Chapter 1
Don’t go out 2nite
Not safe
You’ll regret it.
Geoffrey rolled his eyes and closed the messenger app. That was creepy and mildly threatening, but some amateurish stalker wasn’t going to keep him from hitting the clubs. It was Friday fucking night and he’d been cooped up in his office all week working on his next brilliant app. Okay, maybe it wasn’t going to top Matinee. Called the best hookup app on the market, Matinee had been little more than an experiment in coding, but it had been enough to firmly pop him into the young millionaires’ club when he sold it.
But this new app, his latest creation, was going to be great and truly help people. If he could get the fucker to finally…
He shoved that line of thought aside and checked his hair using the camera on his phone. He’d called a car to take him into downtown Cincinnati so that he could work his way through the clubs. Closing the app, he did one last pass through his social media platforms. He’d checked in already on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat with his nearly three million followers, showing off his carefully selected Burberry button-down plaid shirt and snug-fitting Balmain skinny jeans. A smile tugged at his lips in response to a few of the comments while several of his acquaintances had already checked in, beckoning him to one club or another. He was going to drink and dance his ass off. And just maybe find a sexy hookup, particularly if he was faced with his smug ex, Brendon.
Dropping his head back against the leather seat, he closed his eyes and clenched his phone in his hand. His one attempt at a relationship and it was an utter disaster. He should have known he wasn’t meant to find that kind of happiness. Sure, he had lots of friends and laughs, but he wanted something permanent…something…well, something that was about more than getting off and buying expensive gifts to make people happy.
Ugh. This was not what he was supposed to be thinking about. This was supposed to be about partying and enjoying the fact that he was young and without a care in the world. Outside of his brother, who was at that moment traveling around Europe with a couple of friends as they celebrated their last summer before their final year of college, Geoffrey had no other family.
The car pulled up to the first club on his list, Trouble Maker, a trendy little bar that made great specialty vodka drinks—like the one it was named after—and had a fun vibe. This would pull him out of his funk and get the night off to the perfect start. Thanking the driver, he slid out of the car and shoved his phone into his back pocket, refusing to give his stalker another thought.
He barely got two steps inside when his eyes fell on his usual crew sitting around a circular high-top table. Patrick and Sean were huddled together over martinis while Todd sat opposite them, in trashy, see-through black mesh and without Will—meaning that the perpetually on-again, off-again couple were fighting. Todd was revenge partying and would be utterly smashed before they reached the second club of the night.
A loud squeal pierced the music and chatter a second before a set of thin arms wrapped around him from behind. Geoffrey jerked and twisted as best he could to see a head full of chestnut brown curls. The hugger released him and he was looking into a familiar heart-shaped face with bright blue eyes. Abby…Ashley…Annie…no, he was right the first time, Abby.
“There you are!” she squealed again, releasing him to bounce around and stand in front of him. “Pat said that you weren’t going to make it out tonight.”
“Pat is full of it,” Geoffrey muttered, rolling his eyes. He’d met Abby through their mutual friend Jonathan, but she’d quickly clung to him and started following him on social media so that she could tag along with his drinking because apparently, he was more fun than Jonathan and his friends. Abby wasn’t one of his favorite drinking partners, but he did have to agree with her assessment of Jonathan, who liked quiet, dark little bars with no dancing. Who gets laid in those places?
“Geo!” Patrick shouted when he got within a few feet of their table. He leaned over and grabbed the open chair between himself and Todd, positioning it so that Geoffrey was closer to him. Kody danced up to the table and grabbed another chair.
Geoffrey quickly made the rounds of hugs and cheek kisses before dropping into the chair. A second later, a server set a vodka and tonic water with three cucumber slices in front of him. It was his standard drink when he walked into Trouble Maker. He pressed a quick kiss to Shanna’s cheek and dropped a twenty on her tray. This was how you started a night—your favorite drink while surrounded by familiar faces.