rind into the trash next to her before she closed her eyes, letting the warmth seep from her throat to her stomach and out through her extremities.
She remembered the last time she felt this way, the pleasant heat coursing through her, suddenly intensified by his words.
Will you dance with me?
She opened her eyes, reaching for the bottle again.
To her surprise, the second one went down much smoother, the sugared lemon chaser serving as a treat rather than a necessity.
Andie stood there for a moment, her hands on the bar and her eyes closed. Her body felt warm and loose, and she rolled her neck slowly, relishing the feeling. Her thoughts felt beautifully uncluttered, the guilt that had been on the forefront of her mind for two weeks now floating somewhere in the distance like background noise.
“What the hell,” she said, reaching for the bottle one more time. She hadn’t driven her car to the restaurant that night; it was only a ten-minute walk from her apartment, and finding parking there was usually a nightmare on weekend nights.
She took the third shot, this time not even bothering with the lemon chaser before she cleaned up after herself and placed the bottle back beneath the bar.
The walk home seemed to pass more quickly than it usually did, with the cool air on her skin and the streetlights peppering her path. Andie noticed that the edges of things took on a fuzzy quality, almost like she was walking in a dream, and she caught herself smiling like a fool at absolutely nothing more than once.
She climbed the stairs to her apartment, the dream-like fuzziness increasing somewhat as she reached her door, and she giggled to herself as she stumbled backward a bit when she looked down to get her keys out of her purse. She rummaged through it, gently at first, and then with a touch of panic.
“Shit,” she said, dropping her arms to her sides and letting her head fall back. Of course tonight would be the night she’d leave her keys at the restaurant. Just as she was about to turn back toward the stairwell, she froze, remembering that she had placed her keys on the small table in the entryway as she ran back to her bedroom to grab a hair clip before she left for work.
And she never picked them back up.
She turned back toward her door and fell forward, thumping her forehead on it three times before she finally just left it pressed up against the wood. This was so unlike her. She never did irresponsible things like this. Ever since she had returned from Florida though, it seemed to be a common occurrence; she was scatterbrained, she would daydream at inappropriate times, she couldn’t write a thing to save her life, and she was constantly finding things about Colin that irritated her.
And then, of course, there was the reappearance of the dream.
She opened her eyes and rolled to the side so that her back was pressed up against the door, and she slid down the front of it until she was sitting on the floor. Tracey had a spare key, she remembered, but no sooner than that idea popped into her head, she dismissed it. She knew her friend, and she knew what she was doing right now. There was no way Tracey would answer her call. Nor would Andie want her to.
She rummaged through her purse and pulled out her phone, sending Tracey a text message instead, explaining the situation and asking her to call as soon as she could.
She could call Colin and sleep at his place tonight, she thought. But if she were being honest with herself, she didn’t want to. All she wanted at that moment was to be alone with her thoughts, in her bed, in her house.
She stared down at her phone, her thumbs running over the keypad, and then suddenly, they were moving.
Stupid Lemon Drops got me locked out of my apartment.
She sent the text before her hazy mind could even condone or object to what she had just done, and she rested her head back against the door, a tiny laugh bubbling out of her throat. She felt amazingly indifferent.
She had almost fallen asleep against the door when the sound of her phone ringing jolted her from her daze.
She fumbled with it for a second before she brought it to her ear. “Hello?”
“Lemon Drops, huh?” he asked, and Andie thought her heart might beat out of her chest. She