It might be the drinks, or it might be Adam’s non-promise, but I’m suddenly not feeling nearly so bitchy. When Joel asks me to dance, I even let him pull me onto the dance floor.
He spins me and dips me and grinds against me a little too provocatively, but I can tell that’s just him and has nothing to do with me, so I let myself go with it, and we end up laughing hysterically on the dance floor at our ridiculous moves. By the time I’m following him back to the table, my hand fisted in the back of his button-down T-shirt as he leads me through the crowd, I’ve worked up a thin sheen of sweat. I nearly stop dead in my tracks when I see how cozy Michelle and Adam have gotten, but I somehow command my feet to keep moving forward.
Michelle has one hand cupped around Adam’s jaw, turning his head into her. Their foreheads are touching, and he’s grinning at her. She giggles and leans to the side to whisper something in his ear, and he licks his lips as he listens.
I roughly slide in next to him, accidentally throwing myself in a little too hard and slamming right into his back. When his head knocks against Michelle’s and they both yelp, I start giggling uncontrollably.
“Oh my God,” I say through giggles, “I’m sorry.”
Adam chuckles and rubs his forehead. “Thanks for that.”
“Any time.” I giggle some more, my eyes drifting over everyone at the table until I catch Shawn smirking at me. His eyes are glassy, proof of the collection of empty glasses he’s lined up over at his side of the table, not including any shots he had with Adam before we got here. “Feeling good, Shawn?” I tease.
He chuckles. “I’m feeling peachy!”
When my heart stops beating, he laughs a little harder. I really need to stop letting him catch me so off guard.
Michelle continues throwing herself at Adam as we all talk and drink, and just when I think I can’t take anymore, she asks him if he’s drunk enough to dance yet.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Not even close.”
“Then do you want to get out of here?” She says it quietly enough so that most of the table can’t hear, but my ears were tuned in to their conversation as if national security depended on it. I immediately stand up to let Adam out of the seat, not wanting to hear the way his voice sounds when he eventually asks me to move. My sudden movement causes him to look up at me. His expression is completely blank, and I can’t read it for shit, but his actions scream volumes. He starts scooting out of the seat, with Michelle practically joined to his hip.
I bite down so hard on the inside of my lip that I’m pretty sure I’m about to draw blood, but then I hear Shawn laughing. “Adam!” he shouts, and Adam stops scooting to look over at him. “Christ, man, you still don’t know who she is, do you?!”
Adam turns back toward Michelle and scrunches his eyebrows. “Huh?”
“Not her!” Shawn yells. Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. “Her!” He points his finger at me, and it freezes me to the bone.
Adam’s eyes slowly swing back to mine. “What is he talking about?” he asks me, looking thoroughly confused.
“Nothing,” I sputter. “He’s drunk.”
“Just tell him who you are!” Shawn shouts, and I shoot him a threatening glare. I’m going to kill him. I’m seriously going to kill him!
“Who is she?” Adam asks Shawn, and I practically lift him out of the seat by his elbow, curling my fingers around his arm and yanking him away from the table.
When Michelle hurries to follow, I stop dead in my tracks to glare back at her and spit, “NOT YOU!” She stumbles back a step as if my words literally slapped her in the face, but I’m too panicked to feel good about it and immediately start hauling Adam toward the door again.
“You better tell him!” Shawn calls after us, but I ignore him, getting Adam out of that club as fast as humanly possible. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy, but he follows me without question.
Once we’re outside, he stops walking, and my tug on his arm gets us nowhere. “What was that about?”
I turn around and stare at him, gnawing on the inside of my lip. It’s going to be so sore tomorrow. “Can we just forget that happened?”
“No,” he says, his tone so much more serious than I’m used to hearing him, “tell me what he was talking about.”
I sigh and stare at the concrete beneath my feet; it takes me a moment, but I eventually summon the courage to look up at him. I take my glasses off and admit, “We’ve met before . . . Before this weekend.”
Adam eyes me curiously. “Where?”
I don’t want to say it, but Shawn is leaving me no choice. “Mayhem.”
“When?”