Courtney took a upuan on the lumpy sopa in the living room with her cup of hot tsokolate pressed to her palms. She had changed into a pair of dark gray sweatpants, and out of those slutty shorts, while the water for her drink was heating up. She’d had to roll the waistband of the sweats a couple times, though, since Duncan’s mga kaibigan had bought a pair that was too long. But it didn’t matter, since Courtney liked to roll her sweats.

Then the matter at hand, once again, popped up in her mind: Would it be so bad to be falling for a guy like Duncan?

Her CIT voice showed up, too, to remind Courtney’s other subconscious voice to shut up and ship out of there. Of course, it didn’t really say that. It said, ‘For a guy like Duncan’? Don’t you mean ‘Duncan’?

Well, yes. Duncan is surprisingly nice. But then he’s also sweet…And handsome…And, oh, that bad-boy personality is so tempting…

Courtney, you used to hate those bad-boy types! Don’t you still feel for the guys with blonde hair, blue eyes, a perfect grade card, and respectful morals?

The madami wild side to Courtney’s personality let out a huff. Actually, an imaginary huff, since all this was going on in her mind. Yeah, but the rush is so amazing when I’m with Duncan! Tell me you didn’t get a thrill when you drove that speeding racecar.

I didn’t get a thrill when I drove that speeding racecar. Courtney, when will you start listening to reason?! You could have killed somebody with all your shenanigans! Remember that cop Duncan shot at when you two went rum-running? Do you WANT to be responsible for somebody’s death?

Of course not! But he’s innocent, I tell you! Duncan wouldn’t want to purposely kill somebody.

He’s just a gangster. He’ll use you.

Shut up! You wouldn’t know, you stuck-up CIT! You never have any fun! And he KISSED me! You know he’s feeling something in that rarely-used puso of his.

Sure, he kissed you. But watch him go and break your heart. Just watch.

He’s innocent. I swear. Duncan’s a good guy.

“Hey, Princess, what’s up?” asks Damien, plopping down on the sopa susunod to Courtney. She holds up her cup of hot tsokolate to try to calm the reverberations so the steaming liquid doesn’t spill.

“Just… thinking.”

“About what?” Damien asks. Courtney’s cheeks immediately blush. A smirk slowly grows across Damien’s chiseled face. “Ohh… I see here. You were thinking about Duncan, weren’t you?”

“Of course not!” Courtney quickly denies. Damien laughs, seeing through her lie, causing her cheeks to grow a brighter red than before. She reaches over and smacks his arm.

“Mmhmm. You’re getting all defensive. Tell me which you like more: his tial eyes that you can’t decide whether are madami blue or madami green, or his bad-boy personality that just gives you this rush,” Damien gushes, looking at Courtney and waiting for answer with faux excitement.

She rolls her eyes. “So you’ve heard this before?”

“I knew it!” Damien snaps his fingers. “But, no, I just hear stuff on the kalye and in speakeasies and such.”

“Let me guess. Duncan has a lot of girl-fans,” Courtney says, small traces of envy bubbling up in her.

“Oh, you have no idea. Whenever they see him driving around, they almost faint in his wake. And most of them go to the speakeasies just for a chance to see him and hope that love-at-first-sight happens to him,” Damien explains.

“Hmm.”

“Don’t be jealous,” he teases. “Duncan hasn’t had a girlfriend in, like, forever.”

“Why not?”

Damien shrugs. “He says he’s ‘too busy’ with the liquor smuggling business to deal with any ‘PMS-ing chicks’,” he explains, using air-quotes around Duncan’s quotes.

“Interesting.”

“Yep. Well, I might as well get to the point of why I came up here. There’s another party later tonight starting right after supper. Don’t eat anything before the party, though, otherwise you’ll puke if you drink madami than two bottles. Wear a dress from that closet I showed you earlier,” Damien explains, hopping up from the couch.

“Do you have a lot pf parties?” Courtney asks.

“Dude, we live to party.”


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Courtney was scanning the dresses in her closet, debating which one she should wear to the party. There were a couple long dresses, but Courtney thought that at their party, it might be madami appropriate to wear a short dress. She plucks a silk, knee-length dress just barely a shade lighter than forest-green from the rack.

She holds the dress up to the full-length mirror and moves her body behind the dress. Courtney nods, satisfied, and hangs the dress on a hanger as she strips down into her lingerie. Courtney slides the silky-smooth dress over her head until it falls over her shoulder. The fabric fans out just above her knees and Courtney looks at herself in the mirror.

