Taken By The Wind Ch. 03

Rob frowned. "Christ, how many people are coming to this thing?"

Wayne laughed. "It's a Courtney Maclean party. There will be plenty."

Rob drove further down the road and parked. As the two were walking the music coming from the house grew to be audible.

"So, any last words of wisdom?" Rob asked his friend.

"'Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips'," Wayne replied after a short pause.

Rob laughed. "Right, I'll let you do the talking."

"That'd probably be for the best," Wayne replied.

The music was booming, some sort of electronic music that had a lot of heavy bass. Rob knocked on the door and they waited. There wasn't a reply so Wayne hammered on the door hard enough to shake it on its hinges. A few moments later Courtney appeared. She was wearing a black dress that hugged her curves enticingly, showing off her generous bust and shapely backside as she stood in profile in the doorway.

"Hey guys!" she said cheerily over the din. "Come on in!"

They stepped inside, and Rob was struck by the sheer number of people. They were assembled in all corners, standing in huddles, red plastic cups in hand. The girls all looking their best and the guys cleaned up well enough.

"This way!" Courtney shouted over the music.

Rob followed her further down the hallway towards the back of the house where the music was coming from, the living room. The couches had been pushed to the wall, clearing a dance floor. There was a table off to the side lined with different beverages, most of them alcoholic. Courtney turned to them and held out her hand.

"Keys!" she shouted.

Rob hesitated. "I'm not getting drunk," he said.

Courtney laughed. "Sure! You'll be crashing here, just like everyone else who's drunk. Now keys and five dollars each!"

Rob saw that there was no arguing with her so he handed over his keys and handed her a ten dollar bill for him and Wayne. She turned her eyes on Wayne, who held up his hands defensively.

"I got a ride with Kavanagh," he told her.

She eyed him distrustfully and then nodded. "Alright. If you are still sober by the end of the night come find me and I'll give your keys back to you. Otherwise, find a place to pass out and you'll see them again in the morning. If you're going to smoke, do it out back. The bedrooms upstairs are off limits unless I give you permission to go in them."

"Alright," Rob replied.

"Cool, Karen's over there if you want to say 'hi'. I'm going to go man the door for a little longer," she said.

They both nodded and headed off towards where Courtney had pointed, stopping off at the drink table so Wayne could get a beer. As they approached Karen Rob's breath caught. She looked stunning. Her long dark hair fell loosely down her back, perfectly straight and standing out in beautiful contrast to the bright red of her dress. It was sleeveless and fit her slender form tightly, hugging her curves as greedily as he wanted to. Karen saw them approaching and her face brightened in a smile.

"Hey!" she said.

"How's it going?" Rob asked.

"Good. Did you find the place alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, no problem there. You look great!" Rob told her.

Karen smiled modestly. "Uh, thanks. You look nice too."

"Not as nice as me I hope!" Adam said, seeming to materialise from nowhere.

He handed Karen a drink, and she smiled her thanks to him. Adam wrapped his arm possessively around her waist and Rob felt a flush of embarrassment. Karen seemed to look at him apologetically as she realised his mistake, but Rob wasn't looking at her any more. He felt like an idiot. Wayne saved him by maintaining the conversation while he recovered from his shock. His entire dream for the evening had been suddenly stripped away.

In one casual gesture Adam had removed any doubt of who Karen had chosen. And it wasn't Rob. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been more embarrassed, madder at himself. How could he have been so presumptuous? What had he expected? Her text messages had been nothing but friendly, but he'd informed them with the emotions he'd wanted them to have.

Rob continued the conversation, leaving after long enough to be polite, followed by Wayne who recognized the look on his friend's face. He'd seen it often enough in the mirror after being rejected by a girl. Rob led him to the drink table and grabbed a beer for himself. He cracked it open and Wayne stood next to him, the two of them leaning against the wall while they watched the party goers drinking and chatting. The party hadn't really gotten into full swing just yet, just people catching up and getting their blood alcohol levels up.

"So you are drinking," Wayne said.

"Yeah fuck it, we'll crash here," Rob replied unhappily, taking a swig of beer.

