  “My mom gave me her credit card to use in an emergency, and I think this probably qualifies.”

“Dude, this totally qualifies,” she agrees.  “I’ll come pick you up at 11:00 a.m.  Will that work?”

“That will be perfect,” I tell her gratefully.

Gavin chimes in, wrapping his arm around Mia’s slender waist.  “I’ll tag along, too, if you don’t mind.  I don’t have plans.”

“Nope,” Mia tells him, leaning heavily into him.  “It’s a girl’s day. And you don’t qualify.  You don’t have the right parts.”

“It’s better to have too many parts then not enough,” he informs her and she laughs.

“Gavin, I love you.  I really, really do.”

He kisses her cheek and then behind her back, he mouths words to me.

She’s REALLY drunk.

I nod. That much is obvious.  I only hope that she remembers that we have a shopping date.  If I have to wear these clothes one more time, I might die.

“Can you take her for a minute?” Gavin asks, slipping Mia to me like she’s a child or something.

I put my arms around her shoulders so that she is leaning on me.  Gavin saunters off, already mouthing off to Dante, who is across the fire from us.  And then I realize that he totally just made an escape. And now I’m Mia’s caretaker.

“I’m fine,” Mia insists to me.  She takes a step away from, stumbles, then slumps back into my side. “Fine.”

“Yes, you’re fine,” I agree with her, tightening my hold.  I wonder if she will pass out, then tighten my hold even more.  She winces, but doesn’t shirk away.

“Dante likes you,” she confides to me, in a not-so-quiet whisper.  “I can tell.”

I look around quickly to see who is within hearing distance.  Thankfully, no one.

“What makes you say that?” I ask curiously, my heart starting to stutter.  Dante doesn’t like like me.  There is no way. 

Mia shrugs.  “I can’t explain it.  I just know it because I know him.”

Well, that’s helpful.  I want to know exactly how she knows so that I know if it is just drunken musing or if it actually has credibility.  Which it doesn’t, because there is no way on God’s green earth that Dante likes me.

“But what about Elena?” I ask her.

I figure I might as well get as much information as I can tonight while Mia’s still chatty.  And by chatty, I just mean ‘pump her for information while she’s drunk’.  I should feel guilty, but I don’t.  I like Mia and I’ll never tell anyone anything that she says.  It’s for my info only.

Mia snorts. “Elena is a bitch.  Utter and complete bitch.”

Tell me something I don’t know, I think.

“What makes you say that?” I actually say.

Mia stares at me incredulously, her green eyes slightly unfocused.  “Have you actually spoken with her?  Utter bith.”

Oh, great.  And now she’s slurring.  And she’s leaning more and more on me.  For such a little thing, she’s actually kind of heavy and my arm is going to sleep.

“Just because their fathers are friends, she thinks she’s going to marry Dante.  And connect their families and then they’ll have wine and olives.”

“She owns a winery?”I ask, appalled again.

I own cows.  Elena owns wine.  What’s wrong with this picture?

“Her father owns a winery,” Mia corrected.  “But it will be hers someday.  She wants to marry Dante and he probably will because he likes to please his father.  Dante is a pleaser,” she explains.  “He always does what is expected of him.  But that’s a shame.  Because he likes you.  Oh, look.  Speak of the she-devil now.”

I follow Mia’s drunken gaze and my breath freezes in my throat.  Even though it is cold out here on the water, colder than a witch’s you-know-what, there stands Elena, draped on Dante’s arm and wearing a miniscule, barely-there white bikini.

And she is beautiful.

And her boobs are hanging all over Dante.

And I hate her.

And as she turns and locks eyes with me, I can see that she hates me too.

Chapter Nine

I settle Mia on a folding lawn chair, making sure she has a bottle of water before I leave her.  I turn back to look and she’s curled around the bottle, her head slumped on the arm of the chair.  She’ll be passed out within the minute.

I look around and marvel at this party.  They really know how to do a party up right here.  Someone has lugged in countless folding chairs, tables, coolers, and cookware.  They are boiling seafood and heating what looks to be butter.  I can’t imagine how long it took to lug all of this stuff in.  And I try to imagine kids from back home doing this, but there’s no way.  They wouldn’t go to all of this trouble.  We just sit on old logs at the river and drink from red plastic cups.

“Reece!”

Dante waves from a seat near the fire.  He’s holding what appears to be a giant claw and I gulp as I make my way to him.

“Do you like crab?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer.  “I’ve never had it.”

He looks at me as though I’ve suddenly grown another head.

“You’ve never had it?” Elena asks disdainfully. I didn’t even realize she was standing there.  “How is that even possible?”

I stare at her coolly.  “I grew up in the middle of the United States, a thousand miles from the nearest ocean.  Fresh seafood isn’t exactly easy to come by there.”

“Ah, right,” Elena pretends to remember.  “You’re a little farm girl.  You’ve never experienced culture.  Well, welcome to Caberra, sweetie.”

She waves her arm in a sweeping, condescending gesture and I found that I would like to break it.  Her arm, I mean.