im and I would be at tonight to start the party.
“I’ll be there at seven. Lauren and Evie are invited too.”
Devin laughed again.
Danny shook his head. “They’ll never go for that.”
I shrugged. “Regular folk don’t have cooties.”
“Rena! Table eight,” my manager yelled.
“Gotta go, boys.”
“I’ll see you at seven,” Devin said as I walked off.
I didn’t believe it for a minute that he’d be there, and so I was shocked when he stepped up beside me as I waited for my first shot of whiskey.
“So this is how the real world parties, huh?”
Kim blinked as Devin slung his arm over my shoulder.
“You came,” I managed around my shock.
“Yep.”
I narrowed my eyes. “It’s not like you’ve never been clubbing. You can’t tell me you’ve never been bar hopping.”
“I have, but with the plastic people.”
“Who are plastic people?” Kim asked.
“The people I normally hang out with,” he said waving to the bartender and calling out for a shot of whiskey.
“Rich people,” I clarified for Kim. “He wants to slum it tonight.”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m looking for real. Like you.”
“Where is your friend?”
“With the plastic people. I didn’t catch your name before.”
“Serena and this is Kim.” To my thinking, Kim was more his type. She wasn’t rich or fake, but she was thin, tall, and more classically pretty.
“I’m Devin.” He grabbed the three drinks and handed one to each of us. “Sláinte.”
And then we were off, making our way through New York, visiting bars on the pub crawl route, drinking and laughing. Laughing a lot. He didn’t come off as rich and pompous, although I suppose that was why he was with us instead of his usual crew; he was bored of rich and pompous.
“So where are you going in a week that you don’t know when you’ll be back?” I asked about his friend’s comment at our third bar. Kim was lost in a gaze with Todd, a college classmate she was into.
The relaxed smile on Devin’s face faded. “Europe.”
“Gee, how awful.” I quipped. Only a rich person could feel put out by having to go to Europe.
He shook his head. “My parents think it’s time for me to grow up. I’m being sent there to learn the family business. My gap year after finishing my MBA is over. Time to enter the real world.”
“So, your family business is in Europe?”
He nodded. “Here, Dublin, London, Paris…” He shook his head. “The purpose of tonight is to not have to think about it.” He downed his drink.