Last Stop This Town by David Steinberg Page B

looked at Dylan like he was crazy, but Dylan knew exactly what he was doing. First, by mentioning that they had girlfriends, Dylan had conveyed that they were into girls, but just not them, and were therefore safe to hang out with. But second, by playing it coy, the girls wanted them even more because, according to Dylan, girls always want what they can’t have.
    Leah played right into his hand and replied, “Don’t worry. We won’t molest you.”
    The girls laughed and Leah took Dylan by the arm. Becky linked arms with wild looking Chelsea, buxom blonde Faith, and waspy looking Caitlin. Together, the four girls grabbed Noah and escorted him down the street as well.

 
    CHAPTER TWELVE
    P IKE AND W ALKER made their way down to Chinatown. They could have been eating by now but Pike was a surprisingly picky eater for someone who was perpetually hungry.
    Walker spotted a sign in one window. “There, there you go. All you can eat, nine ninety five.”
    Pike finally agreed. “Challenge accepted, Hop Li Buffet Restaurant.”
    They headed in.
    Soon, Walker and Pike were filling up their plates with food from the buffet in this Chinese restaurant with dead ducks hanging in the window. Walker was surprised at how busy the place was at this hour, but Pike explained that New York City was “like its own time zone.” There were a lot of couples on dates and quite a few college kids who looked like they had the munchies worse than Pike.
    They moved forward in the buffet line and Pike elbowed Walker. “Go for the shrimp. Pound for pound it’s the most expensive thing here.”
    “I don’t want shrimp.” Walker scooped a mound of white rice instead.
    Pike looked personally offended. “Dude, what the fuck are you doing? Rice costs like a nickel and it will fill you up before you get your money’s worth.”
    A woman in front of them glanced back at Pike like he was an incredible asshole.
    Walker rolled his eyes. “How am I supposed to eat Chinese food without rice? This is dinner, not an arbitrage opportunity.” He scooped more rice onto his plate, defiantly.
    Pike shrugged. “Whatever. Sucker.”

    At Element, hundreds of people were dancing to the thumping techno music in this former 19th century bank, now an all-ages dance club. The place was huge, with three levels: the candlelit brick walls of the private mezzanine, the lower “vault” level with old-fashioned safe doors, and the main dance floor with its 36,000-watt sound system. Element was the kind of place that spent a lot of money telling the world how cool it was, which of course made it fairly un cool, but the girls picked the place, and Dylan would have followed them to the Post Office if he thought he might get lucky.
    The crowd was mostly “bridge and tunnel”—few locals took Element seriously—but there were a lot of out-of-towners in the city tonight and the dance floor was packed. The silver lining was that Dylan could dance right up against Leah without the usual break-in period.
    Leah was incredibly sexy. She had short hair almost like a boy’s, but it fell over her green eyes like a picture you’d see in a hair salon. (Her haircut was actually very similar to Dylan’s vision-obscuring do, and if Noah had been a Freudian psychologist, he might have suggested it was the reason Dylan was so into her.) She was wearing a low-cut black dress that barely covered her butt. The music was a nondescript bass line that they could feel in their teeth, but Leah seemed into it, so Dylan was into it as well.
    Noah played the good wingman, keeping the other four girls occupied at the juice bar. He sipped his twelve dollar orange juice, then yelled to be heard, “Do you guys live here in Manhattan?”
    Faith answered, “No, we just came in from the Island for the weekend.”
    Faith was stunning. She had long, curly blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Her red dress was longer than Leah’s—everyone’s was—but on her, it just looked elegant. Noah could see