Rob was done with feeling like shit. He'd been letting himself feel down for months, even before he and Jenna had broken up. He needed to do something about it, he needed to let himself let loose. He needed to stop overthinking everything to the point that his thoughts became delusions. At least for one night he was going to be the Rob he'd been in high school, not this guy who had been letting himself wallow in self-pity. Karen had woken him up, the pity party was over.

"Is it something to do with Karen Dubicki?" Wayne asked.

"Yeah," Rob said, taking another swig. The cool fluid went down his throat smoothly.

"Anything you want to talk about?" Wayne asked.

"Not at all," he replied, swallowing down some more.

"May I propose a toast then?" he suggested.

"Be my guest," Rob replied.

Wayne grinned. "To women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent."

Rob laughed and they bumped their beers together before taking a long swig each. Wayne saw someone he knew and dragged Rob to introduce him to them. The next hour was Rob being introduced to twenty different people, all of whom Wayne knew, and all of whom seemed to be his immediate friend after Wayne's endorsement. Wayne seemed to be making it his goal to make everyone at the party Rob's friend, and apparently was doing a good job of it because eventually the looks of distrust and hostility Rob had been getting since he'd walked in became welcoming.

Rob had more beers shoved into his hand than he had ever intended on drinking, and after a few hours had a good buzz going. He ran into Karen a few times, they shared a few halting words and then separated again. Somehow Rob ended up in the kitchen where five guys were playing drinking games. These were the rowdiest of the party goers, and they cheered loudly when they saw Wayne. Wayne introduced them to Rob, and they all shook his hand.

Some of them were familiar, as the other guests had been. He knew these people by sight from high school, and some of them had been on the football team so he knew them by name at least. There was a mix of people his age and a year younger, which made sense as this was Courtney's party and she'd been a year behind him in high school.

"Can he drink?" the ringleader of the group asked, seeming to be challenging him.

"Can he drink?!" Wayne exclaimed incredulously. "Of course he can! Here!" he said, shoving a can of beer into Rob's hand. "Do that thing you do."

Rob laughed. "Alright."

He held the beer parallel to the floor and pressed his thumb against the side. His spectators watched curiously as Rob paused for dramatic effect. He pressed his thumbnail down, ripping a hole in the can near the base and then brought it to his mouth. He turned it vertically and pulled the tab, shotgunning the entire beer before tossing it into the recycling bin nearby just like his grandfather had taught him.

"Damn dude, that was sick!" one of the guys exclaimed.

Wayne laughed, patting Rob on the back. "South Enders aren't all bad you know."

"Nah man, he's cool," said the ringleader.

Rob grinned. "You North Siders aren't so bad yourselves."

They all insisted he teach them how to do the trick, and Wayne pulled Rob away as they all tried it themselves, bringing him into the dance area. He seemed to be looking for someone, but there were so many people around Rob guessed they kept missing whoever it was. The table from the dining room had been pulled into the living room and a beer pong tournament had sprung up. Rob glanced at the time displayed on the flat screen television mounted to the wall showing the news coverage of the ball drop in New York, and saw that it was an hour to midnight.

The party was in full motion now; the dancing was growing less graceful and more sexual. Various drinking games were taking place all over, and more than a few couples were making out on the couches. Mercifully he didn't see Karen there with Adam. He was actually having a very good time meeting all these new people who were being surprisingly welcoming. He became confident enough to leave Wayne and go off on his own.

He wandered for a while and then stopped by the drinks table, where he procured another beverage. When he turned away from the table he bumped into someone, Karen. She teetered drunkenly on her feet but didn't topple, years of dance lessons saving her from a spill.

"Woops, sorry," he apologised hurriedly.

Karen laughed giddily. "I'm fine. You having a good time?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "Great time."

"Cool," she said, clearly drunk. "Hey look there's Courtney!" she said, pointing to her friend on the other side of the room. "Hey Courtney!" she shouted loudly over the music, waving with the enthusiasm of the heavily inebriated.

Rob laughed, clearly she'd had a lot to drink and he was glad to see she was having so much fun. He couldn't harbor ill feelings towards her for the way things had turned out, it wasn't fair of him to expect her to end a relationship she'd had with someone for years in favor of someone else she did not really know. He had seen people split up and get back together dozens of times like Karen and Adam in high school, it wasn't a healthy dynamic but that didn't change the reality of the feelings between them.

