Die for Me

He turned in my direction, and then froze with a look of devastation marring his handsome face. My instincts had not been wrong. It was Vincent.

 

Just then the waiter materialized in front of me, holding a broom and a dustpan. “Sorry,” I managed to blurt as I grabbed my coat from the chair and pushed by him to stumble out of the café.

 

I ran all the way home, my face so numb it felt like it had been shot full of Novocain. I left him, I reminded myself, not the other way around. Why shouldn’t he have found someone else?

 

The thought came to me that he might have lied about not being in love with anyone since his childhood romance. He might have been with the gorgeous blonde the whole time. My shattered heart told me that was wrong, though. Vincent wouldn’t lie to me. And neither would Charlotte, when she said I was the first girl Vincent had fallen for since becoming a revenant.

 

Unfortunately, conceding that he was free of blame, and that I was the one who had walked away, didn’t make the pain in my chest hurt any less.

 

When I got home, I went straight to Georgia’s room and threw the door open without knocking. “Let’s go,” I said breathlessly. She smiled and held up a short, lacy dress.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

 

 

AROUND NINE WE LEFT THE HOUSE AND CLIMBED into a car waiting outside. I squeezed into the backseat with two girls I recognized from school, while Georgia leaped into the passenger seat and gave a handsome guy I’d never seen a peck on the lips.

 

I knew that this was Georgia’s way of saying hello to boys she liked, so decided to ask for details later. She made introductions. “Lawrence—British; Mags—Irish; Ida—Swedish; this is my sister, Kate, who is in desperate need of a good night out. If she goes home bored, I will hold you all personally responsible.” She cranked up the radio, Lawrence steered the car toward the river, and we were off.

 

The bar was in a slightly rough neighborhood on the east side of Paris, an area popular with artists, models, and musicians who hadn’t yet made it to the big time. Several trendy bars had popped up there in the last few years, and the sidewalks were crowded with small clusters of ultra-hip people, shivering in the cold as they smoked outside.

 

We stopped in front of a building in an alley that seemed to quake from the pounding beat of the music inside. A huge bouncer stood at the door, wearing only jeans and a white tank top stretched tightly across his impressive chest muscles. Lawrence yelled something over the blaring music, and the man cracked the door open to let us in.

 

The space was as big as a ballroom, but only about eight feet high. A DJ booth stood to one side, with a long fluorescently lit bar running the length of the opposite wall. The room was carved out of rough stone, with scattered concrete columns supporting the ceiling. White spotlights set up in the corners made the uneven cave walls eerily theatrical.

 

“Drinks!” shouted Georgia, and we headed toward the bar. In a buttery British accent, Lawrence asked me what I wanted, and got both of us a Coke. “Designated driver,” he said, winking at me and smiling. We clinked our glasses together in a toast, and then turned to lean back on the bar.

 

“So are you and Georgia . . . ?” I asked Lawrence, letting him fill in the blank.

 

“Nope,” he responded, his smile creasing his cheeks with dimples. “I like guys.”

 

“Got it,” I said, sipping on my straw, and we turned back to scoping out the room.

 

I never failed to marvel at Georgia’s impeccable talent for finding the newest, hottest places to hang out. Beautiful people danced in the middle of the floor, while others mingled at the edges, shoulders slumped in skinny, brooding hipness. I noticed a famous young actress sitting in one corner, with a gaggle of admirers pretending not to fawn on her, and sprawled across a pile of cushions in an alcove carved out of the wall, I spotted a singer from a trendy British band.

 

My sister stood a few feet away from me, kissing a model-looking guy on the cheeks, when I saw a rugged figure walking slowly but steadily across the room in our direction. People clapped him on the back as he made his way through the crowd.

 

When he was a few feet away, Georgia set her glass on the bar and threw her hands in the air as he picked her up by the waist.

 

“Georgia, my sexy Southern belle,” he said, lowering her to the floor. I smiled. The fact that we had never actually lived in the South was a moot point. Georgia had used the dozen or so holidays we spent in my mom’s home state to cultivate a molasses-thick accent that Scarlett O’Hara would have traded her petticoat for. When she was in the mood, she used her drawl, along with her name, to imply that we came from somewhere more “exotic” than Brooklyn. Foreigners, at least those who spoke English well enough to notice accents, ate it up.