She grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the dance floor, already bouncing in rhythm to the beat. We squeezed between a few couples before finding a nice place to claim, and then we got down to it. I rolled my hips and raised my arms, moving my feet in time with the beat. Mai laughed and followed my lead, dancing close enough to me that there was no doubt we were there together, but not so close as to give the impression that we were theretogether. Neither of us really cared if people thought we were lesbians, but those sorts of misunderstandings could end up being far more serious than people realized.
I pushed all of that from my mind. We weren’t here to be introspective or anything like that. This was time to relax and de-stress before officially starting on my chosen career path. No thinking about serious stuff or the future or the past or anything that wasn’t my friends, a good drink, and dance music.
As I glanced toward the bar to see where Hob had gotten to, another man caught my eye.
A white shirt with thin blue stripes, rolled up at the wrists, tucked into dark slacks. A light brown leather belt and matching shoes. He also wore a gold watch, which was what had grabbed my attention in the first place. I recognized that watch as much as I recognized the carefully styled hair and strong, athletic body.
Except it couldn’t be him. That would be an impossible coincidence. The sort of crazy thing that no one ever believed would happen in real life.
Then he raised his head, and even with the dim lighting, I could see those bright blue eyes.
Well, damn.
I turned around so fast that I nearly knocked Mai over. I grabbed her arm, squeezing it in my panic to get out of his line of sight.
“Whoa, hey!” she said. “What’s wrong?”
I loosened my grip a bit. “Nothing.”
“You’re not dancing.”
Nothing like seeing the hot guy who got hard in the middle of a massage and then asked for a…I shook my head. Nope. Not going there. I came here to dance. That was what I wanted to do.
“And you’re blushing,” Mai pointed out, studying me closely. “You can’t be that drunk yet.”
Mai could read me like a book, and it took her all of ten seconds to figure out that something I’d seen had freaked me out. If she’d been stone-cold sober, it would’ve taken her less than five.
She looked past me to where I’d been staring and let out a low whistle. “Oh, wow.”
I feigned ignorance. “What?”
“He’s tall.”
“Who?”
“The guy at the bar you were ogling.”
Not a shock she saw right through me. I was a horrible liar when I didn’t have alcohol in my system.
Still, I tried to deny it. “I wasn’t ogling.”
“Bullshit,” she said with a smile. “Andhe’soglingyou.”
My curiosity got the better of me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Alec was alternating between talking to the bartender and looking directly at me. Except he couldn’t be because that would be crazy. I looked nothing like I had when we’d met before and I wasn’t the sort of woman who guys checked out, especially in a bar or club where there were women like Mai around.
But it really did looklike he was staring at me. My cheeks burned at the thought, and I hated myself for how badly I wanted it.
Suddenly, Hob blocked my view, grinning and holding out a Tom Collins to me while handing off Mai’s Cosmo to her. He’d probably already downed his bloodhound, and I hoped it’d be his last one. He was a funny drunk, but I had no desire to be helping him stumble out to a taxi at the end of the night.
“Out of the way!” Mai hissed.
“What?” he asked as Mai shoved him.
“Lumen’s having a love connection.”
“Oh please,” I said. I took a sip of my drink and glanced at the bar again. Alec was still there, still shooting looks my way with the sort of calm assurance that meant he really didn’t care if anyone saw him or not.
Hob followed Mai’s gaze. “Damn, he looks like Ryan Gosling and Chris Hemsworth had a secret love child. Do you know him?”
