“Thanks, Fi. For everything,” I added as I hugged her.
“Just go have fun and live your best life. I pray that tonight is as magical and beautiful for you as it was for Cinderella. Here’s to you meeting your real Prince Charming tonight,” she professed, blowing a kiss at me.
“Thank you, beautiful.”
“This feels like a real Cinderella story,”the woman standing beside me professed as she reapplied her lipstick in the mirror.
There were two separate ballrooms, and there were mixed groups. We had danced for the better part of two hours, eaten, and mingled with the other guests. Everyone in ballroom A was anxious to meet the guests in ballroom B. They were the ones we had been paired up with upon registering online. It had recently been announced that we had fifteen minutes before that happened. We were all ushered to the restrooms to check our appearance one final time before we were paired up.
“I know. I’m so excited that I could barely eat anything tonight.”
“Who are you telling? I hope my person is as amazing in person as he was online.” She gushed.
“Let me ask you something,” I stated, removing my hands from underneath the automatic faucet. “Was your person involved with someone else?”
She nodded eagerly. “I’ve spoken with a few women tonight and some of the men. We’ve all found that our partners were already involved with someone else, as are we. It looks like everyone invited here tonight was someone looking to escape their current relationship for someone better. How about you?”
I nodded as I ripped a couple of paper towels from the dispenser. “I’m in the same boat. But I can’t help but think about that old saying that the grass ain’t always greener on the other side. I’m so afraid that although my partner seemed like Prince Charming online, he won’t be that at all.”
“You mean you’re worried you might be kissing a prince who will turn into a frog instead of vice versa?”
“Exactly.”
“Me too,” she admitted, putting her lipstick back into her ice-blue clutch. She was a plus-sized, dark-skinned woman with gorgeous mocha coloring, deep dimples, and a short, curly cut. “Let’s vow that if our princes are frogs, that we leave here together and hit the bars, preferably Groove Theory.”
I laughed. “That’s exactly where I was when I came across my invitation,” I confessed.
“I was at the grocery store of all places,” she confessed.
We both laughed. “The name is Jenny.” She introduced herself and extended her hand.
“Jenny, I’m Kenni.”
She laughed. “Are you serious?”
“I am. Well, we’re running out of time. I think we’d better get back.”
We both rushed from the bathroom and back into our ballroom just as the folding doors dividing the two walls were being pulled back.
“Here goes everything,” Jenny declared to me as they began to call our numbers.
Mine and my partner’s numbers were the forty-fifth and forty-sixth numbers called out of the fifty guests here tonight. My heart thundered in my chest as my partner and I drew closer to each other. I couldn’t bite back the smile that took over my lips as I eagerly waited to greet him and unveil myself. We stopped one foot shy of each other, and my heart squeezed tightly in my chest.
We waited until all the couples were paired, and then there was a countdown.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .” the countdown continued until the host called out “One.”
We removed our masks, and the gasp that fell from my lips was loud even as my partner frowned at me. We spoke at once.
“Kennedi?”
“Bryse?”
“What are you doing here?” he asked in confusion.
“I was going to ask you the same question. Are you Midnight Lover?”
His head dropped, and that same pinched expression he always got when he was upset came over his face. “You’re Pina Colada?”
