Page 3 of Sweeter

We appear to be drowning in each other’s eyes without the splashing around that would literally entail. An impromptu cosmic stare-off probably isn’t the best idea, given the context. Glamazon is yelling something to my right and my hand slackens as she snatches my margarita tumbler. I turn, but before I can do anything, she dashes my margarita into Will Faulkner’s hot, blond face.

Chapter 2

Will

“Hey, what’s your name?”

The girl wiping the salt from my eyes pauses like I asked if she’s on birth control. “Why?”

This kind of stumps me. I don’tthinkI said something weird, but Ididjust get brained by a margarita, a beer, two glasses of white wine, and a martini. “Uh, because you dived in front of fifty angry sugar babies like Costner in The Bodyguard and I want to thank you by name?”

That makes her smile. Whoever this girl is, she’s got a great smile. Great everything, really; dark red curls, pale skin, and a wide rosy mouth. She reminds me of a pixie or some other pretty, fantastical creature. At least from the neck up. From the neck down, there are other comparisons I could make. Jessica Rabbit. Gigi Hadid. The girl from the Blurred Lines video who made everyone turn their safe searches off…

“I’m Marley Ellis,” she says. “Not as good as William Faulkner.”

She dabs at my salt-encrusted face with the napkin and her nearness sends a landslide through my chest. I close my eyes and try to return my breathing to normal. I’m not used to this. Being near hot girls? Sure. Flirting with them? Fine. Inviting them back to my place to play Mario Kart and get gone down on? Great. But I meet women on apps. I flirt with them through text. I take them on dates to Mexican restaurants and I let them express interest before anything physical happens. It’s scripted, but it works. It makes sense.

Nothing about this makes sense. I don’t spot beautiful women across a crowded room, like in a fucking Journey song. I don’t wind up alone with them, barely able to string a sentence together. I just don’t feel this much. But then I saw Marley Ellis and my body temperature shot up fifty degrees. I almost thanked the sugar baby who threw the margarita at me for cooling me off.

“So,” Marley says. “You’re friends with the catfisher?”

I wince. “Would you believe me if I said wewerefriends but now we’re business partners who don’t really remember why we liked each other in the first place?”

She laughs, a bright, sunshiny sound. “I could believe that. Are your eyes okay?”

“Not as okay as they were before I took a margarita to the face, but I’ll live.”

As though to disprove this, there comes a loud knock at the door. “Get out here, Hat Boy!”

I straighten in the bar manager’s chair, which is now sticky from the drinks. “I need to get out of here.”

Marley puts a hand on my shoulder and a wave of hot, almost nauseous, excitement swaps me.

“Don’t jump out the window like an adulterous husband,” she says. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I swallow, trying to keep my cool. “That’s never stopped an angry mob.”

“It will. I can fix this.” She turns to the door. “We’ll be out soon, fellow catfish-ee. Just hang on.”

There is a pause.

“Hurry the fuck up!” the woman snaps and we hear her high heels click away.

Marley lets out a low whistle. “She’s really pissed. Did you hear her say she wants to rip off your testicles and eat them?”

I shudder. “No, although my ears were full of pinot at the time.”

“It smells more like chardonnay.”

We grin and for a second, everything feels like it might be okay. Then Marley’s smile fades. “You didn’t deserve to get wine-bombed, but what your roommate did was really shitty. Is he evil or something?”

I sigh. “A bit. Especially since his girlfriend dumped him for a fleshlight entrepreneur.”

Marley gapes at me. “That’s a thing?”

“It sure is.”

“What a time to be alive,” we say, then stare at each other in shock.

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