“I like you,” he yells, like some kind of declaration in a rom-com starring Kate Hudson. “Rory ... I want you to stay in New York and be mine.”
“Nuhooo ...” I draw out, because this is a horror film made just for me. “Gareth. Take it back ... please.”
I swallow as we begin to play tug-of-war with my hands and women begin to scream.
“Roarsss . . . my Roars . . .” he says way too romantically.
I shoot to my feet only to hear “Sit down” hurled at me from the table next to us. Gareth licks his lips again, angling them at the tops of my hands. Oh god. That’s too much glistening. Why is there so much spit in his mouth?
My whole body wiggles, our joined hands almost knocking over a water glass. So he stands too, giving up but still holding my hands hostage.
“You are a beauty,” he bellows. I want to die. “A mythical creature. So please, little cutie—”
Good god. He’s reciting homemade poetry. This just keeps getting worse. I wish I knew how to disassociate.
I look over my shoulder again to see a guy in gold short-shorts and angel wings gyrating, much to the delight of the crowd, and to Joe Pesci’s. I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Gareth tugs at my hands for my attention as he yells his dumbetry over the cheering.
“Let’s be together, forever and ever ... ’cause we are the two most clever ...”
How do I call in a bomb threat with my mind?
This is the worst day of my life. Because not only am I holding hands with a man I want to kick rocks at, but he thought bringing me to a pre-Valentine’s strip show to declare his love was the winning call. What does this say aboutme?
I can feel myself start to sweat.
I’m looking all around, the grimace on my face evident, but all I get is“Sit down, losers,”again, from the same horny girl next to us.
This scene will stay with me forever. Because this is either ending in the most hilarious story I tell over and over at every dinner party I attend ... or ... it’s the intro to the unsolved mystery of how I was murdered.
“Gareth,” I say sternly, cutting off his poem and finally wringing my hands free with a grunt.
But he stares at me with puppy-dog eyes.Joke’s on you, I wish you had distemper. Please, god, get me out of this.
As if in answer to my prayer, rose petals begin raining down around me, making my shoulders jump.What the hell?
Gareth tries catching them, but I have no interest in Stripper Cupid’s gift.
“No. No, thank you,” I blurt out, plucking them off me and handing them back to him, slapping them into his palm before I face Gareth and motion between us. “This isn’t going to happen ...”
Gareth gleefully blows a handful of petals toward me before adding an air-kiss. And I snap, whipping my face to the god of love, who’s still sprinkling his hate, but I’m suddenly met with a different face.
Not the original Cupid’s. But a shirtless blast from the past.
Oh my.
A six-foot, hot-as-hell, blue-eyed, black-haired, perfect-pout stunner who looks exactly like Hot Guy from college.
I blink, an awed chuckle accompanying the smile playing out on my face, because the memory of my infamous college midterm has happily sprung to mind.
“Romeo?” I whisper.
He looks as dazed as I am, a matching kind of grin making his eyes shine brighter somehow.
“Juliet,” he says back.
We’re standing stock-still, just staring at each other while the world happens around us—girls complaining, Gareth saying more dumb stuff, and a not-as-cute partner in crime asking Oliver what he’s doing. Still neither of us moves.