The dark green of the dress made Courtney’s brown eyes pop, and her tan skin looked even darker than usual. After brushing her hair repeatedly, it was shiny and sat on her strong, squared shoulders. Her legs were shiny, since she had recently shaved them in the shower. Courtney slipped glimmering golden bangles onto her thin wrists, and the bracelets tinkled like holiday bells whenever she moved her hands. Along with the black mascara and eyeliner Courtney had put on earlier, she’d say she looks gorgeous. She slips on a pair of strappy green high-heels around her thin ankles and click-clacks her way out of her huge closet. In the hallway outside of the bunk rooms, Courtney almost collides with Damien.

“Daaang,” he choruses, his eyes traveling down Courtney’s body. “You look amazing. Truly. Duncan’s gonna pag-ibig it. Trust me, I’ve been his best friend for years.”

“I do not like Duncan!” Courtney quietly hisses, whipping her head around to be sure nobody overheard Damien, who laughs.

“Don’t worry, everybody is down at the party. Jeez. Chill.”

Courtney attempts a shaky smile and they walk down the stairs towards the party. Music was already soaking through the thick wooden stairs and reverberating through her chest. As Courtney walks through the door into the ‘party room’, she stands there for a bit, utterly shocked. Damien walked onward.

There were girls everywhere. The gangsters were still there, of course, but sa pamamagitan ng the looks of it, they had invited a bunch of flappers-slash-prostitutes to the party. The girls wore dresses so short that their butts were hardly covered, and their hair was cut barely past their ears in a bob. Courtney’s first instinct was so scrunch her nose with dissatisfaction.

These girls were sluts. They were whores, prostitutes, hookers… basically the rebellious girls of society. Courtney had always been taught to stay away from them. Then her segundo instinct was, Duncan.

Was he hanging out with these whores? Flirting with them? Dancing with them? Her susunod thought drove shivers up Courtney’s spine: What if Duncan was liking it?

Courtney kalapati into the crowd, begging to find Duncan somewhere. If only he could see her in her beautiful dress, he’d lose all thoughts of those slutty flappers… if he was thinking of those flappers at all, which Courtney was hoping he wasn’t. That was when it hit her: I’m in pag-ibig with Duncan.

She shakes off her urge to be surprised because, somehow, Courtney had known it deep down all along. Suddenly, she sees his signature black hair from across the tuktok of the crowd. Courtney stands on tip-toe, trying to see where he was going, but he had disappeared. She pops out of the huge crowd, in front of the makeshift stage where flappers were doing the can-can. Their dresses were flying up, ipinapakita peeks of their underwear. Courtney sniffed in disgust as multiple men stood as close as they could to the stage, mesmerized.

“Hey, Princess,” Duncan murmurs directly in her ear. His hands travel to Courtney’s waist and she smiles shyly. She turns around so Duncan could get the full effect of her ensemble, and, luckily, his gaze was nowhere near the flappers on stage. He was concentrating so hard on her dress that it looked as if he was committing it to memory. “You look… amazing.”

Courtney’s smile grew bigger. “Thanks. You look good too,” she tells him. He was smirking, but, somehow, it wasn’t his usual smirk. This smirk almost had a bit of emotion behind it.

“Gee, I’d have thought you wouldn’t like it,” Duncan replies. He was wearing a white cotton sando similar to the one he wore when Courtney first met him… err, was tackled sa pamamagitan ng him. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and faint veins were visible through his skin. A sure sign of pure strength. The tie was gone, and the tuktok couple buttons were undone, revealing part of his tan, toned collarbone.

As Courtney stood there, staring into Duncan’s deep tial eyes, song lyrics popped into her head: “See the first time me looking at your eyes, me be tell you want a guy like me. I feel like…I’m drowning in the ocean. Somebody come and take me away-ay! Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, ohh. Why’d you have to go-oh, away from home? Me love.”

It was true. His deep blue-green eyes made Courtney feel like she was drowning in the ocean. (A/N: Sorry about the bad grammar in the afore-mentioned song lyrics. It’s Sean Kingston… What can you expect? Lol. But, sorry, I’m not usually obsessed with him… I’m just listening to his CD right now, so it makes sense to me.)

Duncan holds his hand out to Courtney, and she takes it. He leads her into the crowded dance floor, and they begin dancing to the current song on the stereo. During the susunod song, Duncan offers Courtney, “You want a drink? I’m parched.” She nods. “M’kay, I’ll be right back.” He weaves through the crowd on the way to the drinks.

Courtney keeps dancing in the middle of the dance floor for the susunod two songs, until she couldn’t take the thirst anymore. She weaved through the dance floor, heading towards the drink table. Once Courtney walks out of the crowd, she immediately sees Duncan.

Her eyes fill with tears.

She spins around and runs for the stairway, pounding up two stairs a time.

“Courtney, wait!” Duncan calls from behind her, but she doesn’t stop.

She doesn’t even turn around to look at him.