Chapter 14
COLE
I take a sip of my beer, aiming to finish it quickly since Muse nightclub is the last place I want to be tonight. I only agreed to come to entertain Libby and properly meet Storm because Libby was excited about our introduction.
My guess is that she was looking for my approval; she didn’t need it, but she has it anyway.
My heart isn’t in dancing, the thumping music, or the flashing neon lights, and all I want to do is go home.
“You’ve really got it bad, huh?” Libby appears, shouting over the head-banging music in the laser-lit nightclub.
Unamused, I shake my head, disagreeing with her. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a really shit liar,” Storm jumps in.
It was bad enough having Libby as an outspoken, confident friend, but now I have two to contend with.
Fuck my life.
“I hate you two,” I counter in a sarcastic tone, because I don’t mean it. Storm isn’t just great; she’s perfect for Libby. I can already tell Libby is falling for Storm, and vice versa. They’re smitten and haven’t been able to keep their hands off each other all night.
In the same way I was with Mina.
Fuck, I’m pathetic.
I ignore them as they both laugh their heads off at me, and I sway to the bass-heavy music I’m not really listening to.
When Libby and Storm begin kissing, jealousy burns white-hot through my veins. A third wheel sounded awful when Libby invited me tonight, but in reality, it’s worse. Much, much worse. Fucking hideous, actually.
“I’m going to use the restrooms.” I raise my voice enough for them to hear me, and Libby gives me a thumbs-up in recognition, her tongue still down Storm’s throat.
What a fucking night.
I set my beer on the table behind me and walk to the stairs leading to the lower level, where the restrooms are.
Walking down the glass stairs, I survey the crowded dancefloor, where the lively crowd moves in sync, a mass of bodies twisting to the music that pulses off the club walls like a heartbeat.
Lights strobe in white, then shift to electric blues and greens, piercing through the smoke machine as people sway their arms, laughing and singing along to the female vocals of a dance song I don’t recognize.
“I’m getting too old for this.” I’m not, but dance music really isn’t my thing.
Rock is more my thing. I much prefer a traditional band with electric guitars and the heavy beat of drums, singing story-based, emotional songs that have heart and meaning.
Electronic synthesized, high-energy, repetitive beats just don’t do it for me at all.
There’s nothing wrong with dance music, but I like what I like, and I like guitar riffs and conventional melodies that are often aggressive in nature.
I pause on the staircase, gripping the railing, scanning the chaos below, wishing I hadn’t come tonight, but part of me still hoped that maybe, just maybe, Mina might be here.
It may be foolish of me to think this way, but I’m trying everything I can, including putting an ad in the Missed Connections feature on Monday.
No matter how I’ve tried all week to forget her, every memory of her keeps coming back to me, my brain replaying fragments, slices of her, slipping into my mind like a movie trailer previewing only the best parts: the way she laughed into my shoulder, stared into my eyes as she moaned my name, and fell asleep in my arms. Now I’m thinking I made the whole thing up. Was she even real? Did I imagine her?
Having only had three beers tonight, my head feels fuzzy because I don’t drink as much as I used to, and I haven’t been to a nightclub in what seems like ages. Maybe a year? Or even longer.
I’ll text Libby after I take a piss and let her know I’m leaving. If I go back up to see her, all she’ll do is try to keep me here and beg me to stay, but I’m done for the night.
I take a slow step down the stairs again, then another, my heart beating in time with hard doof doof beats.
A flash of light catches my attention, flicking on and off, on and off again, highlighting the faces of the strangers below.
And that’s when I see her.
Mina.
I think.
Or is my mind deceiving me?
I narrow my eyes to slits to get a better look, my pulse racing through my body at the speed of sound until it’s dizzying, and then she’s gone faster than a blink.
“Fuck.” I must be hallucinating.
But no. The light flickers yet again and there she is.
Shiny ebony hair catching the light, arching her head back as she laughs, the curve of her hips moving to the rhythm.
She’s here.
I recognize her immediately because the crisscross-strapped, barely-there tank top she’s wearing, which resembles butterfly wings across her chest, highlights her back tattoo. The one I am completely obsessed with and have been dreaming about every night since the evening we spent together.
Everything about her is familiar as excitement hums through my body, and for a second, I forget how to breathe or how to make my feet work.
Then she looks up, as if she senses me watching her, her smile broad as she enjoys the music’s melodic beats.
I’ve found her.
My focus narrows to her, the single point in a swarm of clubgoers.
My eyes widen as our gazes lock.
For a brief moment, everything around us seems to freeze. We’re not in a nightclub and there’s no music, just us, caught in a stare.
And she’s even more beautiful than I remember. My memories did her an injustice.
I swallow, the loudness deafening my ears, but quicker than a shot, her smile disappears, her brows thickening with disapproval, her forehead wrinkling in anger, and she breaks eye contact with me then storms off through the tide of dancers.
No. No. No.
“Mina,” I shout through the pounding music, and I know there isn’t a chance in hell that she will hear me as she continues to push past people on a mission to get as far away from me as possible, weaving her way this way and that, and I track her as I run down the stairs trying to get to her as fast as I can.
When I reach the bottom, I bounce up onto my tiptoes over the living wave of people who are unaware of the meltdown taking place inside my mind and chest.
I stop for a millisecond, and there she is, heading toward the exit.
“Fuck.” I dart forward, shoving my shoulders and elbows into people as I bump into them, pissing them off and drawing curses as I pass them by in a flash, trying to get to the woman I am certain is my future.
All my manners go out the window as I follow her head bobbing up and down as she runs, staring at the exit where she disappears from sight.
“Mina,” I shout, ramming into someone.
“Watch it, fuckface.” A large-looking dude spins around, looking angrier than a storm at sea. And he’s big, at least twice my width.
Unlucky for me, I chose the wrong type of person to barge into, and the next thing I know, he’s shoving me.
Before I realize what’s happening, his fist is in my face, pain radiates through my eye, causing an instant headache, knocking me out cold, and everything goes black as I fall into an inky abyss.
The exact shade of Mina’s hair.