“Fine.” As if I could ever back down from a challenge.
“That’s my girl!”
“But you have to give me a minute to find the right guy,” I add. “This club is huge, there are a ton of people here, and I refuse to do this shit half-assed.”
“Don’t worry, Rae,” Lou chimes in. “We’re both well aware that you’re an all-in kind of gal.”
Lydia nods in agreement, and I wink at both of them.
Now…to find the hottest guy in the room…
“The night isn’t as young as it was an hour ago, Rae.” Lydia takes a sip of her wine and smirks at me over the glass.
“The card said the hottest guy in the room. A girl needs some time to survey the potential.”
Truthfully, I’ve known who my unsuspecting victim would be since about thirty seconds after I started scouting. And after a quick trip to the bathroom, I’ve been ready to live up to that stupid card’s task—Make the hottest guy in the room remember you for the rest of his life.
“After Rachel does the damn thing, we’re leaving, right?” Lou questions, and I nod, even if the question wasn’t intended for me.
“Yes.”
“What? Why would we leave?” Lydia squints her eyes in a rebuttal. “This party is fantastic.”
“Because we own a bakery,” Lou retorts on a snort. “Four in the morning comes way too soon.”
“You have a point.” Lydia laughs and then looks at me. “Okay, Rae. Make us proud, and then we’re out.”
“Fine.” I shrug, take one last sip from my wine, and hop off my barstool. “I only need fifteen minutes, tops.”
“Wait…you picked the guy?” my sister asks, setting her drink on the table and leaning forward dramatically.
“I’ve known the guy since I picked the damn card, honey.” I reach out to playfully flip the ends of my sister’s hair. Lou laughs.
“Who is it?” Lydia glances around the massive room. Her eyes search over the people waiting for drinks at the large bar, then skim over the patrons grooving on the dance floor, until finally, they meet mine again.
“Dance floor. Five o’clock.”
Both Lydia’s and Lou’s gazes move quickly.
“The insanely tall dude with the goatee?”
I snort. “Get real.”
“Wait…the guy with the sexy brown hair?”
“Yes.”
“Black suit? White shirt?” Lou questions, confirming she’s looking at the right one. “Top three buttons undone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“A crowd of women around him?” Lydia moves her eyes back to me.
“Yes,” I emphasize. “Enough description already. You’ve found him.”
Lydia and Lou share a look. It’s quick, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, but it makes me feel like I’m not on the inside of something.
“What am I missing?” I rest my elbows on the cocktail table and glance back and forth between them. “You don’t think he’s the right guy?”
“Oh no,” Lydia responds. “He’s definitely the right guy.”
“Yep,” Lou agrees with a steady nod. “If I liked dick, he’d be the guy I’d choose, for sure.”
Lydia cackles. “Same, babe. Same.”
“So, it’s settled, then? I’ll go make this guy remember me for the rest of his life, and then we’ll blow this popsicle stand and grab some street tacos on the way home.”
Lydia gives me a thumbs-up.
“Go get him, girl,” Lou chimes in and lifts one hand to give me a high five.
I smirk, make a show of fluffing up my boobs enough to make them both laugh, and turn on my favorite Prada heels—a birthday gift from Lydia on my twenty-first birthday from a secondhand shop on the Upper East Side.
It doesn’t take long before I’m jockeying through the crowd of dancers and heading straight for the action, where my challenge and his harem of female fans reside.
Coiffed brown hair, a devil-may-care smile, and the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life, this guy has the goods. The closer I get to him, the more I realize just how right I was.
He is, hands down, the most attractive man in this club.
Just the right kind of tall, just the right amount of muscles, and that perfect playful, charismatic smile, combined with the fact that he can actually dance, all explain why so many women are vying for his attention.
I discreetly sidle up to him, positioning my body in a way that he can’t avoid me. I know I’m pissing off a few women, but my presence will only be momentary. They can have him back soon.
I move my body with the music, shaking my hips and lifting my arms in sync with the seductive bass coming from the DJ’s speakers. It’s a heady remix of Stromae’s “Alors On Danse,” a French song I know all too well. The track is so good that it could make even the most anti-dance people bob their heads.
Purposefully, I let my head fall back, elongating my neck and pushing out my breasts in a way most men can’t deny. With a thick ass and prominent hips, I’ve always been a curvy girl. Though, it took me years to find confidence in my body. The outside pressures of society making impressionable teenage girls think skinny was the only way to be sexy was a hard obstacle to overcome.