Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
I wasn’t the type of person to stew about what to wear, but I also wasn’t the type of person to catch live music on a Friday night. What did you wear to that sort of thing?
My wardrobe was largely business attire, but I pulled out some jeans, a fitted T-shirt, and a blazer.
Okay, so the logic wasn’t rock solid, but the hope persisted.
Besides, in my experience, great things always involved opposition. My car not starting was exactly that.
Sitting in the driver seat of my inoperative car, I thought for a minute, then shot a text to Grant.
He was already heading to the music venue anyway; he might as well swing by and pick me up.
It was five-to-nine when Grant pulled in front of my place, and I was on edge. I hated being late.
His gaze fixed on my outfit for a second as I approached the car, and I wondered if I had toilet paper hanging off my heel or stuck to my thigh or something. Or maybe he was a connoisseur of the live music scene and my outfit screamed I was a fish out of water.
“So,” he said as we pulled away from the curb, “what’s this place like?”
Grant was in his usual getup, like dressing for the occasion hadn’t even crossed his mind. I guessed this was technically work for him, though.
For me, it was…I didn’t even know. Some unidentifiable mashup of work and not-quite-pleasure.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think it might be a place for up-and-coming artists to play. Leo mentioned there’d be food and drinks.”
“You sure it’s not his gym and he’s hoping you’ll spot him on the bench press?”
I shot him an unamused look. “How many gyms have music, food, and drinks, Grant?”
“I’d go to a gym like that.”
I couldn’t really picture Grant at the gym, but a man didn’t get a body like his by sitting at a computer 24/7.
I inhaled, then frowned and glanced behind me. A brown paper bag with the Dawson’s Donuts logo sat on the back seat.
I looked at Grant.
“It’s tradition now,” he said.
I kind of hated thoughtful Grant. He was really hard not to like, and Leo was the one I wanted to like tonight.
The best parking option was a huge garage two blocks from the address Leo had provided.
We pulled in and wound our way up, and I refused to think of the last time Grant and I had been in a structure like this together.
On no account could he be allowed to co-opt the concept of parking garages for the rest of my life—or even tonight.
“Late work day for you,” I said as we took the elevator down to the ground floor.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. He looked…attractive, which was annoying because he looked the same as he always did. “This is nothing. Unless you and Leo are planning to pull an all-nighter…” He cocked a suggestive brow.
“I have a midnight curfew. But even if an all-nighter did happen, I can assure you that you wouldn’t be invited.”
“Oh, I’d definitely be invited. I’m here to observe the first date. The whooole thing.” His eyes danced.
The elevator door opened, and we made our way to the address Leo had provided, keeping a quick pace since I was more than fifteen minutes late.
Grant chuckled at my speed-walking but managed to keep up.
We turned the corner onto the street, and I glanced at the address on the nearest building, then at the place next to it—our destination.
Two extremely large men stood on either side of a matte-black door, their hands clasped in front of them like they were hoping to snag the top image result on Google for the term bouncers.
The door opened, and two girls in short, glitzy dresses stepped out, bringing booming music and flashing lights with them.
I glanced at the addresses of the buildings on either side again and checked them against my message from Leo. There was no mistaking it, though. This was the place.
It wasn’t a chill, live music venue. It was a club.
I didn’t do clubs. All the bodies pressed up against each other, the bone-rattling bass, the wild lighting…
My natural habitat was an office with floor-to-ceiling glass walls and windows, space to swivel around in my chair, and nothing but calendar reminders to interrupt the silence. And, lately, The Truth Machine’s tapping.
“You’re not going in there, are you?” Grant asked, echoing my thoughts exactly. He looked at me quizzically, like he could see my thoughts and found them mildly amusing. Or maybe just predictable.
And his prediction was spot on. I didn’t want to go in.
But I’d committed to discomfort tonight. This situation was just…adding an extra dash of spice to a dish I didn’t usually eat. Or a couple tablespoons of spice.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t really seem like your scene.”
It didn’t really seem like his scene, either, but knowing him, he’d manage to look at home inside despite that.
“Maybe you don’t know as much about me as you think you do.” I held his gaze for a second, then turned and approached the giant-like bouncers, my heart pounding as violently as the bass.
“Vivian,” Grant called after me.
I took a breath, then turned toward him, bracing myself for whatever he had to say.
“I hope you have a good time,” he said. “You deserve it.”
I swallowed, then thanked him and turned toward the club. The bouncer on the left opened the door for me, and I thanked him, then stepped inside, trying not to wonder if Grant was following.
He would, wouldn’t he? He wasn’t the type of man to be deterred from his job by this lively scene.
A combination of dark and neon flashing lights accosted me. The light was diffused by a haze in the air, like they were using a fog machine—or everyone was smoking, though it didn’t smell that way, thankfully.
Up ahead, a thick crowd of people was dancing, and it occurred to me that it might be difficult to spot Leo—a man I’d never met—in these circumstances. Maybe I was supposed to wait outside, but given how late I was and the fact that he hadn’t been waiting for me out there, I doubted it.
Instinctively, I glanced over my shoulder to look for Grant, but my view was blocked by a couple who’d decided the best possible place for them to level-up their PDA was directly behind me.
“Vivian!”
I searched for the origin of the call through the strobing lights and spotted a hand above the group of heads to my right. The group parted, and Leo smiled, shouldering his way toward me.
My heart swooped at the sight of him—tall, built, tan, and blond, like he moonlighted as a stunt double for Chris Hemsworth.
“I thought you might’ve stood me up!” His arm wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me in for a hug. It was like hugging a thinly-padded wall.
“Sorry,” I said over the music, trying to act like my regular Friday nights involved hugging strangers in night clubs. “My car wouldn’t start.”
“I could’ve come to get you,” he said.
