I stare at them, and a strange sense of déjà vu begins to wash over me. I turn toward Presley, and then the memory slams into me.
It’s so vivid I can almost taste the salt on her neck, smell the citrus from the lime, and feel her eager body pressed against mine as I lean forward and?—
Oh, fuck.
“To Pres and Hollis!” Myles shouts, pulling me back to reality. I lock eyes with Pres, who’s staring at me with a mixture of concern and confusion.
We both take a shot of tequila and down it at the same time. The liquid burns all the way down, but I barely notice it as I grab Presley’s hand and say, “We’re gonna go dance.”
“Maybe we’ll join you!” Myles shouts back.
“Take your time,” I tell him. And good luck finding us.
I pull us onto the dance floor, but when we reach the middle, I just keep moving us through the crowd.
“Where are we going?” Pres hollers into my ear as we make our way to the other side.
“Somewhere we can talk,” I simply tell her.
When I was here last week, there was a discreet hallway somewhere nearby that led to Sonia’s office and a few supply closets. If it were my club, I would have a security guard stationed at its entrance to keep people like me from wandering in, but thankfully, Sonia isn’t me.
We slip relatively unnoticed down the hallway. There are a few people lingering around the entrance, but it’s dark, and they’re…distracted. It’s fairly empty as you venture further, and the locked doors probably serve as a deterrent for anyone looking for a place to hook up.
Luckily for me, I happen to know the code.
I’ll apologize to Sonia later.
We stop at the second door, and as I begin to enter the code, I hear Pres gasp behind me. “How the hell?—”
“I saw her punch it in.” I shrug. “I can’t help that she didn’t bother to hide it or that I happened to remember it.”
“You remember everything.”
Not when I’m drunk, apparently…
Just as the light turns green and the lock clicks open, I turn. “Usually just the things that matter, but I guess this came in handy.”
I push the door open, and we step inside. I quickly close it to avoid any unwanted attention, and we’re immediately plunged into darkness. I feel around for a light but can’t find one, so I do the next best thing. I pull out my phone and turn on my flashlight. Pres is standing in front of me, the satin of her dress shimmering in the dim light.
“What exactly are we doing in here, Hollis? What was so important that you had to pull me into a”—she looks around—“broom closet to talk?”
“Because I think it’s my fault we ended up married.”
“What? Why?”
I set my phone down on the metal shelf next to me and absentmindedly run my hand through my hair. It’s getting way too long. The curls are gonna turn into fucking ringlets if I don’t get a haircut soon.
Pres watches me, waiting for a response. “You were right earlier. We did go to a nightclub, and it was your idea. But everything that happened after that was entirely mine.” Or at least, I think it was.
“What do you mean?” she asks tentatively, taking a step back. That’s never a good sign.
“It was the shots that brought it all back,” I explain. “I remember standing next to a bar just like that in Vegas, challenging you to do tequila shots for your birthday.”
“Okay. I don’t see how that leads to us getting married, though.”
“We ordered shots at the club. A lot of shots,” I emphasize. “And then we danced for a while. When we returned to the bar, I challenged you to a body shot, Pres. And when it got to the part when I was supposed to suck on the lime…”
Her eyes go wide. A hand jerks to her mouth like she’s remembering the exact moment when?—
