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“And if anyone fucks with you, I’ll make ‘em sorry.”She hooks an arm through mine and I let her lead me inside.
The cavernous restaurant is packed with bodies crammed around small low tables that dot the room. There’s a bar in the corner and a small stage up front with a mic and a monitor for the lyrics and a piano crammed beside it.
Some people sing along with the woman on stage who’s screaming an off-key rendition of Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable”. A few people heckle her, but she gives as good as she gets, and they laugh when she throws them a good-natured middle finger.
They’re having a chaotic, but good time. Nothing is amiss. I decide to ignore whatever that was outside and have a good time. I could use it.
“Let’s go to the bar,” Dina says as soon as we reach an empty table to the left of the stage.
“Where’s your dad?” I look around for him.
“At home, asleep.”
I laugh and shake my head. “That sounds like your dad.”
“Its’s better this way, he’d insist that one drink was enough and then where would you be?” She waggles her eyebrows and grins. “Now, come on, let’s go get those drinks.”
I frown at the crowded bar. “Don’t ’they have table service here?” I ask.
“Of course they do, it’s just more fun, and you can flirt with the bartender. Come on! You can experience your first dive bar up close and personal.”
“What if someone takes our table?”
“Then we’ll find another one,” she says and turns to leave without me.
I drape the pink scarf I’m wearing over the back of my chair and follow her.
We’re heading back to our table with our drinks when Dina gasps and grabs my arm.
My drink splatters all over the front of my pink silk blouse.
“Dina what—”
She grabs my arm to silence me. “Lizzy, look. Oh my God. Look at the ass on Mr. Tall Dark and Sexy AF.”
I let out a long-suffering sigh and turn my head to look.
My drink slips out of my hand.
I don’t hear it when it hits the ground. I’m vaguely aware of a shriek, and the splashes of cold liquid on my bare toes. But the loud whoosh of blood in my ears as it tries to keep pace with my heart drowns out everything else.
It’s him.
The back of him anyway. His dark hair is longer and curls around the collar of his bright green polo neck shirt. I’ve drawn those unruly waves more times than I can count. Most of the time just in my mind. The wide range of his shoulders fills out his shirt and follows the lines of his back as it narrows at his waist. The short sleeves expose the lean, defined muscles of his triceps. There’s something new tattooed on one of them. But from this distance I can’t make it out.
He turns in my direction so quickly, I don’t have time to look away, and our eyes meet. The thunderstruck look on his face matches the booming of my heart. His eyes go from wide with surprise to narrow with purpose. He leans down to speak to someone I can’t see, and then he starts walking toward me.
My flight instinct overwhelms the paralysis of surprise, and I spin on my heel. “I have to use the bathroom,” I tell Dina as I rush past her. I stride through the haphazardly arranged dining room, offering an absent “excuse me” when I bump into someone.
But I don’t stop.
My heart may be racing, but my mind’s mad dash to try and understand is outpacing it.
I have a million questions.
A million emotions.
A million fears.
