Chapter Thirty-Two
The club is packed to the brim. There must be two hundred people on the dance floor. It's a mix of tourists and locals, celebrities and ordinary people, the barely legal and the pushing forty.
The crowd has one thing in common—amazing style. The guys are in suits. The women are in tight cocktail dresses and shiny heels.
Kara locks arms with me. "Let's start with a drink. If you want."
My shoulders tense. I roll them back, but it does nothing to relax them. Deep breath. I'm twenty-one. Drinking is normal. Fun. Maybe the only way I'll actually allow myself to dance with a stranger. "Yeah. I do."
"You sure?"
"Positive."
Kara leans over the bar, squeezing her arms together to highlight her cleavage. The bartender notices instantly.
"What are you drinking?" He stares at her chest.
"A paloma for my friend. Actually, two palomas." She turns to me. "It's like a grapefruit margarita. You'll adore it."
My heart flutters. "Okay."
I scan the room. There's a VIP area in one corner. I can just make out a few famous faces—a singer known for her outlandish costumes and the stars of this awful teen soap I totally never, ever watche
"Here you go, ladies." The bartender offers up our drinks.
Kara pays and she drags me to a velvet booth. It's plush and soft and there's a curtain in front. I pull the curtain closed, and suddenly we're hidden from view. It goes to just past our knees and it blocks out the rest of the club.
They're sex curtains.
Kara pulls the curtain wide open. "Don't get any ideas." She sips her frothy pink drink. "Shit, you really are going to love this."
I take a sip. It's amazing—tart and sweet with the faint taste of alcohol. My face flushes. I already feel more relaxed.
"I want fifty of these," I say.
"Going from zero to drunk pretty fast there." She slides her arm around my shoulder. "But I get it. You don't want to think about that asshole, but not all your brain cells are cooperating."
"They can either assimilate or be destroyed."
Kara laughs. "I missed this Meg."
"Me too."
She downs half her drink. She looks at me like she's reading a gauge. "I see a few hot guys, and they look lonely. Want to fix that?"
I polish off my drink, stand, and smooth my dress. "Well, we can't have lonely, hot guys."
We move to the dance floor.
There's barely any wiggle room. I've never been a big dancer, but there's something intoxicating about the thumping music and the soft blue-purple lighting. I throw my arms over my head and sway my hips in time with the beat.
Kara laughs. She drags me farther into the fray. We dance like we're the only two people here. I look around the club. It's built just like the place where Sinful Serenade had their secret show, only with a smaller stage and more room to sit.
The music fades into the next song. I circle my hips and roll my shoulders. Usually, I feel so insecure about my dancing. But tonight, anything goes.
A cute guy comes up to me. He's wearing a gray suit, and he's a little stiff. A total Business Guy. He motions as if to ask me to dance. I look back to Kara. She mouths go for it. So I do.
I press my back against his chest. He grabs my hips, holding my body against his. I close my eyes, trying to inhale the sensation, but there's nothing there. It doesn't hold a candle to Miles.