Despite the volume of alcohol he'd consumed, Rob wasn't that drunk. He'd spaced it out enough that he had happy buzz going, which might have been why he was having such a good time, and why he felt everyone else was being so receptive of him. He was a cheerful drunk, which might have also been why he finding himself able to move past what had happened with Karen like he was. Rob still liked her, but those feelings were returning to ones of friendship where they should have stayed.

Courtney didn't hear Karen's calls at first, she was watching the party goers, and sipping at a wine cooler. She'd remained mostly sober to prevent permanent damages to the house.

"Courtney, hi!" Karen yelled more loudly when her friend failed to respond, gesticulating wildly.

Courtney turned her head at the sound of her name and spotted her flailing friend. The brunette smiled from her post near the wall and waved back less vigorously.

"You should go talk to her," Karen advised him, slurring her words slightly.

"Should I?" he said.

Karen grabbed his arm. "Yes," she said as she nodded emphatically. "Don't tell her I told you," she continued conspiratorially. "But she totally had a crush on you in high school."

"Did she?" Rob asked, laughing at the transparency of Karen's matchmaking.

Karen nodded in an exaggerated manner. "Uh-huh. Big one, huge," she insisted, spreading her arms wide as if to show him. "Totally enam-enamor..."

"Enamored?" Rob suggested.

"Yeah, that's it!" Karen exclaimed happily, poking him in the chest with her pointer finger. "You should go talk to her," she said again.

Rob tried not to laugh at her. "What should I say?" he asked her playfully.

"Tell her a joke," Karen suggested. "Courtney likes funny guys."

"Does she?" he asked, trying to match Karen's apparent excitement.

"Uh-huh," Karen replied enthusiastically. "And guys with tattoos, and trucks, and you've got both. You're made for each other!" she declared.

"Who's made for each other?" Adam asked, again seeming to materialise out of the ether.

"Kavanagh and Courtney," Karen said. "I'm telling him to go talk to her."

Adam looked at Rob. "Yeah, maybe you should," he said.

The tone in his voice made it clear that he didn't like Rob talking to Karen, and he was trying to tell him to go away. Given what Rob knew about what Adam had done to Karen, he was predisposed not to like him, now his opinion of him had managed to sink a few notches lower. But it wasn't his place to judge who Karen dated, even if they had shared one intimate night together. Depending on how much she'd told him, Rob realised that in Adam's position he probably wouldn't have been too happy about his drunk girlfriend talking to a guy she'd slept with before.

"Alright, I will," Rob said partially to be agreeable and partially because the alcohol made it feel like a good idea. It also didn't hurt that Courtney was probably tied for first in the 'hottest girl at the party' competition.

He grabbed a drink for himself and for Courtney, and headed off in her direction.

"Good luck!" Karen called to his back.

Courtney saw him as he approached and downed the rest of her cooler with one swig and took the beer he held out to her. She was slightly flustered at the sight of him after what had happened earlier that day, but she covered it up well enough that she was pretty sure he didn't notice.

"Great party," he said.

"Thanks," Courtney said, cracking open her beer and taking a few sips.

"So, what did the psychiatrist say when a man wearing nothing but saran wrap walked into his office?" he asked.

Courtney laughed uncertainly. "I don't know."

"I can clearly see you're nuts," Rob finished, taking a sip of his beer.

Courtney laughed, partially because it was kind of funny, but also because of the confidence Rob put behind the joke.

"What do you call it when you feed a stick of dynamite to a steer?" he asked.

Courtney grinned, and shook her head.

"Abomina-bull," he told her.

She laughed. "That's a terrible joke."

"It made you laugh," Rob said.

"Yeah, but only because of how bad it was," she said.

"Ouch, and here I was thinking it was because you, to quote Karen, had a 'huge' crush on me in high school," he said.

Courtney felt a flush of embarrassment but smiled. If only you knew, she thought to herself. Rob saw the smile and was intrigued to see that perhaps Karen had been telling the truth. Was this her way of making things up to him? Rob wondered if Courtney knew what had happened with Karen. It seemed likely, they were very close.

"I'm going to kill her," she said, hiding her grin with the rim of her beer can as she took a sip.

Rob laughed. "Don't tell her I told you. I think she's trying to set us up. Apparently you like funny guys, with trucks and tattoos?"

