When the sidewalk is clear, I walk up to the bouncer with my head down.
“ID,” he waves his hand, bored stiff on his chrome stool.
Damn it.
I pull out my wallet and hand him my ID. He looks up at me standing before him. His eyebrows come together as he recognizes my name, and now the face, hidden beneath my hoodie and hat.
I snap my ID back out of his hands and replace it with a stack of fifty-pound notes. “Not a word.”
The bouncer nods in understanding, no media, no paparazzi,“Have a nice night, Mr. Ballentine.”
I open the door and do my best to keep my head down while I try and make it through the wall-to-wall crowds of drunk university kids. Why is she here? Emily loves music but hates clubs.
There’s a DJ on stage and a crowd of people dancing before him, a horseshoe-shaped bar on the other side of the room. It’s dark, save the flashing strobe lights, and I make my way to the nearest wall.
I don’t see Emily anywhere, she’s shorter than a lot of the people crammed together with their arms up on the dance floor. There’s no sign of her at the bar.
My eyes scanning below the brim of my hat, a light flashes across a tall blond head in the crowd, her roommate. I follow the wall closer and keep in the darkness, moving around the occasional couple mauling each other.
Eventually, the crowd parts in the right way, and I see Emily’s long hair spinning around. Her eyes are closed as she dances to the beat, a drink in a red plastic cup in her left hand. I watch her, transfixed, as she rolls her hips and raises her hands above her head.
Her shoulders are bare, the hollows of her collarbone and her long neck illuminating every time lights pass over her on the dance floor. She’s intoxicating, otherworldly. I can’t take my eyes off the way she’s moving her hips, every curve on display in that tiny dress.
What would she do if I joined her out there? Wrapped my arms around her, like I used to, pulled her tight against me—does she want me even a tenth of how badly I want her? Would her muscle memory kick in, too?
I make my way toward her onto the dance floor, the odd elbow hitting me and person bumping into me as I make my way through the crowd. Emily’s roommate passes right in front of me, pulling a man behind her. She whispers in Emily’s ear and passes the man to Emily.
Emily smiles up at this guy, a tall blond who looks her up and down.
I know that look in his eye.
Emily raises a hand and wraps it around his neck. He drops a hand to her waist and pulls her body close to his.
My blood runs cold as I watch the two of them start dancing together. His knee parts Emily’s legs, and he lowers his head to her neck, whispering something in her ear. She raises her head and laughs, her fingers tickling the hair at the base of his neck.
His hand lowers to her ass. He pulls her in even tighter, the two of them writhing and grinding on each other.
Watching this unfold ten feet away from me as if in slow-motion is the most excruciating torture I have ever experienced. Every cell in my body wants to rip this guy’s filthy, groping hands off of her. I want to throw her over my shoulder and get her out of here.
Emily isn’t here to talk tonight. Not to me. Not to anyone.
Who in the hell is this woman?
It hits me like a runaway freight train through my chest.
This is not my Emily.
This is not the good girl I knew who looked at me like I hung the moon, the girl everyone thought was quiet but had more to say than anyone I’ve ever met. The Emily I know—the one I loved—was more comfortable in my old tee-shirts than fancy dresses. She wore minty lip gloss and had the lightest dusting of freckles across her face that you’d only notice after she’d been in the sun all day.
Emily liked small groups of close friends, not big groups of associates. She liked curling up with books, not strangers.
Emily hated parties and clubs. She sure as shit wasn’t into grinding on stranger’s thighs in seedy nightclubs or drinking cheap liquor out of Solo cups. The Emily I know would have kneed this guy in the balls for grabbing her ass like this.
But yet, she’s smiling and laughing and touching him as much as he’s touching her.
My Emily is gone.
You stupid motherfucker, you’re too late.