“Not really,” he said, looking sheepish. “But seriously, you do look familiar.”
“I hear that a lot,” she said, which was true. With her shoulder-length bob and all-black outfit, she in fact looked like at least seventy percent of the women in this very bar. The guy shifted then, and one of the spotlights illuminated his shirt. It was navy, with a white arrow pointing up toward his chin and Keep Calm and Kiss the Groom emblazoned on the front.
“Nice shirt,” Lucy said, gesturing to his chest. “How’s that working for you tonight?”
He tugged out the shirt as if he was noticing it for the first time, then read it upside down. “Not much better than the line, if I’m being honest,” he said, and they both laughed. Then he jumped in a semicircle so she could see the back of it, which he tried to read over his shoulder. “What does it say? They wouldn’t let me look.”
Hi, my name is Daniel.
If I’m too drunk and seem lost, please call me a cab.
(There’s twenty dollars and my address pinned inside this shirt.)
She laughed, and he asked again what it said, but she told him it was the same as the front. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Lucy.” She held out a hand and he shook it. “And I’m guessing you’re Daniel.”
“I am,” he said. “Wait, how did you know?”
She shrugged, smiling. “Lucky guess.”
He nodded as though that was a perfectly acceptable answer and pointed to her nearly empty drink. “Well, Lucy, can I buy you another?”
“Sure. Thanks,” she said. “Dark and Stormy. This time without the lime, I guess.”
“Coming right up.” A few minutes later he was back with her drink, and one for him, as well. “I’ve never had one of these. What’s in it?”
“Dark rum, ginger beer and lime juice.”
“Hmm, sounds good,” he said before trying a sip. Then another. He gave a long blink, swayed a little again. “You have good taste in cocktails, Lucy.”
“Thanks?” Lucy laughed again and wondered about Daniel’s story. He was engaged, if his T-shirt was to be believed, but he seemed to have forgotten that detail as he flirted with Lucy and sucked back his drink.
A group of ten or so guys, all wearing navy blue shirts that read Team Groom, engulfed Daniel and dragged him laughing back out into the dark sea of people. He waved as he went, and Lucy gave him a wave back right as Jenny returned, bumping their shoulders together. She handed her another drink and Lucy immediately took the skewered lime out of the glass and lined it up beside the other one on the bar.
“Who are you waving at?” Jenny asked.
“Some guy named Daniel. He seemed to know a lot about bar limes and is apparently getting married soon.”
“You know, you might have better luck if you stick with thesingleones,” Jenny said.
Lucy rolled her eyes. “So where have you been?”
Jenny sipped her own drink. “I ran into Jackson.”
“Jackson?” Lucy asked, trying to remember which one he was. “English lit Jackson?”
“No, that’s Jack. This is CrossFit Jackson,” Jenny replied, a contented smile spreading over her lips.
Right. Jenny’s latest fitness craze was CrossFit, and Jackson was one of the guys who ran a few classes a week out of the university’s gym. He was muscled in a way that made Lucy both curious and concerned, and Jenny had been going to a lot of classes lately.
“He’s here with a few other guys. Thought we might want to join them?” She gave Lucy a hopeful look, and Lucy glanced at her watch. With every passing minute she was getting drunker and less certain Evan was going to show. Jenny covered the watch face with her hand and shook her head. “Nope. No. You do not get to pull the ‘It’s getting late, I’m going to cab it home’ thing.” She puffed out her cheeks, gave Lucy her best annoyed pout. “It’s barely midnight. You promised fun-Lucy tonight.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I’m all yours tonight. Fun-Lucy is ready for anything.” She gulped the drink Daniel had bought her, the burn of the alcohol and sharp ginger mingling uncomfortably in her mouth with the cold of the ice cubes. Crunching the ice with her teeth, she set her now-empty glass on the bar beside the fallen lime soldiers, picked up the drink Jenny had brought her and pointed into the crowd. “Let’s go find Jackson and his shockingly fit friends.”
Jenny smiled and kissed her on the cheek, then grabbed her hand, and Lucy let herself be pulled deep into the pulsing sea of bodies. Later, she would run into Daniel again. They would literally bump up against each other on the too-small dance floor and Lucy would fall right on her ass. He would crouch in front of her, not so drunk he wasn’t horrified to have knocked her over, and Lucy would laugh at his clumsy attempts to help her up, then let him buy her drinks with the twenty dollars from inside his shirt. She would learn he was a few years older, a soon-to-be lawyer currently articling, and was getting married in a couple of weeks.
Lucy would give him her number because she had had too much to drink and was young and single and didn’t care whether or not that was appropriate. And a month later Daniel would call her, out of the blue while she was studying for midterms—now dating Evan, even though she liked the idea of him a lot more than the reality, as it would turn out—and he would ask her out for a drink. He and his fiancée had broken up before the wedding. Lucy never asked why, only if it was for good (it was, he said), and if he was okay with it (which he assured her he was).
