When they crossed the threshold into the lights and music, Alex noted the place wasn’t as busy as the time before. Then she remembered they’d had to wait in line for nearly an hour and the line outside would filter in eventually. The table they had occupied last time was free again, so she headed straight for it, happy to leave Ryan and the others behind for a moment. When they reached the table, Alex announced the first round was on her.
“Lauren, Matt, the usual? And Ryan, what about you? What’ll you have?”
In answer, he stuck his tongue as far down Lauren’s throat as he could.
Alex bent over between the kissing lovers. “Hey! Drink! What are you having?” She tried to say it lightly, but she was growing more irritable by the minute.
Ryan slowly peeled himself away from Lauren and lazily dropped three hundred-dollar bills on the table. “Champagne, thanks, pet.”
Pet? “Lord, give me strength!” she muttered.
Alex headed straight for the bar, leaving the money on the table. No one noticed. Matt was rocking his head to the beat and the others had resumed their heavy tongue work immediately after Ryan finished speaking. Alex saw the three line, six-deep queue at the bar and actually sighed with relief as she took her place at the end, happy with the excuse to stay away from Ryan and his effect on Matt and Lauren.
Ok, just breathe.
Maybe Ryan just wasn’t what she was used to. Maybe she would get to like him if she just gave him a chance. Then again, it didn’t matter whether she did or not, it only mattered whether Lauren did. Lauren clearly saw something in him Alex didn’t, and she guessed that’s what Lauren liked about him. Alex decided to ignore her gut instinct and just go with it. For now, at least.
Finally reaching the head of the line, she gave the order to the barman. Within moments the drinks were plonked on the bar in front of her.
“That’ll be $343.50.”
“HUH?” Alex said, loudly over the dance music.
The barman tapped the champagne bottle. “It’s the best. And the only one we stock.”
“Oh shit,” Alex whispered. She’d forgotten to pick up Ryan’s stupid three hundred dollars. With a great regret, she pulled out her credit card and handed it over. The barman took it and tapped the numbers into the card machine. Alex straightened her bag on her shoulder, double checking her purse for any extra cash she may have missed, but found none. When she looked up her card was lying on the bar.
“Next please!” the barman called.
Alex looked at him, but he was busy fixing the new drinks for the guys behind her. “Uh…excuse me? Don’t you need me to sign something?”
“It’s taken care of,” the bartender shouted over his shoulder at her.
She shook her head at her luck and put her card back in her purse. Carefully lifting the tray with drinks, Alex tried not to get squashed by the people queuing up behind her. The place was filling quickly, she noted.
She turned sharply and her tray-carrying hands bumped into what felt like a cold, steel wall. With a sensation like her heart had fallen into her stomach, she watched, as if in slow motion, the champagne bottle tip forward and tumble off the tray. She instinctively reached her foot out to save the doomed three-hundred-dollar bottle but nothing fell on it. There was no sound of smashing either. She looked at the tray. The bottle stood there, upright and full.
“What the…”
“Couldn’t let it break,” a voice said, serene even over the dance music. “I know how expensive it is.”
She looked up again and Dante was in front of her. He wore a white business shirt with rolled up-sleeves, two buttons undone. Alex found herself going over him with an approving glance. Even with the darkness of the club she could see how tight the shirt clung to the muscles of his shoulders. He was the steel wall she had hit. He had caught the bottle and placed it back on the tray as sweet as you like.
“Oh my god! Thank you!” Alex exclaimed, putting the tray back on the bar and wrapping her arms around his neck. She felt him lift her with one arm and chuckle to himself. Incidentally, Dante had his fingers almost in the exact same spot Ryan had his a few minutes earlier when he’d guided Lauren and her into the club, maybe even a bit lower. But this time she didn’t mind. Dante wouldn’t have even realised, and even if he did, he had just saved her three hundred bucks. She would let him get away with it.
“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s move out of these people’s way.”
Dante walked along the length of the bar, holding the tray with one arm and supporting her with the other, as if she weighed nothing. Alex laughed at how she must look. He took her a few feet along before he let her down. He leant over the bar and returned with another bottle of the same champagne and swapped the one she had.
“Just in case the fall ruined the first one.”
“How the hell did you catch that thing?” she asked.
Dante smiled warmly and shrugged. “I don’t know. Fast reflexes.”
“Yeah right,” Alex laughed. “No one’s reflexes are that fast. You must’ve learnt it somewhere,” she said, poking his stomach playfully. His stomach was that hard it would’ve probably hurt her to hit him harder. Dante had her hand gently in his a second later, as if thinking the same thing. It was amazing how fast he could react.
“Nice,” she said, looking at the hand that held hers. Nice hands for a
