Page 7 of Somewhere in the Sunset

GRACIE

This is perfect. I was praying the club would be evacu-ated due to an accidental fire alarm. Hell, even anactualemergency would have been gladly welcomed by me. There is only so much I can do to ignore the ache in the pit of my stomach, and I was losing the ability to maintain the smile on my face. I wanted the night to end, and thanks to a couple of moronic strangers, I have my exit.

Elena, on the other hand, is jabbing a perfectly manicured finger into the chest of the guy she’d been flirting with, making it known she now thinks he’s a jerk. Maddie picks a shard of glass out of her hair, her sensitive disposition meaning she’s on the brink of tears, and the rest of the group are crouched around Camila and her white dress, dabbing mercilessly at the stained fabric with handfuls of napkins. Their attempts to salvage that dress are futile. It’s cranberry juice! What hope do they have?

I tuck my purse under my arm and take a couple steps to the side. No one notices, so I take a few more. I glance toward the street. The guy who threw the first punch, the one Elena was forcing me to say hi to, has just disappeared around the corner. He has the right idea. I want to get out of here, too.

Discreetly, I slip off my heels and shudder as my bare feet touch the cold, disgusting concrete. If my friends hear the click of my shoes making a dash for freedom, I don’t doubt for a second that they’ll chase me down. It’s after midnight. The night is still young and there are other clubs they can drag me to.

I lower my head, heels hugged to my chest, and make a break for it. Out on the main street, that guy is still here. He paces back and forth directly beneath a streetlight, his face aglow, and he glances repeatedly between his phone screen and the road.

I walk up to him and only now, in the fresh air, do all those vodka cranberries hit me. My steps aren’t that steady. “Are you waiting for an Uber?”

“Yes.”

“Can I share a ride with you?”

The guy lifts his eyes from his phone, his expression more blank than confused as he looks at me. “You want to get in an Uber with me after I just ruined one of your friend’s birthday celebrations?”

“Yes.”

He doesn’t say whether or not he agrees. I press my back to the wall and hug my arms around myself, feeling the cold more than ever. A minute later, the Uber pulls up in front of us, and our silence is broken when the guy turns to me and says, “Fine.”

We climb into the backseat together and I’m too tipsy to care that I’m getting into a car with not only a stranger, but that same stranger who just got my friends and me kicked out of the club. He clearly has a short fuse, but I need a ride home and he can pay for it. Also, the Uber driver is a woman, so that always helps.

“One second. I need to add another drop-off,” the guy tells her, then passes me his phone with complete indifference and angles away, staring out of his window.

The Uber app looks a little fuzzy as I add my apartment’s address as one of the drop-offs. I offer the phone back to my new companion, but when he doesn’t bother to take it, I set it down on the middle seat between us. The driver sets off, and clearly the silence in this vehicle is stifling for her, because she turns on the radio.

As we drive through downtown, past the late-night crowds still lining the sidewalks outside of clubs and bars, I study Mr. Fighter out of the corner of my eye. He props his elbow up on the window, resting his head against the palm of his hand, his mind so clearly elsewhere. I can smell the alcohol that’s soaked into his shirt.

“It’smybirthday,” I say. Well, it’s after midnight, so it’s notreallymy birthday anymore.

“Huh?”

“It was my birthday we were celebrating.”

He groans and drops his arm from the window, casting me the briefest of glances. “Happy birthday, I guess,” he says with not one ounce of a shit to give.

I snort. “Worst birthdayever.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I was already having the worst birthday ever.” I try to joke about it, even attempt a laugh, but the sound is hollow and suddenly I feel like I am going to explode into the torrent of tears I’ve been holding back all night.

It should be Luca sitting next to me in this Uber. I have never gone home to our empty apartment on my own before. We dideverythingtogether, and it seems that was the problem for him. Every drunken Uber ride home, he was by my side, casting seductive glances at each other in the backseat, knowing that soon we’d be in bed together.

“Are you .?.?.crying?”

My lips tremble, my eyes brimming with tears. I’m not the most graceful of criers to begin with, let alone when I’m drunk. I tilt my head down and can’t help but make this awful whimpering noise. Everything hurts so, so much.

“Is she okay?” the Uber driver asks.

“What do I know? I don’t even know her,” the guy mutters, then turns toward me. “What’s your name?”

“Gracie. My friend was trying to introduce us when you .?.?.” My shoulders involuntarily judder as I hiccup, trying to find my breath in between my tears. I just want Luca.

“Okay, Gracie, I’m Weston,” the guy says. “I think you’re drunker than I am, because you’re ugly crying in an Uber with a stranger, so maybe .?.?. don’t do that.”

---