“You’re a good teacher,” I told him, relishing the feeling of his hands so eager to touch me. “But I’ve filled my dancing quota tonight.”
He held me at arm’s length and clutched his chest. “Break my heart, why don’t you?”
“All right, I confess.” I surrendered. “It’s because my feet hurt!”
He smirked. “That makes me feel better.”
Brooklyn led me back to the bar, gesturing for me to sit at an open bar stool as he ordered a refill for me and a water for himself. The rest of the night went by with ease as we all talked and drank, and I fell into a good conversation with two of Stella’s sorority sisters about the recent season ofThe White Lotus. Brooklyn had retreated to the far end of the bar with Alec, and was deep in conversation about who knew what. He seemed distressed at first as he spoke animatedly with his hands, but when he saw me looking over, he waved and gave me a smile so glowing that put the sun to shame.
“I have to use the bathroom.” Nikki had to shout to get my attention.
“I’ll come with you.”
It was instinctive for me at this point, but thankfully she didn’t fight me this time, nodding and sliding off the bar stool.
Nikki took my hand and we wove in and out between people to get to the back hallway where the bathrooms were, which were two individual unisex rooms. There was handwritten graffiti all over it like the rest of the bar, and the lights above the sink flickered and buzzed. I leaned forward against the sink to clean the smudge of lip gloss at the corners of my lips. On the wall beside the mirror, someone had writtenwhere is her head?in what looked like red lipstick.
“What’s going on with you and Alec?” I asked Nikki as she came to the sink to wash her hands.
“What do you mean?” She kept her gaze down to furiously scrub at her hands.
“I don’t know.” I leaned back against the wall beside the sink. “You’ve been avoiding him all night. I thought you two were talking.”
“We’re not anymore. It’s no big deal.” She shut the sink off and brushed past me to dry her hands.
“You can talk to me, you know,” I told her as we walked out of the bathroom.
She abruptly stopped and spun on her heel. “Can I?”
I took a cautious step closer to her, furrowing my brows at her. “Of course you can. Why do you think you can’t?”
She scoffed, her mouth gaping open. “You’ve become, like, so obsessed with Brooklyn, you don’t even realize this is something you could have asked me a week ago.”
Obviously things were nowhere near as normal as I thought they were. I took a step back, suddenly very off-balance in shoes I wished I hadn’t worn.
“That’s not true” came out softer than I wanted it to.
“Okay.” Nikki pressed her lips together and nodded. “If you say so.”
As we got closer to our designated spot at the back of the bar, I wished I didn’t recognize the raised voices. Sure enough, we came upon Brooklyn and Alec, inches away from literally being at each other’s throats.
“Dude, what the hell is your problem tonight?” Alec groaned, raking his hair back off of his forehead.
“Right now, you’re my fucking problem,” Brooklyn spat back.
“Brooklyn, don’t be like this,” Stella, who approached him the way you’d approach a lion in a cage, pleaded.
“Stay out of it, Stella,” Brooklyn snapped, and she recoiled with a scowl.
“What the hell is going on?” Nikki muttered in my ear.
“I feel like we should do something.” My voice sounded so detached from the rest of me that I had to second-guess if I’d even spoken. But when I stepped forward, Nikki grabbed my arm.
“Don’t.” There was pleading in her voice, as if the conversation we’d had hadn’t happened at all. “This doesn’t involve us.”
While it was loud enough that most of the bar outside of our group had carried on with their night without noticing, some of the direct outlying people started to key in to the scene.
“I’m getting tired of trying to understand you.” Alec’s voice became weary, and even though I hadn’t known him that long, there was more affliction to him now than I’d ever heard.
