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He should’ve taken her to a VFW square dance. Maybe they’d do that on their Grand Road Trip to WTFery, Wisconsin.
She sashayed across the space between the bar and their table, her skin turning blue under the fuchsia lights, then golden-brown under the red lights, blue under the purple lights. He wanted to spend more time with her skin. They hadn’t had enough time. He barely remembered what they’d done in Lukla, and the airplane seemed like a million years ago.
Rosemary plunked a martini glass in front of him. When she sat, her knee rubbed against his. He’d changed into jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt that had seemed sharp the last time he wore it but felt sad in this room full of men wearing pearl snaps and flower embroidery and actual sparkles. And boots. He should get some boots.
A Sherpa dude in boots, though—it didn’t have the same effect.
“One alcohol for you, and one alcohol for me,” she said.
“What kind?”
“Yours is an apple martini. Mine is a Gibson, shaken, not stirred.”
“What am I, a nineteen-year-old girl?”
“You are. And I’m James Bond, but with cocktail onions.” She popped the onion into her mouth, smacked her lips, and smiled. “Are you going to be grouchy all night?”
“I’m not.”
“You pouted at me the entire time I was at the bar.”
“I never saw you look over here.”
“I’m a mum, I have eyes in the back of my head. Plus, I could feel you vibing me all the way across the room.”
“Yeah? What was I vibing?” Kal took a sip of his martini. It was actually pretty good—crisp, sour, not too sweet.
“Threatened masculinity. Doctor Doom vibes. Sullen man-child manipulated by his mother into an errand he’d prefer not to do. I’m not having it.”
Kal wanted to argue with her, but giving in to his worst impulses had never gotten him anything he wanted. “What are you having?”
“I’m having a Gibson, and you’re going to show me how to salsa dance, and then if I’m very lucky, I’m having sex in a nightclub lavatory.”
Kal choked. Going the wrong direction, apple martini burned like a motherfucker. Rosemary put her hand on his knee and squeezed, hard. “Finish your drink,” she said. “I need at least three in me before I turn into a brilliant dancer.”
Her eyes found his, the dimple winking in her cheek. Kal figured out how to inhale again and let the Doctor Doom vibes go on the exhale.
It wasn’t worth it.
He’d get his chance to peel those leather pants off, inch by inch—possibly in the bathroom of this very nightclub—and he could take as long as he wanted at it.
No other man in the room had that much to look forward to.
—
Rosemary was pleased to discover that she was an excellent salsa dancer.
The steps were easy. It was an eight count, and she was drunk enough to feel hot-faced, a little dizzy when she spun, but not so drunk that she’d forgotten how to count.
“Put it in your hips,” Kal said. Closer now, his hand at her waist as he came toward her, then stepped back and beckoned her into him.
It was a rocking dance, a mimicry of courtship, of sex, advancing and retreating.
“There you go.”
His voice melted into her skin. Th
e club had a live band, the sound system absolutely deafening, but it felt so good to feel music singing through her bones, her new clothes tight everywhere she wanted to feel herself move, loose where she wanted to float and spin and lift away, and Kal’s hands, Kal’s voice, Kal’s body keeping her tethered and dizzy and hot.
