Page 8 of Lovetown, USA
She’s barefoot now.
Actually, one shoe is off, and the other is in the hands of the husband in one of the couples she’s dancing next to.
I can’t stop watching her.
I mean, yeah, she’s a trainwreck, but a fine one.
There’s something very raw, and veryrealabout her. She moves with confidence, but she’s not courting an audience. She does whatever she wants and dares the rest of us to have an opinion on it.
That’s so damn attractive to me.
She catches me staring.
Our eyes lock.
We hold the gaze for a little longer than an accident, and something inside me stirs. Something outside me stiffens. Then she looks away as if she knows exactly what she just did to me.
Goddamn, that woman is sexy.
And she’s trouble.
The kind of trouble I like.
I watch her make her way over to a table occupied by an older married couple. They light up at her presence, and she’s already talking with her hands, laughing loudly, pulling bright smiles out of them. Then she orders another drink.
I start to wonder if she’ll be okay.
“What’s up, Doc?”
I glance over to my right. “Reed, what’s good?”
I know Reed from my rec basketball league. We dap, then he starts in about next week’s game—who’s guarding who, whether Marshawn is still faking his knee injury—and I nod, smiling along as my eyes drift back to the dance floor.
She’s out there again, spinning around in the small crowd of couples. And then, she stumbles, and her shoe slips off again and skitters under a table. She laughs as she crouches down, almost hitting her head on the way up. A waitress rushes to help, but she waves her off.
“Jesus,” I mutter.
I wave down the bartender. “Let’s close out,” I say. “And don’t serve her any more drinks.”
She nods. “I was thinking the same thing. Is she riding home with you?”
“Nah. But I’ll get her a ride, don’t worry.”
The nearest Uber is eight minutes away. I figure she’s gotta be staying at The Standard, so I book the trip, then pay my tab.
I walk over to the hostess. “Can you help me get that young lady out to the curb? Her Uber’s on the way.”
She nods and gets my little drunk Cinderella outside.
When her car pulls up, it hits me that I booked a male driver. Something about seeing the hostess help a drunk woman into a strange man’s car gives me an uneasy feeling.
So I jump in my car and follow them.
I maintain a safe distance, watching the grey Camry snake through the sleepy streets of Lovetown. I park behind them infront of The Standard, watching as she stumbles out of the car, heels in hand.
She gets all the way to the door before she glances back.
She spots me.