Courtney joined him in his laughed. "She makes me sound so classy."

"Oh totally," he replied. "Fortunately I happen to be funny, and have at least one of those very things."

Rob would have never had this confidence sober, or without his earlier decision to stop overthinking things.

"Really?" she said.

"Uh-huh," he replied. "The truck's my Dad's though."

This routine probably wouldn't have worked on Courtney if a) she didn't already like Rob, and b) he hadn't looked absolutely dreamy. They continued to talk, and gradually it grew more and more flirtatious. They talked for nearly half an hour, nursing their drinks, laughing at each other's dumb jokes.

"Do you want to dance?" Rob asked eventually.

Courtney hesitated. "Uh, I'm not sure."

"Oh, come on," he said, "have a little fun. It's your party after all."

It didn't take much to convince her, but she wanted to keep the game up at least for a little while.

"Alright, how about this? Tell me another joke," Courtney suggested. "If it makes me laugh, I'll dance with you."

Rob thought for a moment, going through the repertoire of jokes he'd learned over the years. None were good enough to bet on, but Rob suspected Courtney was just playing hard to get so he was banking on the goodwill he'd stored up to that point.

"Alright," he said finally. "What do you call a psychic dwarf who has escaped from a prison?"

Courtney was already struggling not to laugh, "I don't know."

"A small medium at large!" he exclaimed, grinning stupidly at her.

Courtney struggled not to laugh, knowing it was dumb but still finding it funny. It was his grin that eventually broke her, and Rob whooped victoriously as she lost the ability to fight back her laughter.

"Alright, alright," Courtney conceded. "One dance."

"Oh, come on now, only one?" he complained good-naturedly.

Courtney smiled coyly. "If it's good, maybe you can have another."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the writhing mob of people dancing. He followed her deep into the crowd, watching her weave gracefully while he blundered his way through behind her. She turned to face him, a space naturally clearing around them, and came forward. Courtney looked up at him with her dark eyes, a slight grin on her lips, and reached up to link her wrists behind his neck. He put his hands on her waist and they began to move.

Even in heels her eyes were just level with his chin, she looked up into his hazel eyes, and he found himself transfixed by her smouldering gaze. Rob wasn't a particularly good dancer, but he was able to move to complement Courtney's sensual swaying well enough. She pushed in closer, her breasts pressing against his chest as she swayed. Her hips rocked and dipped, the front of her body dragging against his. Despite her initial playful reservation about dancing with him Courtney didn't hold him to the one dance, and when the song changed so their positioning.

Courtney turned, and kept one hand linked around his neck as she pressed her back against him. She was in control up to that point, but then something began to change. It was a slow song with a steady bass beat. Courtney began to sway her hips in time to the music, the firm swell of her ass grinding against his groin. Rob's heart was beating fast despite the relatively low level of exertion, his eyes drinking in the sight of her incredible body gyrating lustfully in front of him. The heat of the bodies undulating around them caused them both to sweat, perspiration beading on their foreheads.

Rob watched a stray bead of Courtney's sweat run down her neck and along the swell of her breast and into her deep cleavage, following the same path he'd observed earlier that day. Her hand went over his, sliding it around so that it pressed against her flat stomach. He felt her abdominal muscles working under the thin material of the dress, the heat of her body pressing into his palm. Her scent enveloped him, a sensual fog of her sweet perfume and musk, intoxicating him with his attraction towards her. His touch excited her, spurring her onward, deeper into depravity.

Courtney bent her knees, twisting her body as she went, the movement causing his hand to slide upward. His hand brushed the underside of her breast, and she went lower, bending her knees until his hand slid up over the swell of her heavy tit. She came back up, and his hand remained at her chest. She brought her hand to his, pressing it into the firm mound of flesh, her other hand sliding up the back of his neck and through his sweat-dampened hair.

Her head came back slightly and he saw that her eyes were shut, her smirking lips were parted, her face flushed and sweaty. Rob squeezed her breast, and pushed his hips forward. He couldn't hear her gasp but he saw her eyes squeeze tighter and felt her chest push outward against his groping hand. The weight was perfect, and by applying pressure with his fingers he found that they were firm. His hand pressing against her hip slid down lower, running against the front of her sweating thigh.