“There’s plenty of fish in the sea,” Alicia told the girls. “Let’s forget about guys and have some fun. I am. I don’t even want to think of my dating life right now. It gives me a headache.”
Jasmine felt much better by the time the concert was over. She should feel bad for what she did to Drake. There they were, getting along again, when Nancy walked by. When she blew him a kiss and said thanks for last night, Jasmine lost it. He liked the female attention and probably thought it was his due for being so handsome. Well, she was not falling for that again. No way.
Afterwards they went to the local bar. It was crowded since it was the weekend. Country music was blaring loudly through the doors.
“Are you sure I look okay?” Jasmine asked, looking down at her faded jeans and turquoise halter top. Her hair was loose and flowing down her back. She had applied eyeshadow and dark liner to her eyes, but that was it.
“No one dresses up,” Holly assured Jasmine. Holly was wearing a denim skirt with a red casual shirt and red flip-flops. Her curly blond hair landed on her shoulders. She had pretty blue eyes that were free of makeup.
“Well, a few snotty bitches like Nancy get all fancy.” Alicia laughed. “They think they are in some high-class club in Austin or Houston. This is small-town America, and jeans are always fashionable.”
Alicia wore jeans too, but she wore a white snug shirt that showed her belly button off which was pierced. A small dangly diamond hung from her belly button. She had taken a weekend trip to Austin, she told Jasmine, and had gotten it with some friends. “My parents were okay with it but my brother Ray flipped his lid. I reminded him each of his girlfriends had some kind of piercing but he just got that tic in his eye.”
Holly laughed and handed Jasmine and Alicia a beer. They found a corner table away from the dance floor so they could hear each other over the loudness. “Ray only gets that with you, girl. Remember when you were dating Troy Decker? I never heard so many curse words before,”
Alicia nodded and laughed. “I’m twenty-three but he acts like I’m still fifteen and need his approval on who I date. He dates every loose woman that comes his way but I am supposed to stay virginal until I get married. It’s a bullshit double standard. The only reason Alana stayed a virgin was because she fell in love with Noah when she was still in high school.”
Jasmine understood Alicia’s frustration. The world was filled with unfairness. She sighed. She was here to have fun, not mope around. She decided to get attention off the subject of men. “I thought about getting my belly button pierced but my friend Lisa convinced me to try the eyebrow. I had a ruby stud in my nose but I kept losing it.”
“Next time we go to Austin, you can come with us and I’ll take you to where I go. My friend Hanna knows the owner and he runs a clean shop. Holly has gone with me but she refuses to let anyone touch her with a needle.”
“I’m not that brave.” Holly sighed. “Although I do love your tattoo, Jasmine. It’s so amazing. Maybe I might get a teeny tiny heart and if I don’t pass out I might go with something bigger.”
Jasmine was having fun until she spotted Nancy. Nancy spotted her and walked up to them. She was wearing a short, tight red dress that clung to her slim form. “Well, if it isn’t the hood rat and her little friends. Drake is my man, so stay away from him. You embarrass him. Why do you think he comes to my house at night and sleeps with me?”
It was just what Grant’s mistress had told her. It brought back the ache in her heart that she thought she had gotten rid of. She had no snappy comeback. She sat still in shock.
Alicia stood up and pushed Nancy. “Shut up, you slutty bitch. Drake and all the guys around here like you for one reason: because you have no morals and spread your legs for whoever. Now get lost.”
Nancy turned and left but not before she flipped Alicia off.
Alicia handed Jasmine a napkin. Jasmine hadn’t even realized she was crying. “Don’t listen to her,” Alicia said. “Drake likes her because she is easy. That kind of women ruins it for the rest of us.”
“Maybe men don’t take me seriously because of how I look,” Jasmine mumbled. ”Grant’s mistress said he was embarrassed by how I looked. Maybe she is right about Drake too. He did let her kiss him in the middle of the day in broad daylight.”
“If you like how you look, then that’s all that matters,” Holly insisted fiercely. “Men are idiots. It’s a known fact. I have never known one who hasn’t put a woman through hell. That is why I am staying single. Adam put my sister Faith through hell before giving in. My mom has a good man now but it took her twenty years to find one. Doesn’t seem worth it to me.”
Alicia nodded. “Noah broke Alana’s heart and his ex-girlfriend tried to kill her. Romance sucks except in movies and books.”
Jasmine wiped her face free of the tears. She took a sip of beer. “That’s true. Decent men are harder to find than a needle in a haystack. This calls for a shot.”
“Tequila?” Alicia brightened up and flagged the waitress. “Yes. Now we’re talking.”
They lifted their shot glasses in the air.
“To being single,” they shouted together and laughed.
Chapter 11
Drake patrolled the fair but his mind was far away. He had brought Julia earlier in the day before his shift began. He won her the pink panda to go in her newly decorated room. He sent her home exhausted and filled with junk food. He was glad Jasmine wasn’t around. He was still annoyed over that scene in the restaurant. And Nancy—what the hell was her problem? He barely talked to Nancy and their time together had been brief. Now she acted like she owned him. Women. Even Kate wouldn’t let him in the store. How had things become so complicated in his once-simple life?
“I trusted you not to hurt her, Drake, and you have sent her back to being sad and hurting,” Kate had reprimanded him. He felt like a little boy when she wagged her finger in his face. He told her Nancy was just an old friend.
“I know what kind of old friend she is. Every man in town has been with Nancy and I am ashamed that you would degrade yourself by letting her hang all over you, kissing you in broad daylight. Matt told me how she put Jasmine down. If you feel the same, then you need to forget about Jasmine and myself. No one needs a friend like you.”
He had not even had the chance to defend himself before she kicked him out of the store with one of her friends nodding in the background. It had been a humiliating experience.
“Hey.” Matt patted him on the back, a little too hard to for Drake’s comfort. “Doing okay, man? At least you smell better or I would have walked ten feet behind you.”