Page 2 of Dangerous Men

For the person I could have been.

The light touch of Jade’s fingers on my hand pulls me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I take a deep, calming breath and recite one of my favorite therapy mantras as I pull myself back into the present.

I am an ocean of calm.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how destroyed I feel right now, it doesn’t matter that my heart is breaking or that I’m still crushed from the breakup. I refuse to fall apart in the middle of this club. I refuse to let him take another thing away from me.

It was my idea for the two of us to blow off somesteam tonight and have a little fun. Jade and I have been working nonstop at our shared business, and between that and my breakup, I feel like we haven’t had an opportunity to truly let loose in a while.

We need this.Ineed this.

“I promise, I’m okay,” I insist, squeezing Jade’s hand. The fake pep in my voice is almost convincing enough to be believable. “Come on, we look too good to be sitting here all night. I want to dance!”

It’s obvious the change in my tone isn’t genuine, but Jade still lets me pull her up from the table and into the crowd of dancing bodies, laughing as I tug her along. If there’s one thing that I can always convince Jade to do, it’s show off her gorgeous self and her killer dance moves.

I’ve always loved to dance. To lose myself in the music, to surrender to the flow of the beat. As we sway to the upbeat tempo, I feel myself come alive—a flower finally in bloom.

Fuck Chase. Fuck my fake friends. Fuck everything but this moment, right now.

I let the music take me away, swaying my hips and moving to the rhythm. I can feel my little red dress clinging tight to every inch of me in the heat of the club, but I don’t even care. This is the feeling I needed. I lost myself in my relationship with Chase—my self-esteem crumbling until there was barely anything left—and in the process, I lost this. The joy of just existing in my own skin. It’s been too long since I truly felt likemyself.

Moving to the music, I lose myself in the flow of the song and in the night’s energy. With a bright laugh, Jade wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me in for a hug.

That’s when I feel it.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, my spine tingling with the sensation that someone is watching me. I stepaway from Jade, my eyes scanning the room. Maybe I’m just being paranoid after my run-in with Chase, but I swear something in the air just shifted. I can feel someone’s heavy gaze on me, but when I look around the club, I can’t see anyone. The lights are too dim, the crowd too thick.

But this feeling? It’s magnetic. A pull toward something unknown and dangerous, like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering what it would feel like to jump.

I touch the back of my neck, frowning as my eyes search the dark corners of the club.

This is ridiculous. What I’m feeling is nothing more than a few too many drinks, an overactive imagination, or a mix of the two. My mind must be playing tricks on me. You can’t actuallyfeelsomeone staring, can you? That’s insane.

Still, the sensation lingers, like the ghost of a touch.

Unable to shake the feeling, I signal to Jade that I need a break, pointing toward the bar. She nods enthusiastically, falling into step beside me as we make our way off the dance floor, toward the quieter side of the club where the music isn’t so deafening.

By the time we order our fifth round of drinks and stumble back to a table, I’m sweaty, emotional, and bordering on very drunk. And right on cue—as if they have a sixth sense for intoxicated women—two very eager men approach our table. From the sleazy smiles on their faces, and the way they quickly lean into our personal space, it’s easy to guess what they’re interested in.

“Gay!” Jade shouts at the men without even blinking.

That stops them in their tracks. The two men look at one another, frowning. “What?” nondescript man number one says. “No! We’re not?—”

“Gay,” Jade interrupts, pointing at herself. “Very, extremely, vagina-lovinggaywoman here. Move along andplease do not interact with or startle the lesbian.” She says it without an ounce of volume control or restraint. I hide my laughter behind my hand as the men look back and forth between the two of us, distressed. Jade takes a loud slurp of her drink as she watches them.

When they finally regain their composure, both men shift their full attention to me. Maybe they’ve accepted that their efforts are lost on Jade. More likely, they just think I’m the weaker target.

“How about you?” man number two asks, leaning an elbow on our table, his grin wide and too eager. “Can I buy you a drink?”

I raise my martini to eye level, wiggling it at him. “I’ve actually got one already, but thanks.”

And here we go. There’s something that happens in the male brain that translates “no” to “try again, please.” Instead of leaving us alone and crawling back under the bridge they came from, both men sit down at our table, clearly willing to press the issue. Even if I were in the right mindset to meet someone—which I’m decidedly not—this isn’t the approach.

“Come on, sexy. One more?” He smiles at me, adding a wink for good measure.

Gag.

“I’m truly uninterested,” I say, more firmly this time.