And it’s down today. Thick, wavy, and golden brown with dyed strawberry highlights, perpetually trying to run away.
“I bet Alex would kiss you.”
“What?” Alex and I say together.
Freddy holds up his palms. “I don’t know, just trying to help! If it were my ex, I’d want to look desirable, that’s all.”
Freddy … has a point?
I mean, they’re going to see me, it’s a freaking guarantee. Chaos theory, et cetera. As soon as Jill spots me with her expertly shadowed Charlotte Tilbury hawk eyes, she’s not going to consider walking out of this bar until we chat, reunite, clear the air. Jill is polite like that. She 100 percent was the star pupil during seventh-grade cotillion, and of course, she just had to go inviting me to her wedding. Like, Please, watch your ex-boyfriend stand beside my groom at the altar while you sit in the pew alone!
I can practically hear Jack and Lance recounting this whole experience later. It’ll go down in one of two ways:
So, she hangs out with coworkers on the weekend.
Or. OR—
So, she’s dating someone.
“They’re looking for tables,” Freddy says. He is the picture of entertained ease, twirling a strainer around his index finger. “Not finding much. We’re very popular, which I’m sure they know. I bet at least one of them follows our TikTok account where we make the signature cocktails. You seen our videos, Casey?”
“No.”
“My hands! In every video! I’m hand famous. Oh, the first girl is pouting now. Her boyfriend wants to leave. She’s gesturing at the bar—oop, they’re coming in hot.”
I wonder what would happen if I leapt over the counter to hide, or maybe crawled between the knees of the guy beside me.
Ugh. Actually, scratch that last one.
I hear Alex gulp. “Casey?”
“Alex, can you…” I trail off, unsure what to say next. All I know is I can’t stand for Lance to stroll into my city with a shiny, orange-skinned girl on his arm and get to be right, more than two years later, about me never finding someone better than him.
I haven’t been looking for someone like him. Lately, I haven’t even been looking.
Alex doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs the front stilts underneath my bar stool and pulls it flush against his. I almost fall off backward, but his reflexes are lightning fast. He presses a hand to the small of my back, catching me, then traces it up my spine to my neck.
Second time. Second time we’ve ever touched.
Gentle pressure as he nudges my head toward his. I lean in, observing his damp, parted lips, his eyes trained on my mouth, lowered eyelashes, a thumb brushing my earlobe.
When his lips reach mine, I remember the sound of his voice when he called me pretty.
He kisses me soft, hardly qualifying as a kiss at all, and it’s almost teasing, the way he holds his lips just barely against mine but doesn’t push forward and doesn’t pull back. His mouth tastes like expensive bourbon and smooth velvet.
I … I think I want …
I don’t know.
Everything. Anything.
The kiss is over one fraction of a second after it began. Alex pulls away, exhaling a breath of cool, liquored fog over my skin. His thumb gives me another caress on the hollow of my neck before he drops the hand tamely into his lap and uses his other to clutch his drink.
“Casey?”
Hmm?
My head snaps up, and reality hits.
Jack and Jill are standing right in front of me and Alex, staring open-mouthed. Behind them, the other girl I’ve never seen, and beside her, Lance, who is making the exact same embarrassed face as the day the Vols lost to Georgia State. Both girls are in heels that’ll be covered in bar tar by the time they traipse back to their midtown hotel later tonight (I was that naive once). Lance is wearing the shirt I bought him for his twenty-first birthday.
I gather all the fake surprise I can muster and say, “Oh my gosh, hi!”
Lance rolls his eyes. He whispers something to his maybe new girlfriend, and they turn, heading wordlessly for the door.
What a milksop.
Jack tries to follow them out, but Jill grips his elbow in a stay-or-find-a-new-bride choke hold. Recovered from her shock, she smiles brightly at me, leaning in for a hug. “I can’t believe we ran into you! I almost texted you, but then I thought—” She gives an awkward little shake of her head. “Well, anyway, this is even better. How are you?” I open my mouth to say something totally cringeworthy like, Oh you know, just living the New York dream! But Jill spares me by squealing, “Look at my ring!”
Dutifully, I take her hand and say, “It’s beautiful.” After some internal berating, I look Jack dead in the eye and say just as much to him as to her, “I’m thrilled for you two.”
Jack, for his part, looks nauseous.
“Did you get our save the date?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“You’re definitely coming, right?”
Funny enough, Jill, I was planning to be literally anywhere else that weekend!
“I…” I trail off, sensing a rebuttal on her tongue. I can’t say no, and she knows it. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Yay!” Jill squeals. “I’ll add a plus-one to the invitation for your boyfriend.” She turns to Alex, going in for a hug. “What’s your name?”
Well, crap. Jill assuming Alex is my boyfriend was the whole point of kissing, but still, she really just called him that.
Alex blanches as Jill throws her arms around him, but it’s subtle enough that someone who doesn’t know him might miss it. Cordial as ever, he puts one awkward hand on her back and pats twice. “Alex Harrison. Nice to meet you.”
When Jill steps back, Alex turns to Jack and sticks out a hand. Jack eyes it like it’s going to bite him, but he shakes.
“Alex isn’t my boyfriend,” I correct, wincing, while I simultaneously consider that if I can’t even let this impromptu deception fly for longer than forty-five seconds, how am I supposed to be purposely deceptive toward Alex? “We’re just, um…”
We’re just coworkers you might see together on YouTube soon?
How did I not take that into consideration before I asked him to kiss me?! Now Jack and Jill are going to think I’m casually screwing my coworker. That is literally so cliché.
Maybe they’re not YouTube people. I’m praying they’re not YouTube people.
I catch Freddy’s eye, conveying a What now, Director? look of helplessness. He was so quick to jump in with a suggestion before, but now he just raises a single brow at me. He’s leaning on the bar top, clearly enraptured by these proceedings as they continue to unfold.
“No matter,” Jill says. “The plus-one is still yours if you want it.”
“Thank you,” I say, then try to curtsy before realizing I’m sitting down, and also this isn’t Downton Abbey.
Jill sighs, twisting back and forth. Her fluffy pink skirt twirls around her knees as she glances around. “Well, this was great, but I think we better go. No room at the inn!” She belts out a slightly deranged laugh.
“Oh, do you want my—” Alex starts to stand up.