Page 39 of Boyfriend of the Hour

I sniffed back a few more tears. “You don’t know shit about me. You know I’m cute. You know I mix drinks. You know before that day in your office, I was nice to you. That’s it.”

For the first time, Nathan’s full mouth twisted, like he’d tasted something unpleasant.

“I know more than that,” he said. “I know you’re kind to people when you don’t have to be. That you have four sisters and one brother and you care deeply about what they think of you. That you live in the Bronx. There’s more, but the point is that I listen when you talk, whether it’s to Tom or another customer or sometimes to yourself when you’re making mental lists of things to remember.”

This time, I was the one who stared. How in thehelldid he know all of that? Had I actually said those things over the past months? It wasn’t impossible. But Nathan had never seemed like he was listening. And all this time he was paying that close of attention?

For what?

But before I could reply, the lights in the bar dropped suddenly, and the music changed from evening-friendly hip-hop to the more bass-heavy dance music preferred by the late-night clientele.

“Joni,” Tom called from the other end of the bar. “Let’s go.”

I turned back to Nathan, then looked up to where other girls were starting to take their places on the platforms. “It’s showtime.”

EIGHT

STUFF I DO WHEN I’M NERVOUS

#8 Bite my nails. Stop it its so gross

Iexpected him to leave after that. I’d completely ignored his question, and let’s be real: emotions aren’t the hottest thing in the world, especially not to a man in the middle of a crowded bar where people came to escape things like insecurities and sadness, not to embrace them.

But Nathan stayed put on his favorite barstool, now sitting on his jacket while he held the scotch I knew he’d never finish. He was completely unaware of the effect he was having on nearly every woman within a five-foot radius, all of whom were openly eyeing the way the hot doctor’s biceps stretched the confines of his scrub shirt.

I’d noticed too. Just like I’d noticed the way his butt filled out the otherwise shapeless blue pants. And the way his forearms had flexed when he’d held my hands.

I didn’t want to notice.

But I did.

And now, I wasn’t mad at all, and I couldn’t understand why.

All I knew was that as I headed for the stage entrance inside Tom’s office, it was Nathan Hunt’s beautiful brown eyes I continued to see. They were so warm, making me wonder about the rest of him. The way those broad shoulders might feel if I burrowed into them. How those arms might protect me from the rest of the world. If his breath might whisper warmth over my neck and ear as he stroked my hair.

In other words, I was even more ridiculous than usual, now fantasizing about a hot, pretentious doctor just because he had said the magic words no man had ever said: “I’m sorry.”

Pathetic.

In Tom’s office, I climbed the stairs that crisscrossed the wall, finding the door that opened to my assigned platform on the other side. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Caught up in Nathan’s and my conversation, I hadn’t even warmed up, hadn’t even stretched. I was about to dance for the first time in months, completely cold.

Another dancer named Ella waved from where she was about to go on. “Hey, Joni. Glad you’re back!”

I waved, though nerves danced in my belly, and my legs felt like a baby deer’s. “Thanks, me too.”

As I stepped out onto my platform, I couldn’t help but steal glances at Nathan sitting at the bar, though now he was rotated outward to face the dancers. He sat straight and tall, a beacon of stability in the midst of all the chaos.

A remix of “Rhythm is a Dancer” by Snap! poured through the speakers, its strong baseline drowning out my thoughts and thrumming through my body. Tom had a thing for nineties electro-pop, which made people take to the dance floor like this was the Roxy, not a lounge that technically had no cabaret license. I started to twist and turn, feeling the eyes of the crowd on me. The stage lights from behind me transformed me intoa seductive silhouette, a snakelike seductress moving for the audience’s pleasure.

I spun and writhed, eager to show off. Okay, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. My body was remembering its tricks, sliding into the movements like riding a bike. I didn’t have to be the sad, shitty bartender right now. I didn’t have to be that sad girl with nowhere to live and no real life to speak of. This was who I wassupposedto be, so why had I thought I couldn’t do this anymore? The pain in my knee was barely a twinge.

I could do this. Iwasdoing it. I was killing it.

I was falling to the ground.

With a vicious stab, my knee gave out just as I was playing with a pirouette-like move. I stumbled against the rounded wall of the platform and fell to the bottom, clutching my knee as pain scissored through me. I only narrowly missed rolling off the tiny stage completely, though I barely would have noticed.

Fuck, it really hurt.