“Well, what are you looking for?”
“Anything that pays money and doesn’t require skills I don’t have.”
“So, bartending.”
“I don’t know how to bartend.”
“Neither did I when I started. You learn.” He leans forward, an elbow perched on the table. “You should apply at The Pyramid. We’re always hiring and the money’s decent.”
I shrug. “I don’t think I’d be any good at it.”
“You don’t have to be good at it. You just have to show up and not actively poison anyone.” He winks. “Low bar. Literally.”
Marcus laughs and nudges Brett with his shoulder. “Stop trying to recruit her. She doesn’t want to work at The Pyramid.”
“How do you know? Maybe she does.”
“Do you?” Marcus asks me.
I take a sip of my drink and consider it. “Maybe?”
“See?” Brett says triumphantly.
“You’re a terrible influence,” Marcus tells him.
“You love it.”
“Unfortunately.”
They’re smiling at each other in that way couples do when they’re having a private conversation in public, and I look away, giving them space. Cori catches my eye and rolls hers, grinning.
The music shifts—something with a faster beat, maybe Smashing Pumpkins—and Cori stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “I’m going to dance. Anyone coming?”
“I’m good,” Marcus says.
“I’ll come,” Brett says, sliding out of the booth. “Annie?”
I look at my drink, then at the dance floor, which is really just a small cleared space near the jukebox where people are moving in ways that suggest they’re also several drinks deep.
“Sure,” I say, because why the hell not?
The dance floor is packed. Bodies press together, moving in a way drunk people move—loose and uncoordinated butcommitted. Cori pulls me into the middle of it and immediately starts dancing, hips swaying, arms above her head, and I try to follow her lead.
“I have no idea what I’m doing!” I shout over the music.
“That’s the whole point!” Cori shouts back, laughing.
So I just move. I don’t think about it, don’t try to look good or graceful or anything other than a person who’s had a few drinks and is dancing in a dive bar on a Friday night. I throw my head back and laugh because it’s ridiculous and wonderful and I can’t remember the last time I did something just because it felt good. Cori spins in a circle, her hair flying out around her, and Brett is doing some dance move that I can’t even begin to describe, and I love all of it.
We dance through three songs. Maybe four. I lose track. Marcus eventually joins us, sliding up next to Brett and moving with him in an easy way they seem to have mastered, like they’re always in sync. The music is loud enough that I can feel it vibrating through the soles of my Docs.
And then I notice the looks.
There’s a group of guys nearby—four of them, maybe in their thirties, standing in a cluster near the edge of the dance floor. They’re staring at Marcus and Brett with expressions that make my stomach churn. Not just looking.Staring.One of them says something and the others laugh, and I see Marcus notice. His whole body tenses.
Cori sees it a millisecond after I do. Her dance stops dead. The warmth in her eyes ices over. Before I can process it, she’s shouldering through the crowd, a five-foot-five avalanche of righteous fury.
“You got a fucking problem?” Her voice cuts through the music. She’s toe-to-toe with the largest of them. “Or are you just jealous they’re better looking than you’ll ever be, prick?”