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now. Car trouble means you probably need a drink.” He grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd.
Part of me wanted to tug my hand away—we’d literally just met—while the other recognized that keeping track of each other in these crowds required something like this.
I was on edge, and I needed to take a breath of the hazy, vibrating club air and simmer down.
We reached the bar, which was lined with an enormous assortment of colorful bottles. A small menu on the wall offered fries and sliders.
Leo let go of my hand, then leaned on the counter and looked at me. “What do you want?”
“Just a Coke.” My breath of foggy strobe air hadn’t been calming enough to make me open to getting buzzed—or worse—in this type of environment. I liked tightly controlled conditions. That was how you got reliable data—not by introducing chaos, alcohol, and a bunch of other variables.
“Come on,” Leo coaxed. “I’m buying. Live a little.”
“Coke with lime?” I offered.
He chuckled, then communicated my order to the bartender.
My eyes scanned the area for Grant with no luck. Had he never come in? It seemed unlike him. It was entirely possible he was here somewhere, sandwiched between people as he tried to find Leo and me.
Or maybe he was getting down on the dance floor.
“I’m so glad you came.” Leo’s 200-watt smile flashed me like its own strobe light.
“Me too.” I took the Coke the bartender slid toward me. “Though, I didn’t quite understand where I was coming, so I didn’t really dress for the occasion.”
Leo scanned my outfit. “You look amazing.”
His words released a kaleidoscope of butterflies in my stomach and stains of heat on my cheeks. I hadn’t realized I was so susceptible to compliments, but the data were pretty clear on that.
He sipped his drink—a Scotch. “So, you’re the president of Matchify.”
I laughed lightly. “CEO, but yeah.”
“Love the ambition,” he said. “You probably work crazy hard.”
I waffled for a second over my response. “I don’t have a ton of spare time, but I enjoy my job enough that it doesn’t bother me.” My voice was already starting to hurt from having to speak so loudly.
The song changed, and Leo perked up. He downed the last of his drink, then set the empty glass on the counter, his shoulders moving with the beat. “I love this song. Come dance with me.” Stepping to the beat, he took the Coke from my hand and set it beside his empty glass.
I opened my mouth, then shut it. He was so excited about the song, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. I let him guide me to the dance floor, but my gaze snagged on Grant, who was coming up to the bar.
His eyes met mine, then dropped to my hand in Leo’s before returning to my face, his expression unreadable.
There was no time for anything more as Leo’s pull brought me away from the bar and to the dance floor. He stopped, raised my hand above my head, then spun me around.
“Come on, Vivian,” he said, moving his muscular body in surprisingly limber ways. “Let loose a little. It’s Friday night!”
I spotted Grant through a gap in the crowd. He was still at the bar, his focus intent on Leo and me.
Leo grabbed my other hand, raising it up with the other one so. “Show me your moves, girl!”
I kept my own movements to a simple two-step, but my heart was hammering. If my goal for the evening had been discomfort, I had met and exceeded the quota. “What if I don’t have any?”
Leo frowned, then leaned in until his breath tickled my face. “What?”
“I said what if I don’t have any moves?” I almost yelled back.
“Uh-uh.” There was a smile in Leo’s voice. “I don’t believe that for a second.” He pulled back, his shoulders still moving with the beat as he looked me over, rubbing his lips together. “That body definitely has moves.”
My chest tightened. There was no kaleidoscope of butterflies, no flush of pleasure in my cheeks—just an uncomfortable clenching of my stomach.
He pulled me closer and set my hands on his broad shoulders, then moved his to my hips, his eyes everywhere but mine.
I removed my hands from his shoulders.
His grip on my waist tightened. “Don’t go.”
“I’ve never really liked dancing.” It wasn’t true. Katie, Brooke, Jackie, and I had hosted numerous dance parties during our college days. What I meant was that I didn’t like this dancing.
“That’s because you haven’t done it with me.”
I shook my head as the song changed, this time to something slower. I put my hands on his to remove them, and the strength of his grip sent a flicker of nerves through me. There would be no moving his hands without his compliance.
“I thought you might be a little uptight,” Leo said as though he was amused by my attempt.
“Excuse me?” I tried to step back.
“It’s okay, Vivian.” He pulled me even closer. “I’m good at helping women loosen up.”
I gripped his hands and pushed down, but they didn’t budge.
For the first time, ice-cold fear filled my chest.
Maybe it was irrational. We were in a crowded room full of people I could call to for help. Assuming they could hear me. Or cared.
I tried to think about the self-defense class we’d had in high school gym class, but it was a blur all these years later.
“Vivian.”
I turned my head and found Grant looking at me, his jaw hard and his eyes wells of darkness.
My pulse raced.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
“Hey,” Leo said. “We’re dancing here.”
Grant’s eyes never left mine. “You ready to go?”
Heart pounding in an entirely new way, I nodded.
Grant took my hand in his, warm and firm.
When Leo didn’t loosen his hold on me, Grant’s gaze shifted to him for the first time.
Every nerve in my body on high-alert, I watched as the two of them stared each other down.
The tension in the air felt like a vice on my lungs as the seconds stretched on, other dancers bumping the three of us unheeded.
Leo was a couple inches taller than Grant and had significantly more muscle on his frame. But Grant’s eyes had murder written in them, and it crackled in the space between him and Leo.
After what felt like an eternity, Leo let go of my waist, put his hands up, and gave in. “Chill out, man. You can have her. Good luck. And good riddance.”
Grant’s grip on my hand tightened, and I could sense it. He was about to punch Leo in the face.
“Come on,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Let’s go.”
Another fraught second passed, and I gave a little tug. With a feathering of the muscle in his jaw, he broke his gaze away, readjusted my hand in his, and led us out of the club.