Page 5 of Prime Time Romance

Our paths usually cross in the early mornings, when he’s still sleep-crusted and wearing his ratty old sweats, or late at night, when he gets home from the bar and wakes me up because I’ve accidentally fallen asleep in front of the television…again. I don’t usually get the chance to appreciate the smoothness of his movements as he picks up a bottle and pours without even looking or notice the air he gives off: casually confident and good with his hands.

“Who is that?” Lainey’s boobs press into my shoulder. Her eyes are also fixed on Josh, who has turned his attention to a pair of blondes at the bar.

I can practically hear Lainey’s brain cranking out a plan for seduction, which absolutely cannot happen. I have, on occasion, run into the odd mussed-haired party girl exiting Josh’s bedroom, heels in hand, in the wee hours of the morning. Lainey in my living room tomorrow is not something I need to see.

“He has chlamydia,” I tell her, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

Lainey crinkles her nose but continues to watch him. “But that’s one of the curable ones, right?”

“No,” I lie.

She sighs. “Too bad. He’s cute. Come on. Let’s go dance.”

She takes off without waiting for me. I linger a moment longer until Josh looks up again. He lifts his hands as if to silently ask, What are you doing here?

I nod at Lainey’s friends, who have already formed a circle, chucking their jackets and purses into a nearby booth. They dance along to a Lady Gaga mash-up, double-fisting vodka sodas that have somehow magically appeared.

Josh shakes his head at them and then mouths a have fun to me. I respond with a double thumbs-up, which I immediately regret, knowing it did not come off as carefree or cute as I intended.

I really don’t want to be here. And yet I add my purse to the pile and wedge myself into the circle between the bride’s twin cousins, who are wearing matching tube dresses.

Lainey hands me a lemon drop. “Drink up, ladies!”

I take the shot glass from her hands. One of the twins turns and hands me hers as well.

“I can’t drink this,” she explains. “I’m doing paleo and it will totally mess with my diet.”

I down her shot, followed by my own. The vodka is cheap and burns my throat, but it also makes the music and the lighting all blur together into this hazy rhythm. Two more vodka sodas later, I find myself thinking, This isn’t so bad.

Then the DJ takes us back to the old school with that bump-and-grind Magic Mike song.

The girls woo wildly. Grinding on one another, they throw their arms up and their heads back. It acts like a signal. Drunk females over here. Things are about to get wild.

An outer circle of dudes is now surrounding us, circling like sharks.

I brace for the first attack.

My bet is on Lainey, with her smoky eyeliner and hypnotic hip sways, or maybe the bride-to-be, whose eyes are half-closed as she sways off-time to the music.

What I don’t see coming is the hand that snakes around my waist and the undeniable feeling of a dancing dick at my back.

Nope. Absolutely not.

I drop my drink—only partially by accident. It lands on his black Zara loafers.

He swears.

I dive straight into the booth, combing through the pile of coats, looking for my little black clutch.

There are three almost identical to it. But after some frantic sleuthing, I determine the pleather cross-body belongs to Lainey, the big-buckled envelope-style is Zoe’s, and the nondescript leather clutch is owned by the non-paleo twin. Mine, however, is nowhere to be found.

This is a life lesson. One I should have already known. You don’t put your purse in the coat pile without repercussions.

With the bass now booming so wildly, I can feel the reverberations all the way down to my toes. The last thread—the one that I’ve been dangling precariously from all evening—finally snaps.

I want to be in my sweatpants, watching Carson’s Cove, where everything turns out right. Not here, with my heels in the same shape as my emotional state: rubbed raw and in pain.

I want to go home.