Nightlife ✓

21 | stars

I THOUGHT ALL DARK ROOMS with pounding music, a drinks bar and flashy patrons were the same.

For my twenty-first birthday, when I came back from NYC, my friends had taken me on a bar crawl around Halston. That was when I discovered that every club was virtually the same, in that I preferred my bedroom to all of them. Bars were like clubs without the dancing, mixers were like bars without the seats, and formals were like mixers without the alcohol.

So I was pleasantly thrilled with what the SciBall organising committee had managed to accomplish, especially considering the venue usually functioned as a business conference centre with a stiff, slate gray colour palette.

I had expected the room to be bright, but it was the opposite. All the lighting came from either fairy lights, which streaked their way around the walls and across the ceiling, or from hanging bulb lights. The length of the wires were all different, and the bulbs rested inside star-shaped lampshades with hundreds of holes punctured in them. These two lighting techniques created thousands of focal light sources that made me feel like I'd walked into a newborn galaxy.

Aside from this, the decorations were threadbare—probably because they'd blown the budget on the lights. A few silver balloon pillars dotted the corners of the room, and a single electronic candlestick sat on each table.

"Love what they've done with the place." Viv gave her seal of approval. Then she continued her appraisal of the ballroom, eyes hungrily wandering over the furniture in search of something. "Where's the booze bar?"

I chuckled at her appetite for alcohol. That was always her first order of business, in order to be able to have real fun. According to Viv, you couldn't let loose if you were aware of other people watching. One needed to be dead to the world and themselves for a truly transcendental experience.

I just thought she wanted to make binge-drinking glamorous, just like how she made everything else glamourous. Including torturous subjects like organic chemistry.

The Jays were not as bad as her, but in particular Jamie was letting his barely-concealed feelings for Viv sway him. If drinking was Viv's bad habit, Viv was Jamie's bad habit.

He pointed out the counter, far across the dancefloor, to Viv. "Over in the corner. I'll go with you."

In exasperation, Jake raised the arm that wasn't being clung to by Riley. "Hey, what about me? I don't want to be on babysitting duty the whole night."

"I'll look after her," I offered. Jake started walking Riley towards the edge of the room, aiming for the dining tables. I followed, telling him, "I'll get some sliders into her and then make her dance to speed up her metabolism. Should help process the alcohol."

"Thanks, Krista," Jake said, frowning in Jamie's direction. "He gets laid once and suddenly forgets about his lifelong twin brother. Blood and flesh. Wombmates."

I snorted at his joke, adding, "I think it was more than once."

"Gross. Let's hope it's over quickly so I don't ever have to worry about walking in on them."

"You think it'll be over quickly?" I wondered, catching the sight of Viv's silhouette weaving through the crowd. Jamie followed close behind her, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers.

"I bet ten bucks he's just Viv's latest plaything. Nothing's gonna happen."

"Interesting." I grabbed a slider from a passing waiter and handed it to Riley. "I bet that they'll end up dating. And make it twenty."

Jake's eyebrows darted up. "Bullshit."

"Can't afford it?"

"Um, I can afford it," he retorted, swerving as a couple of drunk women darted around us. Riley giggled with the movement. "I was calling bullshit on the dating thing. And because I'm so sure, I'll put fifty bucks on this."