Page 3 of Like It's 1999

The rest of the evening is full of laugher, teasing and planning. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier for my best friend. She’s found a unicorn: a good guy who’s good looking and who adores her. Not that I’m planning to settle down anytime soon—if ever—but I have to admit that I am a wee bit jealous. They’re such a good match. Her parents even like him.

Nope, nope, nope, Alice. The only way you manage your current lifestyle—doing work that’s fun, wearing clothes that are fun, going out with guys that are fun—is staying far away from commitment as well as Atlanta. The clockwillrun out someday and youwillhave to go home and face the music, but as long as you keep everyone guessing—from your parents to your dates—no one can pin you down.

Suddenly aware of the heat emanating from the arm draped casually across the couch behind me, an arm that just happens to be attached to a blond, blue-eyed charmer of a man, I squelch the sexy thoughts zipping through me again. As tempting as he might be, I can’t go there.

One: As we’ve established, he’s my best friend’s best friend.

Two: His brand of sexy is one I could get addicted to.

Three: He’s not Korean.

STEVE

This may be the silliest New Year’s Eve party I’ve ever been to, but I think it might also be the most fun. In the past, it’s been either getting drunk at a bar with a bunch of frat brothers or work buddies—pretty much the same thing—and going home with some girl I picked up or going to some stuffy thing wherever my parents happen to be living at the time and spending the night being polite. And then going home with some girl I picked up.

Tonight, I’m pleasantly buzzed but I’m not drunk, we’ve been playing games all night, and I’m laughing my ass off. There is a girl, but she’s off-limits. Not because she’s with someone else—at least, I don’t think she is—but because… Well, I don’t really have a good reason. Except that Ilikeher. The way I like Kate. Alice is hot—great legs, big brown eyes—but I could see us being friends the way Kate and I are. She’s wicked smart, too. Too smart for me, for sure.

Right now, I’ve got to focus to have a chance at beating her team at charades. I mean, they have the actor on their team. Kate, Pam and I hold our own until I get this clue: “No shirt, no shoes, no dice.” Of course, I know the quote, but while the girls get the first four words right away, nothing I do gets them to “no dice.” They just keep guessing “no service.”

When Will calls time, Kate groans. “What was the answer?”

I hold up the slip of paper. “No shirt, no shoes, nodice.”

Pam grabs it from me. “What the heck does that mean?”

“Fast Times at Ridgemont High?” Alice and I say at the same time.

I point to her. “Exactly.” Then I throw my hands in the air. “How do you guys not know that movie?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Kate huffs. “But I don’t have it memorized.”

“Dude! Spicoli!” Alice high-fives me.

Deb yawns and flops back on the couch. “All right, all right. Let’s start this New Year right and call it a draw. I need to go to bed.” She waves at Pam. “Sweetie, would you grab a pillow and a blanket for Steve from the closet?”

I wave their offer of hospitality down. “Guys, it’s fine. I’m not drunk. I don’t need to stay over.”

Deb makes a face. “But we want to have a sleepover. We have a yummy breakfast planned for the morning and everything.”

Kate nods. “Also, it’s the other drivers you have to worry about. Plus, the roads are totally icy.”

I could argue that I learned to drive the year my family lived in Buffalo—where you don’t see the ground from November to April—but this couchispretty darn cozy. “You win,” I say over a yawn. “But wait, I didn’t bring my flannel nightgown with the tiny little flowers. We didn’t do makeovers. Nobody braided my hair. Isn’t that what you do at sleepovers?”

Alice shoves my shoulder. “We’ll do that as part of the wedding planning, don’t you worry.”

Despite the distraction of her waggling eyebrows, I manage to snag a flying pillow before it hits me in the face.

“Nice catch,” Pam says, following up with a blanket. “There are new toothbrushes in the hall bathroom.”

Deb points at Alice. “You get the guest bed, missy. It’s got fresh sheets.”

Kate pulls Will out of the chair they’ve been sharing. “I guess that means we get your old room.”

Alice waves lazily from the other end of the couch. “Goodnight, everybody. Love you, Katie Mae.”

As the two couples—Deb and Pam, Will and Kate—shuffle off to bed, I turn to Alice. “How come you get to call her Katie and I don’t?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s KatieMae. That’s her southern name.”

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