Free Break Every Rule by J. Minter Page A

going on. He poured them all drinks. “To cool girls and hot boys!” he said as he lifted his vodka cran. David was relieved when he noticed Arno cringe, just a little bit, at that.
    They all focused on their drinks for a moment, and looked out at the crowd. The people were really packed in, and everyone was getting down, their drinks flowing over, and trying to shout over the music, which was futile. Rob told them all to look when P. Diddy came in,with a herd of bodyguards surrounding him. Then Mimi and Sadie came back.
    â€œWe miss anything?” Mimi said, glaring at Lizzie.
    â€œNot much,” said Lizzie.
    â€œFine. Let’s dance, bitch,” said Mimi. The three of them went to the dance floor, and started dancing in a row. They were all really close, and they closed their eyes and appeared to be really feeling the music. David thought they looked like they knew what they were doing.
    â€œDel
fuego
!” said Rob.
    â€œYeah, they’re hot pieces,” Arno said, looking briefly around the club. People seemed to be looking at him, too.
    Rob looked back at David and Arno. Gone was the stupid party face he wore virtually all the time. He looked serious. He looked like he had been thinking.
    â€œI have something we must discuss,” he said. Then he looked up and saw the girls coming back from the dance floor. The goofy face reappeared. “But first…”
    Mimi leaned over toward Arno in a way that seemed, to David, somewhat clumsy. But it occurred to him that it also might have been sexy. After all, they could all see down her shirt now.
    â€œYou guys weren’t paying
any
attention to us,” she said, sticking her bottom lip out.
    â€œYou know how it is,” Arno said.
    â€œCome on!” said Lizzie, beginning to shake to the new Jay-Z song that had just come on.
    â€œYeah, baby!” Rob yelled in a misguided Austin Powers accent. He stood up, and he and the girls headed for the dance floor, gesturing at Arno to follow.
    Arno stood up, ready to follow them. But before he did, he leaned in and hissed at David: “There are three hot girls out there, and we are three hot guys. If you don’t stop mooning, we’re going to be three girls and two guys, and that’s illegal in some states. So start acting normal. Got it?”

arno gets some depth
    Arno was experiencing two different emotions at once.
    Everywhere he went—on the street, at Pastis, and now at Ginger—people stared at him. Not the usual, “who is that good looking dude?” stare. It was a longer, more reverential kind of staring, equal parts awe and adoration. People kept giving him things, too, and most of it looked pricey. He felt like the sun. Or like the sun was shining on him. Or something.
    But in spite of all this warmth, he felt tense, too. He felt like he had gone from coffee boy to CEO in one day, and the pressure was enormous. Trying to keep David and Rob in line, for instance. David was acting like a real downer recently.
    Now that he was at the heart of the club, surrounded by people chanting his name, hearing the really cool, loud music, he was feeling mostly just good. And hot, of course.
    â€œYou’re so hot,” Mimi said. They had been dancing for almost an hour. She gave him a knowing little smileout of the corner of her mouth. She looked almost miniature next to him. But hot, definitely hot.
    But that was another thing. Sadie seemed to be acting like nothing had happened that morning, even though they’d fooled around pretty seriously, and Mimi seemed either not to know or not to care. Arno thought they were both hot, but he didn’t want to get ambushed by angry girls later on down the road. He really needed David to help him out with this by distracting Sadie.
    Arno looked up, and saw Danny Abraham, HPSB ’04, in his mezzanine booth, and waved. Danny raised his glass to Arno, and then went back to the three blond girls surrounding him.