“Okay! That’s enough of all this mushy, stressful talk. Bring on the boys and the booze!” And with that, my Jessi was back, and it made me smile. Never too serious for too long.

I was sure this bar was going to be full of touchy, drunken, frat boys … but what the hell. I could use a drink.

Jessi had called a cab while I finished getting ready, and it pulled up the minute we stepped out of the dorm. We climbed in, and she proceeded to tell the driver the address to the bar we would be going to. I played with my charms out of habit on the short drive over. We ended up in front of black building with a blue and purple neon sign of the word Shot’s with a shot glass tipping back forth at the end.

“Classy,” I muttered under my breath as we got out of the cab and went toward the door.

Thank God there wasn’t a long line, and we’d made it to the doorman within a few minutes. I’m not one hundred percent sure if he couldn’t actually tell our ID’s were fake, or if he just didn’t care. Either way, he gave us a nod to go on in.

We stepped into a dimly lit hallway that led to the actual bar. With each step we took, the music that was playing grew louder and louder. We finally made it to the end of the dark hall and emerged into a sea or different color flashing lights. The bars back home were nothing like this. They were more along the lines of dive bars … just an old wooden bar with everyone’s uncle sitting around smoking cheap cigars, and drinking cheap beer. Shot’s to me was more along the lines of nightclub rather than a bar, with its huge dance floor and lounge areas.

“There are a lot of people here,” I shouted into Jessi’s ear so she could hear me over the music.

“Yeah, Shot’s is the closest bar to the college. Everyone always ends up here. Or so I was told. You want to get a drink before we do some dancing?” She smiled.

I nodded my head. “Drinks then dancing. Let’s go do this.” If I was going to be cramped around all these people for the next few hours, the sooner I got some alcohol in my system, the better. I had always loved dancing. Losing myself in the music. What I didn’t love was the grabby pervs that thought any female dancing alone was fair game to pretty much sexually assault. There were so many people here tonight that I was sure I was going to end up kneeing someone in the balls before the night was over.

We walked around the edge of the dance floor and made our way toward a long black bar. Jess waved one of the bartenders over and ordered us a strawberry long island iced tea. After the bartender handed me my drink, I turned around to face the dance floor. It was really hard to tell who was dancing with whom; it just looked like one big, body mass with everyone grinding against each other.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone come up beside Jessi. A quick glance confirmed it was the guy from the café earlier that day. I never did ask her his name. I wonder if she even asked him? He leaned down to say something in her ear, and put his hand on her waist, and I watched as she smiled up at him before saying something back in his ear. The music was so loud I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but he smiled back down at her. When she started running her finger back and forth across his chest, I decided I’d seen enough. I knew all of Jessi’s moves, and knew exactly where this was going. But when I went to turn, I found myself face-to-chest with someone.

I slowly dragged my eyes up a black v-neck shirt, to a small silver hoop wrapped around a lip, and then up to a set of clear, gray eyes. I remember those eyes. I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind all day. I had been so distracted by them earlier; I’d never even noticed that his lip was pierced. Another thing I never thought I would find attractive but I was beginning to believe this man could make mud look good.

Now that he wasn’t wearing his ball cap anymore, I could see he had short, dark hair. It was probably black, but I couldn’t be sure in the dim lighting of the bar. All I knew was his dark hair was a nice offset to those light gray eyes.

“Easy there.” he said as he reached out to steady me by wrapping his large hands around my upper arms.

“I—I’m so sorry,” I stutter. Stutter? I’ve never stuttered. How can someone who has literally said two words to me have me acting like a complete moron?

“Not a problem,” he replied with a wide smile causing two deep dimples to sink into each of his cheeks. Oh the dimples. I’ve always been a sucker for dimples.

“My name is Kane. Kane Riley.”

“Kelsey Rien,” I told him as I tried not to stare, but it was proving to be impossible for me to do. He’s probably the best looking guy I’ve seen in a while. Who am I kidding? He’s probably the best looking I’ve seen in all my life. His shirt fit tight on his massive toned arms, and with him standing this close, I could get a better look at the tattoos covering them. I couldn’t really make out what any of them were, but I could see that there wasn’t one bit of color to them. I’m no tattoo expert, but I’m pretty sure that style would be considered black and gray.

He finally let go of my arms—that I had forgotten he was holding—and as his arm dropped, it caught a flash of light from the dance floor … and I would’ve sworn I caught a face staring back at me from his forearm before it fell to his side. I was still checking out his tattoos when I heard a sultry voice.

“There you are, Kane. Long time no see,” the voice cooed. I dragged my eyes away from his tats to find a very pretty, very angry looking, dark-haired girl glaring at me.

“Katie.” He nodded.

“Where have you been lately? I haven’t seen you in a while.” She continued her attempt to carry on the conversation as if I wasn’t even standing there.

Kane didn’t even take his eyes off mine as he replied, “Around. Just out tonight with Landon.”

He nodded to something behind me, so I turned just in time to see Jessi’s tongue make its way into the mouth of the guy from the café; but at least I finally have a name for this kid. I’d kind of worried I would have to refer to him as Mr. Blue Shirt for the rest of my life.

When I turned back around and away from my friend’s massive form of PDA, I found Kane still staring at me. I felt a blush creep up my chest and gave him a slight smile. Something that didn’t go over too well with this Katie. Her eyes narrowed at me as she leaned up to Kane’s ear.

“Well since it’s been a while, why don’t we get out of here and…” I rolled my eyes and suppressed a gag as she went on to tell him her great plans in his ear.




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