cupping my chin with one hand. He kept a safe distance from the tray of shots, for which I was thankful.
Knowing his track record, the shots were in immediate danger.
When we broke apart, he touched two fingers to his lips and chuckled almost bashfully. “Wow.”
I flashed him a smile and lifted the tray. “Shot?”
“Who are they for?”
“My friends,” I said. “They’re waiting for me over there. See those two? The guy with the white hair and the red-haired girl?”
Peter looked over his shoulder and nodded.
“That’s Ginny and Roman,” I said. “They’re my assistants slash best friends. The dynamic duo, I like to say.”
He waved at them. Ginny wiggled her fingers in a shy hello while Roman blew Peter a kiss.
Peter laughed. “They look like a good time.”
“They are,” I said. “Care to join us?”
Peter didn’t answer right away, but when he did, it surprised me. “No, thank you though. You came out to be with your friends tonight. I don’t want to crash your party. You guys have fun. I can wait for my next chance to spend time with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Go on. Have fun. I’ll see you around, okay?”
He slipped away through the crowd, leaving me with a spinning mind and racing heart.
He wants me to have a good night with my friends?
Who was this man? His confidence and self-assuredness were unlike anything I’d ever seen. Either that or the men I’d dated years before were all sorry excuses for dating material.
I joined Roman and Ginny back at the dance floor. We moved to a standing table and I set the tray of shots down while scanning the crowd for Peter. I spotted him standing with two men, both of whom looked to be tourists. The three of them were laughing amongst themselves and drinking beers in chilled glasses.
“He’s super sexy,” Roman said.
Ginny nodded her agreement as she picked up one of the shots. “Like, super sexy. You said he was hot, Katie, but you never said he was sexiest-man-alive-magazine-cover material.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Peter. “He is dreamy, isn’t he?”
“Dreamy?” Roman scoffed. “Girl, Peter Pan is dreamy. This man of yours? He’s hot as sin. Like Captain Hook.”
Ginny arched an eyebrow at Roman. “There’s something wrong with you.”
He peered down the length of his nose at her with an air of superior disinterest. “Don’t pretend you didn’t have your sexual awakening to a cartoon, Gin. We all did. We’re eighties babies.”
Ginny rolled her eyes.
I sniffed my shot and regretted it. “It was Aladdin for me.”
Roman giggled. “Oh, yes. Rugged, charismatic, rebellious, fuck the patriarchy.”
“Can we just do our shots?” Ginny sighed.
We shuffled in closer to the table and lifted our shots with one hand while we clutched our life lines, the lime wedges, in the other.
“Cheers to the best friends a girl could ask for,” I said.
“And the best boss we could ever have,” Ginny added.
“And Peter’s body,” Roman said.
There was an excited tingle beneath my belly as we tossed our shots back and closed in on taking the second.
I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
“Why did I drink so much?” I mumbled.
Ginny was sitting cross-legged in front of me on a stranger’s sweater on the gritty bathroom tile floors. She put her hand on my back and rubbed in slow circles. “We were having fun, babe. It’s okay to get a little carried away every once in a while. Besides, you’re under a lot of pressure at work. Roman and I should have reined you in a little bit and not let it get to this point.”
I hiccupped. “I’m a big girl. I don’t need babysitters.”
“Right,” Ginny said slowly.
I lifted my face from my hands and peered blurrily up at her. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“No,” she said innocently.
If I was sober, I would have been able to tell she was lying.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been in the bathroom before Ginny eventually found me. Apparently, Roman was waiting outside the bathroom making small talk with all the women in line while he waited for us. I heard several of them coming in giggling about how they all needed a friend like him. He was their hype man, telling them how good they looked, how bomb their outfits were, and how cute the stud was he saw them dancing with.
Roman was one of those people who made friends everywhere he went.
“Do you think you can walk out of here?” Ginny asked, her hand tracing small circles over my back.