My stomach churns as the car weaves through traffic, though, and I feel a little motion sick. I shut my eyes and press my forehead against the glass to distract myself, all while beside me in the backseat, Devan chatters away about the clubs she’s researched, the bars she wants to try out.
Halfway through her diatribe, Andrew lowers the partition to offer his input, and I crack an eyelid, smiling as I watch them exchange borderline flirtatious banter. We wind up at a rooftop club Andrew recommends, as one of the places Xander’s friends often go. Before we leave the car, I get Andrew to promise to let Xander know where we are, so I can save a little more battery life on my decrepit old phone.
Then, while Andrew still has his phone out, Devan insists on taking his number, on the pretense that she’d like to be able to text him in case my phone dies. I shoot her a sideways look, but she just bats her eyes, ever the picture of innocence, as she types out Andrew’s digits.
“You are impossible,” I murmur as we climb out of the car and head toward the front entrance, where a line of people waits to be let onto the elevator up to the club.
Devan hooks her arm through mine. “Maybe.” She winks. “But it’s a fun kind of impossible.”
The bouncer takes a long, lingering look at us both as we stride past, headed for the back of the line. But then I notice his eyes linger on our shoes, and finally come to rest on my left hand. His eyes widen, just a hitch, at the sight of the ring. “Miss?” he calls, and we both look over. But I’m the one he holds eye contact with when he raises the red rope and waves to us both. “Come right in.”
We flash him bright smiles and thanks, and Devan elbows me as we sidle into the elevator. “Someone’s fancy upper crust now,” she whispers.
I roll my eyes. But I grin, too. Who knew things like this could make such a difference? I glance down at the ring on my left hand, the way it winks in the overhead lights. It feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Like it’s heavy with import, with all the questions it leaves unanswered.
The elevator slows to a halt several floors later. The few other clubgoers smushed inside with us titter eagerly. One girl already looks several sheets to the wind, swaying on her sky-high heels as her date tries his best to hold her upright. Then the doors swing back open and we all spill onto an open-air rooftop in the middle of the city.
Music blasts. It’s a song I recognize, one of the Latin ones we used to play in the kitchens and dance to after hours at the restaurant, singing at the top of our lungs while we mopped the floors and arranged the chairs back on the tabletops.
I feel a million years away from that lifetime now. As if it’s another world. It kind of is one, I guess.
As if she’s reading my mind, Devan leans over to shout in my ear. “We’ve come a long way from Bob’s back room, huh?”
I grin at her, and she takes my hand, leading the way as she weaves through the crowd toward the bar at the far end.
“What are you having?” she calls over her shoulder, but I wave her off, and then brandish Xander’s heavy black credit card.
“Please. I’ve got this,” I yell back.
She grins. “In that case, margarita?”
I order her marg, and get myself a ginger ale. My stomach still feels unsettled after that car ride. Maybe from all the weaving back and forth in between traffic. When our drinks come, we toast lightly. But I barely have time to take more than a few sips before Devan grabs my wrist and drags me out onto the dance floor.
Beneath the twinkling string lights wrapped around the roof, we shake our hips and shout along to the lyrics. Before long, I lose myself in the music, the beat. I don’t have time to think up here, or to worry. Xander, and all the hopes and fears that war in my belly every time I’m with him, is the farthest thing possible from my mind. Here it’s just me and Devan and a whole rooftop filled with other people eager to enjoy themselves. To let loose and have fun.
A hand finds my shoulder, and I spin toward the touch, expecting Devan. Instead, I find myself facing a guy who reaches for my waist, a half-drunken grin on his face. “Let’s dance,” he shouts, his voice slurred in my ear.
“No thanks.” I try to extricate myself. His hands fall away, and he pouts, looking disappointed.
“Come on, one dance,” he protests. But as I’m waving him off, his eyes land on my left hand, and go wide. The same way the bouncer did earlier, suddenly his whole demeanor towards me changes. “Hey, sorry.” He raises his hands and backs away from me, stepping back into the crowd.