“I’ll need to see your outfit before I can let you in.”
My mouth was too dry, and my palms were too wet. What the hell was I doing here, outside the entrance of Dom Nation? It was marked only with a stylized DN, for people in the know.
Thanks to my asshole ex and the scraps of information he’d dangled in front of me like forbidden fruit, I was one of those people.
Crap. Do I really have the balls for this? Maybe Isaac had been right. Maybe I was better off in private, where anyone who showed up at my door was guaranteed to be into me.
Or to want to get into me, which I wanted to believe was good enough.
“Oh, yeah. Of course,” I mumbled. Trying to look like I did this all the time, I gave a nervous laugh and lifted my shirt. Beyond the guardian of the dress code, throbbing music drifted through the open door. I wished I could just slip past, unseen.
“Good. And downstairs?”
“D-Downstairs?”
Crap. Was there an extra super-secret zone? A password? I started to hyperventilate. I’d applied by email and they’d accepted me, and nobody had mentioned a downstairs.
“No jeans—it’s in the dress code,” said the young guy, his voice sharp even if his smile was friendly. “Do you have something else?”
Oh, downstairs. I felt like an idiot. Yes, I most certainly did have something downstairs, and it was hot, sweaty, and squished at an awkward angle like a hot dog in a miniature Ziploc.
My leather hot pants felt even more ridiculous than they looked, sticky against my skin. Leather under denim was not a recipe for comfort on a warm spring night.
Fuck. Now I have to drop my pants in public. I kicked myself for not just ordering a kilt online.
Behind me, plain black barriers stretched along the sidewalk, far enough back to make me nervous about how many people would be inside this joint. But I’d come early—hopefully for the only time tonight.
A group of six men approached, all of them twentysomething. They joined the end of the nonexistent line, glancing at me and then slowing their pace. They were laughing, passing around a cigarette. All of them were in leather and rubber and shiny sports gear, broadcasting plain as day where they were going.
Did they come like that on the bus? I had to wonder. Share a ride? Bike?
The thought of strangers walking past and doing a double take at the middle-aged guy squeezing himself into sexy clothing made me want to crawl into a gutter and never return. So on the way here, I’d worn my outfit under jeans and a T-shirt. The buckles stood out through my shirt like weird body mods.
I took some comfort: the perky young man in an effortlessly cool silver chain body harness and long, buckled leather trousers had every right to look at me like I didn’t belong here. With his lean body and pretty eyes, I wondered how frustrating it was to be stuck checking partygoers at the door.
But his patience and his smile dwindled as the guys behind me approached.
This was it. Time to put up or shut up. My hands shaking, I started to unbutton my pants.
“Oh, no!” He grinned at me and held out a hand. “No public nudity allowed. But if that’s your outfit tonight, that’s fine.” Then the guy winked, probably out of pity. I heard a laugh from behind.
Great. I had an audience. Just what I needed.
Mortification bloomed in my cheeks. They think I’m going in there naked? No fucking way did I have the balls—or the body—for that.
Holding together the sides of my pants without doing up my fly yet, I was frozen with indecision. Should I rip down my pants and show him that I’d come dressed? Or would he just laugh at me for shyly hiding away under baggy jeans?
“No, I…” I cleared my throat, pulling apart my hands just enough to show a hint of leather in the V. “Shorts. Leather. Short leather shorts. That’s my downstairs solution.”
Downstairs solution? Jesus Christ. Just go home now, Slate, I thought, my throat tight as I ducked my head to avoid seeing his reaction. Game over.
A tiny, self-pitying part of me hoped he’d tell me so. I could fume, call a taxi, stew in indignation, but in half an hour I’d be home with a glass of wine and an episode of Miss Marple.
Not trying to indulge the desires I wished to God I could bury, along with