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I’ve had a bit to drink. Not too much, just enough that it makes me feel like I’m on board a ship. But I manage to find a washroom, and after careening off the door jamb, I even make it inside.
The anxiety has faded and I’m having fun. So much fun, and so much to drink—I lean over the sink and let the cold water run over my hands. It’s quiet and cool and no one will notice if I hang in here for a few minutes, leaning against the pink wall. My eyes drift closed for a moment—
“What are you doing in here?”
My eyes flash open, staring at his reflection in the mirror; the thick hair, sleepy blue eyes, and that dimple. “You can’t be in here,” I gasp.
“Fee-ona?” Mase asks like he forgot my name.
“This is the women’s washroom, theladies’room, and you can’t—”
Mase laughs. “Nope. ’Fraid you’ve had one too many of those pretty pink cocktails and got turned around. The only ladies who come in here aren’t looking for a toilet, darlin’.”
As I stand there gaping, the door to the stall behind me opens and a man emerges. “Hello, beautiful.”
“What are—?” I look around with terror and a growing sense of humiliation. “This is the men’s room.”
“I certainly hope so,” the man says.
I clap my still wet hand over my mouth. “Jeezus flipping—”
“Nope, just me. You about done here?” Mase gently leads me over to the hand drier and puts a warm hand on my back as a blast of warm air pushes the skin of my hands to the side. “You okay?”
“I’m not drunk.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“You implied as much.”
“I’m drunk,” the man from the stall says with a grin. The door opens and three more men enter. Their laughter takes on a ribald tone when they see me, and my cheeks redden.
“Mase Ace! How you doin’?” one of them cries.
“Party in the bathroom with theman,” another adds. “Who’d have thought you’d already score?”
“I knew he would,” the first one says.
I stare at them, confused by their remarks. “You don’t know anything,” I protest.
“And...it’s time to leave,” Mase tucks his arm around me and shoulders past the three men. “Stay happy, dude,” he tosses over his shoulder at the smiling stall guy as he ushers me out of the men’s room.
Mase
IhadwatchedFionalurch off the dance floor. I can pretend that it was concern that made me follow her, from seeing her wide-eyed and breathless from the crowd when we got here, but being this close to her makes me wonder if that’s all it is. I’m nothing but a gentleman, but I’ve never made a point to make sure a drunk friend of a friend found the bathroom. Or ushered the said friend into the correct one and waited until she came out.
“I’m not drunk,” Fiona insists as comes out of the ladies’ room, leaning slightly to the side. The ladies’ room is opposite the men’s, with the unisex at the end of the hall, all clearly marked. She must have been completely out of it to miss. “This place is not level. You should fix the not-level floor,” Fiona adds. “You own it.”
“I don’t own everything,” I tell her with a bemused smile. The alcohol or maybe the embarrassment has given her cheeks a rosy flush, the red lipstick staining the full lips and making me look twice at her mouth.
Three times.
“Do you own the bathroom?” she demands, blue eyes sparking with temper.
“I do. And I own the ladies’ room too.”
“Oh, shush,” she complains and my smile widens. “I made a mistake. When they all came in—” Her breath hitches. “They thought you and me—”
“Is that such a horrible thought?” From the expression on her face, it certainly seems so. “Don’t worry about them. They won’t remember it in the morning. You probably won’t either.”
