“Yeah,” Lauren said, her dark eyes dancing. “Tell someone you love them.”
“What?” I deflated a little. Dares were my thing—the bigger, the better. This felt like third grade. “Uh… okay. Bekka, I love you.”
“No.” Lauren elbowed me, making my beer slosh over my arm again. “Not like that—that’s boring. Go up to someone—a stranger—in this bar and confess your love for them.”
“Really?” I asked.
“What, are you too afraid?” Lauren asked, teasing me. “You’re not going to turn down a dare, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “I never turn down a dare. So, tell someone I love them? That’s it?”
“On second thought, yeah, that’s kind of boring,” Katy said.
Lauren’s smile fell and I could see she was second-guessing herself. Well, fuck it. I wasn’t going to give Katy the satisfaction of making someone else feel like shit this weekend.
“No, it’s not. Tell someone I love them? I can do that. Do I get to pick who?”
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Cool.” My eyes traveled to the dark stranger across the bar, who was no longer in eyesight. Did he leave? Shit. He was my plan. After a quick scan across the bar, I didn’t see anyone else I wanted to confess undying love for. “Does it count if he's outside of the bar?”
“You’ll have to hurry up if he’s already left,” Katy said.
I hooked my arm around Bekka and nodded at Lauren. “Come on, watch me make an ass of myself. Katy, stay by the bar so they don’t think we’ve left.” Ignoring Katy’s frown, I dragged the girls out the door we’d come in minutes before and scanned the hallway for Mr. Handsomepants. He was staring down at his phone in his hands, about fifteen feet away.
“Hey, you,” I said.
His head lifted, surprise registering on his face. “Hey yourself.” His lips flattened in a line, but they were beautifully full lips. The kind that made me think dirty things.
Oh shit. Nerves flitted through me, making my mouth go dry and my legs quiver. “I just wanted to tell you,” I began, and then paused. I wasn’t really going to chicken out on this, was I? Why was I nervous? I supposed seeing him in the brightly lit hallway, it was a little harder to just tell this Mr. Seriously Handsomepants that I loved him. And it didn’t help that Lauren and Bekka were giggling messes behind me.
“What did you want to tell me?” He stowed his phone in his pocket and turned to face me fully. He had the most incredibly symmetrical face—with cheekbones that created dark hollows in his cheeks and dark, full eyebrows that framed his darker eyes so perfectly it wasn’t fucking fair. Some of us had to work for hard for eyebrows that were more sisters than twins. His full lips smiled slightly, politely. And his strong jaw rounded out his resemblance to a Regency-era tasty morsel. He had the face that a Jane Austen heroine might moon over, I decided.
“I’m Tori,” I said.
“Hi Tori.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. It felt weird being a dozen feet apart and neither of us moving, but when his gaze darted to the uncontrollably giggly ladies behind me, I figured the distance was probably for the best.
“What’s your name?”
“Why?” he asked. His eyes narrowed, giving him such a moody, stormy vibe. Why did I like that so much?
Because it was a challenge.
“Well, I have something to tell you, and I think I should probably know your name before I say it.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, and he pursed his lips. “Okay. It’s Liam.”
Mmm. It fit him. A sexy name to match his sexy, deep voice. “Hi Liam.”
A smile curled his lips, slightly softening all his sharp edges and doing dangerous things to his eyes. “Hi Tori.”
“Hi Liam.”
Lauren elbowed me. “You already said that,” she hissed in a voice that was probably intended to be a whisper, but I was pretty sure that everyone in the hotel could hear what she said.
I elbowed her back, sending her further behind me and faced Liam more fully. “Cool.” I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with stale hotel air. “Liam. I just have to tell you that I love you. I know it’s a little soon, but I hope you’ll accept it with an open heart.”
You could hear a pin drop—which was impressive for the lobby of a Vegas hotel at night. I could tell by the expression on his face