Crud, they’re in my way.

Great. Freaking great.

“Oh crap, how do we get out of here?” Zoe says anxiously.

I frown. “Maybe we can get around it by going through the dance floor. You lead. I’ll follow. I’ll keep a lookout for the creeper.”

“No, you lead. I’ll follow. You’re the better dancer,” Zoe teases and then makes a face.

I start making my way through the bouncing throng of people moving in time with the thumping bassline and shifting in and out of focus in the flashing lights. I take two steps forward and then spring back to avoid getting hit. I see a narrow space to cut through. Good, nearly out of here. It’s swallowed up before I can get there.

I’m knocked several steps off my feet by a flurry of limbs, I stumble, and then turn. Crap. What happened to Zoe? I ease up on my tiptoes trying to see above the crowd. God, where’d she go? Nope, can’t see her.

I try to move toward the stairs and the bodies push me back the other way. I scan the crowd. I’ll never spot her in this.

I feel a hand on my hip…thank God…then it moves to my butt cheeks…oh no…and I whirl. Fuck, it’s the creeper. How did he get next to me on the dance floor? He grasps my hips and starts moving his body into me.

“Get your hands off me,” I scream, trying to break free, but he’s suddenly all hands, clutching and pulling and holding me against him.

I try to escape, but he’s repulsively strong and pulls me full-body against him, flattening me against his parts and giving me the feel of him with his moves. The feel of him is nauseating.

“I have a boyfriend, you asshole!”

He flattens his hands on my behind and lifts me up against him. Yuck. Enough. I lift my heel from the ground, ready to impale his foot with my Jimmy Choo, then all the bodies start to move so rapidly I can’t keep up.

“Get lost. Now. Before I decide to help you leave,” a low, raspy voice snaps, somehow heard above the thundering music. “I’m taking you home. Now.”

I’m released so abruptly the world spins and my mind can’t keep up with the shifting patterns in front of me. “Fuck off,” I scream at the creeper.

Lucky skedaddles away.

Breathing heavily to steady myself, all at once I become aware of a sudden unnatural hush surrounding me.

Then I see what everyone is staring at.

My thoughts race off in a dozen directions.

Oh fuck, that’s Alan.

Did he really just save me from the creeper?

I was doing fine on my own.

Those black eyes start burning in to me and my body covers in prickles. Damn, he’s pissed. I didn’t scream fuck off at him, but by his expression I can tell he thinks I did and he is furious.

This is freaking humiliating. Reality smacks me in the face with sudden clarity. I just created a scene in the middle of a packed club with Alan Manzone. Yep, there are already cell phones out catching this Kodak moment on video.

I want to drop through the floor.

This is going to be awful.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” he snaps.

Nervously, I babble the first words in my head. “Does my mother know you’re here? Better question.”

OK, that was a little funny. Not even a smile. Shit!

He gives me the stare. “Do you have a car?”

Why is he studying me that way? Oh great, he thinks I’m drunk. Nope, not doing this concerned friend of the family routine. You want to act like my father, admit you are my father.

“Zoe drove. I’ve had my keys taken away for two weeks. Thanks for telling my mom about me borrowing your car the other morning.”

He rudely lets amusement show in his eyes.

“Borrowing? Interesting choice of words. And I didn’t say a word to your mother. I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t.”

Another lie. My temper explodes. “Bullshit. I don’t believe anything you say.”

“We are leaving. Now. I’m taking you home.”

He tries to guide me toward the exit and I stand rooted in place. “I’m not leaving without talking to Zoe.”

“You can text her from the car,” he says coldly.

Shit. I can’t disappear and leave without her. That’s like an unwritten girl rule. She’s my best friend and she’ll hate me forever.

“Why do you have to always ruin everything?” I say dramatically, hoping he’ll relent.

His face remains impassive. Somehow he forces me out of the club without ever putting a hand on me, and we’re on the front sidewalk before I know how we got there and Zoe is in the freaking club without me.

He gives his ticket to the valet.

I whirl on him. “You don’t have any right to tell me where I can go or what I can do.”

“That’s enough, Kaley. You’re embarrassing us both.”

“Fuck, you are such an asshole. Don’t you get it? You just embarrassed me in there.”

“The only one to create a scene tonight was you, Kaley. And there is no way in hell I was going to leave you in a place like that alone. Do you even have a clue what could happen to you, drunk, in a place like that?”

“Place like what? Someplace you’d go? Zoe and I like to hit clubs. Dance. Even Mom wouldn’t freak out about that. We don’t do anything. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Then I’ll ask your mother when I get you home, and if I’m wrong, I will apologize.”

I cross my arms and turn so I’m no longer facing him. “Don’t bother. You’ve already ruined my night enough.”

His car rolls to a stop in front of us at the curb. A Porsche this time.

Alan crosses to the valet to get his key and waits outside the car until I climb in the passenger door. The attendant closes the door behind me, and Alan puts the car in gear and pulls away from the club.

I take my phone and rapidly message Zoe the 411 on my sorry state of affairs. I stare at the screen, willing her to text back. I’m going to worry until she does.

“I’ve always cared about you, Kaley. Don’t expect me to stop now. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s not what I intended. I was concerned.”

I look up to find his gaze intently on me. How does he have the nerve to say that to me after the confrontation in Ian’s kitchen?

I turn to stare out the window. “I’m surprised you’re still in LA. You haven’t been around for days. I thought you’d split California.”

He downshifts. He doesn’t look at me. “I’m here for good. Moving back to Malibu.”

I check my phone. Crap, Zoe. Let me know you’re OK.

“We’ll probably be running into each other out in the clubs more often,” he teases.

I roll my eyes.

“What’s happening with you and my mother?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when your mother tells me.”

I count to ten inside my head. Enough with the glib, charming comments, Alan. It’s not going to make this any less dreadful or awkward.

We drive the rest of the way to my house in silence. He pulls into the driveway and parks.

I open my door.

He stops me with a hand. “Before we go, is there anything you want to ask? Anything you want to say to me?”

Everything inside me starts to boil. Really, he wants to talk now? I climb from the car, intending to run into the house, but then I stop. No. No. No. He may be irrelevant to who I am, he’s proven that the last eighteen years, but he isn’t to Khloe, and if he is not going to be in her life he better stay the fuck away.

I lean into the car. “Yeah. I have some things to say. Don’t do to my sister what you did to me. Don’t come around Khloe if you don’t plan to be here. Stay the fuck out of her life if you’re only going to walk once you get bored. Don’t fuck her up the way you fucked up me.”

I slam the door in his face and hurry up the walk. Just inside the front door, Chrissie pounces on me.

“What’s going on? How did you end up with Alan? Why were you yelling at him?”

My mouth drops. Is that really the most important thing here, Chrissie? Why I am yelling at Alan?

I stare at my mom, shaking my head. “How about: is everything all right with you, Kaley? Which it isn’t. Because Alan just made me cut out on Zoe without telling her, humiliated me in front of about a gazillion people—I’m pretty sure the video’s being uploaded on the Internet as we speak—dragged me home like a little girl, and I’m pretty sure just cost me my only friend. Do you really think I want to discuss Alan at this point, Mom?”