“You never know who’s walking through that door, princess. You’re not getting any younger either. Stop dwelling on a guy you can’t have and look for one you can ride—” she pauses and giggles “—into the sunset with.”
“Michelle, baby. I’ve missed you,” the bouncer says and totally catches me off guard. I’ve never been here, but Michelle’s obviously been here enough to make friends with the guy.
“Hey, handsome,” Michelle says flirtatiously before kissing him on the cheek. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“No man tonight?” he asks.
Man?I can’t remember the last time Michelle had a boyfriend, but it’s been at least a year. This club hasn’t even been open that long.
“Just my girl.” She knocks her shoulder into me.
“You’re holding up the line here!” someone behind us yells.
The bouncer glares down the sidewalk, and his black eyes narrow on the crowd. “The natives are getting restless. You ladies be careful in there. If you need anything, let me know.”
She nods and pulls me inside the doors before people start throwing shit at the backs of our heads. “Man, they’re vicious out there,” she says as we step into the dark corridor with a faint light at the other end.
“How come I’ve never met your friend, and who’s the guy you come here with?” I ask as the walls rattle around us from the thumping bass.
“Walk faster.” She tugs on my arm and ignores my question. “We’re missing the action.”
When we reach the light, I’m momentarily blinded. I cover my eyes with my hands, and I blink a few times, trying to let my vision adjust. I spread my fingers apart slowly and take in the sight before me. “Holy fuck!”
“Come on,” she mouths, her voice drowned out by the wicked beat.
As we walk, I bump into no fewer than twenty people, but no one seems to mind. People are dancing, intoxicated by the music, booze, and probably drugs too. They’re too wasted to even care that I almost knock them over.
Once we’re at the bar, Michelle holds up two fingers to the bartender like she’s a regular.
“You like?” she yells in my ear, jutting her chin out toward the dance floor.
I shrug. I haven’t decided what I think yet. I can’t wrap my mind around this place. From the outside, it looks like a run-down building, though the inside is anything but.
There’re massive columns with cages on top scattered throughout the large room with barely dressed women writhing inside. The DJ booth at the other end is lit up in red with a small crowd inside, jumping up and down to the beat. There have to be easily a thousand people in here.
Michelle bumps my arm and holds out a martini glass filled with something purple. I don’t bother to ask what it is because I can’t hear shit anyway. She pushes it toward my lips. “Drink it,” she says, or at least, that’s what I think she says because I still can’t hear her.
Blackberry dances across my tongue as I take my first mouthful. My insides are rattling with each thump and beat as one song bleeds into another while I sip my martini.
Michelle motions toward the dance floor with her thumb and tells me to drink up. In the too-high but super-cute heels, I stagger toward the dance floor and toss back the last drop of the martini. I set the empty glass on a table before I step onto the shiny black tile with a crowd so large I can’t even see the other side.
I’ve never claimed to be an amazing dancer, but with the intoxicating beat and the dim lighting, I feel sexy again. My body’s moving, flowing with the rhythm as I dance around Michelle. She’s busting moves that I haven’t seen her make since high school prom.
My body’s flushed and covered in sweat, but I push my embarrassment aside and keep on dancing with Michelle. She’s eating it up, dropping to the floor like something straight out of a music video.
When the song ends and the group around us claps, we bow together and break out into laughter as we run off the dance floor like we’re kids again. We wind our way down another hallway, different from the one we entered through, until it opens onto a giant courtyard.
“Let’s get another drink and cool off out here.”
The patio is lined with the tropical trees and overhead twinkling white lights against the starry sky.
I jostle from foot-to-foot, eyeing the only empty table across the patio. “I need to sit.” I don’t even need to look to know a blister is starting to form and the skin near my Achilles tendon is wearing away.
“Find a seat, and I’ll get the drinks,” she tells me before walking away.
I stand there for a moment, watching Michelle as she heads toward the bar, before I take a step. I don’t even make it more than a few feet before I collide with something solid, someone big.
I stumble backward, ready to fall until strong hands wrap around my arms. “Sorry,” I say, lifting my face to see the one man I came here to forget.
