Follow the River

My Uber driver pulls up to a club downtown not more than twenty minutes later, and the second I step out of Dave’s Subaru, I’m hit with the pulsing music coming from within the club.

I’m not huge into the club scene, but tonight, I need to dive headfirst into any vice I can find. Anything so I don’t go back to the hotel hard up and in need of an orgasm while River is there. Or worse, stuck thinking about the bullshit demands from my stepfather.

The line outside moves quickly enough and in less than five minutes later, a bouncer checks my ID before ushering me into a mass of hot, sweaty bodies. The club is dimly lit by blacklights, and my eyes take a minute to adjust before observing everyone’s clothing glowing while they grind and dry fuck on the dance floor to some techno shit I don’t recognize.

I scan the perimeter, searching for the bar. Spotting it on the back wall, I make my way through the throng of drunken idiots to get my hands on some booze. Because, boy do I fucking need it.

It takes a while to get the bartender’s attention, people lining up to grab their drinks two deep, but eventually it clears out enough for me to grab a place near the end. Ordering a Jameson neat, my favorite homage to my father, I watch the people on the dance floor.

They lose themselves in the music, the atmosphere.

What I wouldn’t give to live carefree, even if it was only for a night. One night of freedom from my demons seems like a small ask of the universe. But still, it never seems to hear my fucking pleas.

When the bartender, an inked up guy appearing to be in his late twenties, slides my two fingers of whiskey across the dark wood, I toss it back in a couple swift gulps, relishing in the warm fire burning down my esophagus and into my stomach. I signal to him for another before slamming down a fifty on the crowded counter.

He quirks a pierced brow at me, but doesn’t say anything, simply refilling my glass with three fingers this time. Telling him to keep the change, I go to leave the bar, but a hand claps me on the shoulder, startling me.

I don’t turn around right away, preparing myself to meet River’s a

Did he seriously fucking follow me?

But when I turn to see whose hand is on me, I’m surprised to find it attached to Jaxson Hopkins, one of the cornerbacks I played against tonight.

“I thought it was you, Grady!” he leans into my ear, hollering over the music. He gives me a drunk grin when he pulls back slightly. “You want to come party upstairs with us? Private room with the goodies up there.”

At that, he rubs his nose, signaling what exactly he means by goodies.

Drugs.

And by my guess, it’s one of my favorites.

The decision, while it should be an instantaneous fuck no…is the exact opposite. “Lead the way, man,” I tell him with a smirk.

I follow closely behind him as we weave through the mass of bodies to reach the stairs to the upper level housing a smaller bar and some private booths and even a few private rooms. Once he clears me to get into the VIP section with the bouncer at the top, I find myself in one of those rooms. The music is the same as it is out in the public part of the club, just set at a lower volume. As if whoever designed this place knew some people want to actually hear themselves think.

Lounging on red plush couches, I spot three other guys I played against tonight, a defensive end, the safety, and one of the offensive linemen... and a slew of girls.

Or maybe it’s a harem?

I couldn’t tell you, I just know the ratio of cocks to pussy is extremely low, and by the looks on their faces, was the entire point.

But what draws me in the most is the baggie of white powder sitting on the mirror-topped table.

Cocaine, my old friend.

I absently lick my lips, the blow calling to my blood like the long lost escape it is. I haven’t touched the stuff in years. Part of my deal with my stepfather for making the night I can’t seem to forget, nothing more than another skeleton tossed in the back of my closet.

But what was I saying earlier tonight? Wanting to forget my demons?

Jaxson must notice my eyes locked on the coke because he gives me a playful shove towards the table. “Didn’t take you for anything more than a weed man, what with all the Heisman talk. But I’ll play. Since your team lost tonight and you’re our guest, I suppose you can take the first line if you want it.”

Fucker, get real. I probably snorted more lines on my seventeenth birthday than you have in your entire life.

That alone should give me enough sense to not get high with a bunch of fuckwits I don’t know from Adam.

Still, I’m not in the mindset to oppose.

Sinking to my knees, I take the rolled up bill a blonde girl with a huge rack is holding out to me before pouring a line onto the table.

A warning niggles in the back of my mind, telling me to stop. Years of sobriety are about to be tossed out the window, and for what? A night of fun, drowning my trauma with every vice in the book?

Alcohol, drugs...sex?

Shaking my head, I lean forward and inhale the powder in one swift move, the burn tingling my nostril and back of my throat is pure fucking bliss.

Fuck, I’ve missed this.

I take another line before handing off the bill to another girl, this one a redhead. My fingers wrap around my tumbler of whiskey I’d set on the table beside me, bringing it to my lips to take a long pull of the liquid. The burn of the alcohol mixes with the sting of the cocaine at the back of my throat and I feel…good.

Really fucking good.

The best I’ve felt since…

My thoughts screech to a halt as fast as they can manage in this state because there’s a dead fucking body on the table where I took the lines of coke.

But it’s not just anyone’s body. It’s Deacon.

His lips are blue and look as if they’d be cold to the touch and his gray eyes I always thought looked like liquid silver are open, staring at nothing because…he’s fucking dead.

No, no, no. Deacon has been dead for years.

Since that night in high school.

My brain tries to grasp at those straws of sanity, but it’s not fucking working because the body is still here, inches from me, dead as dead can be.

I blink a thousand times—a million times more—and he’s still there.

No, my logic tries to reason with my inebriated brain. He’s not here. This isn’t real. I’m just fucking tripping out.

But he’s so lifelike, even for a dead person. So real and right fucking there.

Looking down at my reflection in the small corner of the table that Deacon’s body doesn’t take up, I notice my eyes are bloodshot to hell. Pupils blown to hell.

Yep, definitely fucking high.

But this high is nothing like I’ve felt before. My skin itches all over and every time I go to scratch it, I think I do, but then…did I actually do it or only think I did?

I look up at Jaxson, who is sitting with the blonde girl who gave me the bill to take my line and is it fucking hot in here?

It is, isn’t it?

I swallow down the rest of my whiskey in an effort to cool myself, but it only proceeds to make me warmer. It boils me from my stomach out and holy shit did I leave my stomach on the stove? Is that why it’s boiling?