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Zoning out of the rules, I looked back across the bar toward the guy. He was talking with his friends and laughing, but he glanced over at me briefly. I tried to look like I was just casually glancing around, but I was pretty sure he knew I was looking at him. I couldn't help it. He was hard not to look at.
"Kristen?"
I turned toward the sound of my name and saw Alexis staring at me with expectation. They had clearly asked me something, but I missed it. I turned my attention back to the girls, unwilling to answer without knowing what they’d asked.
Half an hour later, we'd finished the next round of games, and I was seeking a few moments of refuge at the bar. Leaning against it, I waited for the bartender to notice me standing there. She was busily rushing around filling orders, but I felt like I'd been standing there for hours and was pretty sure she'd looked right at me at least twenty times.
I was at the point of contemplating scrambling over the bar to pour a soda for myself when someone stepped up beside me. I glanced over and saw it was the guy from earlier. My cheeks flushed slightly, and I turned away to hide it before looking back.
"I'm being ignored," I said, gesturing at the bartender.
He nodded. "Hold on. Hey, Desiree." The bartender looked over, and he pointed at me. "Go ahead."
I ordered my drink and she nodded. I looked back at him.
"Thank you." I paused, then gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry about earlier. It's my best friend's bachelorette party…"
"The bride," he said, looking like he was trying not to laugh.
I pressed my lips together and nodded once. "Yeah. The bride. That would be her. Anyway, her sister planned this whole party, and there was a game, and she dared me to kiss a stranger of her choosing, and she chose you. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you."
His eyes slid down to the necklace I was still wearing, and I felt my cheeks burn again. This was just going swimmingly.
"It's all right," he said. "I was glad to be of service."
Desiree came over to me with my drink, and I took it from her. I held it up toward him.
"Thank you again."
He nodded, and I returned to the table.
For the rest of the night, we stole a few glances at each other, but I tried to keep my focus on the party. It was quickly sliding into out-of-control territory. An hour later, I knew it was time to take some drastic action and get these girls out of here.
We'd already hit a few bars, but it was still early in the greater scheme of things, and Viv had a couple more activities planned. Brianne wasn't going to relent to giving up any of those plans, so she couldn't just spiral off into oblivion. Unfortunately, that might have already happened.
Two of the girls were dancing wildly in the middle of the dance floor, each seemingly to her own beat independent of the other. Another had been pushed back from the bar and was instead on her knees on one of the barstools, doing her best to perform a sexy dance. The fourth had discovered a dart board and was throwing darts without any sense of aim or intention. And to round out the party, Viv was currently trying to take over the microphone for the open mic night. It was not open mic night that night.
It was up to me to round everybody up and get them back out to the party limo Viv had hired. I decided to take the process in waves, starting with the most likely to get us removed from the bar. Going over to the small platform stage, I took hold of Viv's wrist and gently tugged her.
"Come on. Time to go," I said.
"But I want to do karaoke," she said.
The DJ who had been trying to keep her away from the mic gave me a withering look. He was losing patience.
"It isn't a karaoke bar, Viv," I said.
"Sure it is. There's a microphone. I have the best song for tonight…. And IIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuu…"
She held that 'you' for a stunningly long time, and I didn't have the heart to try to explain to her why that was not a good song for a bachelorette party. Instead, I got up on the stage with her and wrapped my arm around her waist to guide her away. She gave a sudden hard tug that yanked me up against her by my neck.
"Viv…"
"You are such a good friend. Do you know that? You are just such a good friend. I wanted to do this party, and you let me. You could have said no. You could have been like ‘Absolutely not. I'm the maid of honor and I'm going to do the party.’ But you didn't. You let me do this for my sister," she slurred.
"You're welcome, Viv. We need to go now."
"How about a dance?"
