Who Could Love a Monster

Chapter 3: The Party

Riley’s POV

“Get that sexy little butt out of the shower!” yelled Kyle from my bedroom.

It was Friday evening, which also happened to be the day of Tristan's party and saying Kyle was excited would be an understatement.

He had spent most of the day texting me “outfit ideas” and almost got me in trouble three times because of it. If it weren’t so annoying, I would find it endearing. He had never asked me for fashion advice before and always wore whatever he wanted, so clearly tonight was important to him.

I came out of my bathroom, with just a towel wrapped around me and my hair hanging down around my face, still dripping wet. Kyle was standing in front of my full-length mirror, adjusting his shirt. He was wearing a dark teal shirt that looked like the night sky, with small white flowers on it. The first few buttons were open to reveal a glimpse of his hairless and slightly tanned chest. He had his sleeves rolled up to show off his forearms and wore black skinny jeans.

When moving to his hair he finally saw me and screamed. It was high-pitched and almost sounded like someone yanked on his family jewels. I fell to me knees, clutching my sides from laughing so hard at his reaction.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE GIRL FROM THE f*****g RING” he yelled. I knew he hated scary movies, so this was my payback for making me go to this party.

“I…am…sorry…but…your face!” I said in between gulps of air.

He scowled at me for a moment before joining in with my laughing.

“Okay, okay. We don’t have time for this” he said pulling me to my feet. “We gotta get you ready! You never know maybe one of us can turn Liam’s head tonight” he winked. I rolled my eyes at him. I know we talk about wanting Liam a lot but neither of us would ever break up a relationship. We had seen what things like that can do to someone.

He walked over to my wardrobe and started to browse. “I am thinking classically sexy” he spoke more to himself than to me, so I just focused on brushing the knots out of my hair as I focused on the photos of Kyle and I decorating my purple walls.

He held up a knee length black tight dress with a high neck and long sleeves. He flourished it in front of me, closing one eye to help imagine what it would look like on, I guess?

A quick knock sounded on my door before Susan burst in. She took one look at the dress and let out a sarcastic laugh, “planning on making her a nun?” she asked Kyle before walking over to my closet. “Honey, you have boobs, don’t be afraid to show them” she mused before pulling out a sleek black jumpsuit with a plunging neckline. I had to hand it to her, she did have good style. She quickly rooted out a pair of black strappy heels and grabbed a couple rings out of my jewellery box and laid everything beside me on the bed before turning to Kyle. “Loose waves, bronze smokey eyes and a nude lip” was all she said before walking back out and giving us a wink at the door.

Kyle turned to me with a look of awe, “I wanna be her when I grow up” he said wistfully before starting to style my hair. Between Kyle and Susan, I felt as though I had my own inhouse style team, which was great because my skills were minimal at best my area of expertise lay elsewhere.

When I was finally finished getting ready, I took a look at myself in the mirror and had to admit my team may have outdone themselves. The bronze smokey eye, made my green eyes pop and the nude lip made sure the focus was on my eyes which were my favorite feature.

We walked down the stairs, arms linked, and Susan stood at the bottom with the camera. This happened on every single night out we had.

“You two are going to get so many numbers” Susan exclaimed happily.

“Punch up to break their nose” Aed said in true Aed form before walking over and kissing the top of my head, “you both look beautiful” he said softly before heading back to his study. It might sound weird here but where Aed comes from, men and women are both regarded as beautiful.

***

We pulled up to the address that was texted to Kyle and before us stood a mansion, complete with a fountain at the front. I felt like I had to literally lift my jaw off the floor of car. I always knew Tristan was rich, but I had no idea he was RICH.

“Do we like Tristan now?” Kyle asked staring at me wide eyed.

“Compensating?” I asked, smirking back at Kyle.

“ooooh definitely!” we both burst out laughing before hopping out and making our way up the steps. I kept my arm wrapped tightly around Kyle’s so we wouldn’t lose each other. I was already nervous due to excessive number of butterflies currently swarming in my stomach that the idea of being separated was not something I enjoyed considering. 

