[chapter nine]
Disclaimer: If you've heard of
them, I don't own them. Everything else is mine, so no stealing, pretty please.
;-)
**
Nya wasn't sure which was more shocking: the sheer amount of cars lining their normally quiet street, or Jamie McMurray standing on her doorstep wearing a pair of leather pants.
"Nya! C'mon! The party's just getting started!" A visibly tipsy Jamie said when she flung open the door and saw him smiling back at her. "You gotta come over!"
Nya could hear the bass pounding out of his stereo next door, and it seemed that people were tumbling out of every door in Jamie's house, the silence of the night occasionally punctuated with a yelled "Woohoo!".
It was inevitable - she knew there would be a bit of a celebration when Jamie won at Charlotte, the track only a few miles down the road, but this was something else.
Not letting her argue or disagree, Jamie grabbed her hand and dragged her back towards his house as Nya hastily ran fingers through her hair and tried to straighten her plain tee shirt and jeans.
She knew Jamie was a liar the minute they walked through the door.
Nya stopped and her jaw dropped slightly. She had no idea you could fit so many people into one family room. Party just getting started, her ass. It looked like a soccer game at Wembley.
"Everbody!" Jamie's normally shy-sounding voice bellowed as they walked through the door. "This is Nya!"
"Hi Nya!" About a thousand men answered, raising their beer cans and smiling. Nya laughed at the typically AA-sounding greeting in what looked to be the biggest AA meeting on the planet gone hideously awry.
"Let me get you a beer."
"Nice party clothes." Nya finally managed to speak as Jamie kept hold of her hand and forced his way to the kitchen. "Very...midwestern." She said with a critically raised eyebrow.
Jamie grinned and handed her a cold can of beer. "I never get to wear them, but I figured everyone would be too drunk tonight to remember what I had on. You like?" He did an overly-obvious supermodel turn and Nya couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Very nice." She grinned, clinking cans with Jamie and taking a long swig with a slight grimace. "Congratulations." She said after a moment, her voice barely audible above the din of the crowd. "Really."
"Thanks." Jamie said, kissing her cheek quickly before being pulled towards the back porch by Donnie Wingo, a man Nya only recognized from the Victory Lane celebration she had watched on television a few hours before.
"Nya, right?" Nya whirled around and found herself face to face with two smiling men. "I'm Casey, this is Jimmie. We're going to teach you to play 'I Never' now, okay?" The shorter of the two men said with a smile and a confident tone. "So let's get you another beer."
Nya protested as they guided her towards the kitchen table. "I'm not...I'm not much of a drinker. And I don't know this game you are talking about."
"Well, then this is going to be a fun initiation. Jamie wanted us to keep an eye on you while he made the rounds for a few minutes." The taller man with dark hair smiled. "We're just trying to be good hosts for our guy."
Nya suddenly had a bad feeling
about this party.