“Have a good time.”
“Sometime soon, I’m going to do something nice foryou.”
“You already did,” Will says. “I got to eat an award-winning dinner at Agricole.”
“That was Cami,” I say. “I still owe you.”
“That’s not how friendships work.”
“You’re right. We need to make a blood pact first.”
I can hear his smile. “Bye, Josephine.”
“Bye,” I say back, already missing him. “And thank you, really.”
When I turn around to look for Cami, the guitar player is waiting for me. He approaches when I pocket my phone, crowds me against the railing. “Baby,” he coos.
“No.”
Brushing past, I search our crowd for a flash of white and grab hold of Cami’s arm when I see her. Her hangover is either long gone or buried deep. There’s a beer in one of her hands, a champagne flute in the other. She smells like wheat and body spray.
“Andalo!” I shout.
Her eyes brighten. “Andalo?”
“Tonight! Eight p.m. We’ve got a new reservation!”
Cami shrieks and jumps into my arms, pecking me on the forehead. “You! Are! My Best Fucking Friend!”
I laugh and spin her in a circle before her weight shifts and she topples out of my grasp, landing against one of her cousins. “Isn’t Josephine the best?” Cami asks her.
“The best!” the cousin concurs.
Cami shoots me one more glassy-eyed look of happiness before she runs off to tell every other bridesmaid. I watch her spread the news, pulling up my email to find the confirmation, just as Will promised.
Part of me knows it’s a ridiculous thought. But I wonder—briefly, and with the full understanding that Camila Sanchez wouldnevermake a life decision that impulsively—if a perfect night at Andalo might change her mind about leaving.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Here’s the secret to making other people happy: you accept that what makes them happy is what makes them happy, and you don’t question it.
You don’t question it as you’re led into a red-hued, darkly lit club that smells like sweat and incense. You don’t question it when dinner is served on breakable plates even though halfway through the meal someone’s bare feet are going to be on the table. You don’t question why some peoplekeep eatingafter that kind of abhorrent foot proximity.
You don’t question the music. You don’t question thevolumeof the music. You don’t even question why the guys serving your table keep glancing at the massive clock on the wall, waiting for their cue to begin clapping in tandem with the beat dropping.
You take a couple bites of dinner until hygiene compels you to stop, and then you stack the plates in one corner. You tell the bridesmaids to stand up in their seats, make sure anyone wearing precariousheels removes them. You take pictures and dance and sing at the top of your lungs even though no one can hear themselvesthinkin here—genuinely, you might have to type out the next round of drink orders on your Notes app and hand it over—and you just let the person you’re doing all this for be happy.
I stumble to the bathroom a while later, vodka soda clutched in one hand. Past the roped-off areas and massive tables in the main club room is a narrow hallway that does a decent job of blocking sound. My ears enjoy the relative quiet as I rattle the women’s room doorknob.
A bouncer covered in tattoos comes up to me and gives me a nod, then tries the door. “You’ve got a boyfriend,” he says. Not a question.
The sureness of it throws me off long enough to study him. He’s maybe seven years older than me but has warm eyes I can tell he leads with when he flirts. He’s employing them right now, offering me unsevered eye contact.
A rumpled man and woman leave the bathroom a few seconds later. Avoiding our eyes, avoiding each other’s eyes. The bouncer and I watch them head down the hallway and depart in opposite directions.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I say. Not because I care one way or the other if the bouncer is interested. I just don’t like lying.
His lips pinch, though I can’t tell if it’s because he’s pleased or confused. “Then who was that guy who came by this afternoon and waited around for three hours to get you a reservation?”