When we went through the large oak double doors, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The inside of his mansion looked like an actual nightclub. Strobe lighting, fog machines, full DJ setup and what appeared to be a fully stock bar. Bodies were everywhere, grinding against each other on an actual dance floor that had been set up right in the center of the large living room that was separated from the entryway by a giant archway that could fit at least four people walking in at once. At the back of the entry way was a grand imperial staircase leading to the second floor.

“Hot or shot?” he asked, looking at me slyly. Hot or shot was a game we played on nights out. A guy was either hot or you needed to do a shot for him to be hot. It was kinda mean but it was just a silly game we played with only the two of us as a way to stay entertained at on nights out or sometimes at lunch.

I gave him a vigorous nod and we started to play. It was quick round since we had already played it with the guys in school and there weren’t actually that many who didn’t go to our school here.

As we did laps, Kyle found a potential guy and we did our “have you met my friend, Kyle?” routine which of course worked like a charm. I quickly excused myself to grab everyone a drink but in reality, I just didn’t want to be a third wheel.

As I stood at the bar. twirling my glass in my hand I had this strange feeling of hyper-awareness of something or someone. I began to nervously chew on the inside of my lip when I felt someone smack into my back. I spun around to confront the culprit only to be met with a guy with jaw length brown curly hair and hauntingly beautiful grey eyes behind me. My jaw hung open at the sight of his gorgeous, tanned skin and sleeve tattoo along his perfect arms. I wanted to climb him. Like. A. Tree!

"Wow...those eyes" he said breathlessly in a deep voice that made me shiver. He let out a low awkward laugh as he rubbed his hand behind his neck. "Sorry, that really sounded like a line but I swear it wasn't" a small blush began to taint his cheeks.

His grey eyes shone like the moon as he continued speak to me. “Do you know whose party this is?”

I let out a small laugh of my own, trying to cover up the fact that I was still just openly gawking at him “you don’t know whose party this is?”

His eyes widened slightly, “crap, it’s not yours is it? I didn’t mean to crash, just people at school were talking about and made me come”. He gestured wildly at various people around the room that I didn't even bother to look at.

His nervousness made me laugh even more and eased some of my own anxiousness, “no, you’re safe. For now. Wink wink”. Now it was his turn to start laughing.

“did you really just say “wink wink”?”

I could feel my cheeks light up, “I can’t wink”.

He gave me a crooked smile and I won’t lie; it was hot, like pantie melting hot. “That’s pretty cute actually. I’m Beck by the way” he held his hand out which I took a little too quickly, his large hands engulfing mine.

“Riley” I smiled.

“what school-” he started but was cut short by my phone ringing. Sighing I took it out and just my luck it was my boss. I hastily answered the phone signaling to Beck that it would only take a minute. 

Of course, when I meet a cute guy that doesn’t go to my school, I get called in for work.

“I’m so sorry, one of my colleagues is sick and no one else can fill in” I explained, Beck's face dropped like he didn’t believe me, like I was inventing some out, so I didn’t have to be around him any more. I did want to talk to him, boy did I want to, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to have a reason to leave since I still had the feeling that something was going to go happen and the quicker I could leave, the better.

“How about we exchange numbers?” I suggested and his face brightened at this idea.

We quickly swapped phones and he went as far as to take a contact picture of himself with a ridiculously wide grin.

I turned on my heel to go find Kyle but at the last second, I turned back around and planted my lips on Beck’s. He was shocked at first but quickly kissed me back, wrapping his arms around my waist. I deepened the kiss by wrapping my arms around his neck, grabbing his shirt in one hand and using it to pull him closer.

We broke apart when we heard something smashing upstairs just above us and noticed the atmosphere at the party turned tense. 

His piercing grey eyes were locked on me as he gave me a devilish smirk, “I was not expecting that”.

I bit my lip and looked at him from under my eyelashes and watched his Adam’s apple bob. I felt a rush seeing how I could affect him. “I know what I want” I said in a sultry voice, shrugging slightly.

I took one last glance at his strong arms, breathing a deep sigh before running off to find Kyle.