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Oh, heck, what was the use? Concentrating on schoolwork was the most important thing she could do, then getting out of here. Next year, when she was out from under her great aunt’s tyrannical rule, she would have fun.
“Who was he?” Emma asked. “I don’t think I ever saw him before. Man was he cute. Randy got mad at me for gawking at the two of you dancing. I stepped on Randy's feet twice.”
Fiona laughed. “Uhm, well, I didn’t quite catch his name.”
“What?” The disbelief in Emma’s look and voice made Fiona even more conscious that she’d screwed up.
Fiona shrugged one shoulder, pretending it didn’t matter. Yet, when she’d torn her hand from his grasp, she’d felt a part of her soul wrenched away. “He wasn’t very talkative.”
Emma tucked her hair behind her ears. “He seemed to really like you. He had eyes only for you. Why wouldn’t he have told you his name?”
“Maybe he’s a college student. Maybe he doesn’t go to our school at all.”
“Ahh, sicko. Older guy after high school girls.”
Figured. Fiona took a deep breath. “He seemed a lot older than the guys our age. Really sophisticated.”
“It might have been the tux. But it really looked like you were leaving with him, and I worried?—”
Fiona headed for the punch bowl. “Nah, I’m more level-headed than that.” In fact, that’s what she figured was her problem. She never took any chances, never allowed herself to have any fun. Well, except for with Bradley Stapleton, and that had been a total disaster. Then she frowned. Despite knowing she’d never met Tux before, he really seemed…like the guy from her dreams. The guy she had kissed in her dreams. The guy from the mall. Arman.
She dipped a ladle filled with punch into a cup, then glanced at a light reflecting off something sparkling through one of the windows.
Tux—his mesmerizing eyes caught her gaze through the glass.
Her heart rate sped up, and she nearly dropped her drink.
Emma grabbed her hand. “Jeez, Fiona, you look like you saw a ghost, and you’re spilling your drink all over the floor.”
Fiona righted her glass and stepped back from the spill, not wanting to stain her white gi.
“Though there are enough dead people dancing around here that a ghost or two shouldn’t surprise you.” Setting Fiona’s cup on the table, Emma grabbed a napkin to wipe up the mess. But Fiona couldn’t shake the feeling that Tux was watching her, though she was too busy helping her friend clean up the spill to look at the window again. If he was observing her, did he think she was horribly clumsy?
Emma glanced at the window. “Did you see someone?”
Fiona looked up, saw only blackness beyond the glass pane, and swallowed hard. “It was just my imagination playing tricks with my mind. It had to be.”
A shiver of dread and something else trickled down her spine. A part of her wished she’d taken him up on his offer…to leave with him. Another part—the common-sense side that made her do what was right—cheered her on.
So why did she want to dash out into the night and search for tall, dark, and handsome at the top of the bewitching hour, and find out what other moves he had planned with her?
3
“Earth to Fiona,” Emma said as she drove Fiona home. “You’ve been in a daze all evening. I can’t believe Randy asked you twice to dance with him, and you made him repeat his question. Twice.”
Fiona imagined Randy had probably never been stood up by a girl, and certainly not twice by the same one. Especially one as unpopular as Fiona. That had to be a real ego deflator.
“Sorry. I guess I didn’t sleep well enough last night. Besides, Randy was only being nice because you jabbed him in the ribs and told him to ask me.”
“Nah, he was tired of me dancing on his feet.”
Fiona chuckled. Emma had told her she’d known Randy since she was a preschooler and as laid back as he was, Randy never got upset with her ever. Not even when she’d accidentally spilled soda on his brand-new football uniform at the beginning of the school year. Which reminded Fiona of spilling a soda on the guy at the Dallas mall. At least Fiona wasn’t the only accident-prone person. Instead, Emma had told Fiona that Randy had just smiled and given Emma a kiss. He was always giving her a kiss, come to think of it. Fiona sighed, wishing a nice guy like Randy could give her a kiss, like the guy in her dreams, except for real. “I thought you were a great dancer.”
“I got distracted.” Emma lifted a sculpted brow. “I still can’t believe you didn’t learn the new guy’s name.”
Fiona couldn’t either. Why hadn’t he just come out and told her his name? Why hadn’t she just come out and asked him what it was? Maybe he wasn’t that interested in her.
Sure, that’s why he nearly dragged her out the door when the fight started.
