Page 158 of Dirty Like Jude
Sogorgeous.
Zane grabbed his mic and asked what time it was, and people screamed. Elle held up her iPhone so he could see the screen and Zane shouted, “GET READY TO KISS SOMEONE ’CAUSE THIS SHIT IS GOING DOWN,FUCKERS!”
Someone backstage was handing bottles of champagne to Dylan, and he handed a couple toJesse.
Seth took Elle’shand.
I grabbed Roni’s hand and pulled her close to me. She beamed her gorgeous smile on up atme.
“HERE. WE. GO!” Zaneshouted.
And then a shitload of voices joined in as he started countingdown.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!Six!…”
But I didn’t need a countdown. I just laid a kiss onRoni.
“Five! Four! Three! Two!One!”
Midnight.
“HAPPY MOTHERFUCKING NEW YEARMOTHERFUCKERS!”
Zane’s voice roared through the room. I was still kissingRoni.
I heard some laughter and mic feedback and no doubt the band was hugging and kissing and dumping champagne on eachother.
Then I could feel the shift as the lights started to go down again; even though my eyes were closed, I could tell the whole club got darker. But this was no “Auld Lang Syne” moment. Almost immediately, a deep, resonant, repetitive beat startedrising.
Roni broke our kiss and bounced excitedly. “Oooh, here shecomes!”
I followed her gaze to the stage. The band was just clearing out, bodies disappearing into the dark as the lights gradually dropped off. Until only one light, a cluster of spinning beams, shot down through a sudden, rising fog—on Zane, standing center stage. He was spraying champagne on the front couple of rows of screamingfans.
“You’re in for a treat, kids,” he growled into his mic. “The beautiful, unstoppable DJ SUMMER.” Then he tossed the mic and disappeared into the rising fog as he headedoffstage.
There was a screech of feedback, then someone turned off themic.
A repeating echo of Zane’s voice rumblingDJ SUMMERfaded out, as a couple of famous lines from one of Dirty’s biggest party anthems, “Love Struck,” rose, louder and louder, along with a heavy Jesse Mayes guitar riff; it was Elle’s voice, then Zane’s voice, repeated over andover…
Goodgirls?
We got any good girls heretonight?
Goodgirls?
We got any good girls heretonight?
The beat kept rising, Elle’s and Zane’s voices looping around and around, and the crowd kept screaming. A woman’s silhouette appeared and then Summer ran up the steps to her deck, which had been set up at one side of thestage.
She wore a silver bodysuit, unzipped low, with some generous cleavage, white fur boots and a sleek white sparkly wig. She raised her hand high in the air and the crowd did the same, clapping and screaming. She curled her hand into a fist and the fist stayed up in the air, holding, holding, as the voices keptlooping…
Goodgirls?
We got any good girls heretonight?
Then Summer dropped her fist like a hammer and the house exploded with lights and a heavy-as-fuck, insanely cool beat on a remix of “LoveStruck.”
Roni started rocking her sexy body in myarms.
