As Kara wobbled and Marissa giggled, Abby realized that she had two choices: either she was going to have to stop drinking until she felt less maudlin, or keep drinking until her brain turned off. She adjusted her own boa, arranging it to lie against the V-neck of her tee shirt, which was black, with the word BRIDESMAID spelled out in crystals on the chest, and followed the group into a bodega, past the cash register and the indifferent clerk behind it, down an aisle stocked with ramen and crackers and candy bars, boxes of steel wool scrubbing pads, and bottles of Fabuloso, then out its back door. Their night had started six hours ago with dinner and cocktails at Nobu. There’d been more cocktails at a dueling piano bar, a club in Manhattan, and a dive bar in Park Slope. Abby prayed this would be their final stop of the night. I’m too old for this, she thought as Marissa led them down a trash can–lined alley, pausing once or twice to peer at her phone.
“Are you sure this is right?” someone asked as Marissa stopped in front of a dingy metal door and knocked three times. When a slot in the door’s center opened, Marissa gave a password and collected everyone’s IDs and vaccination cards. When the documents had been inspected, the door swung open, and Abby followed her friends into the thumping, crowded darkness. The music was deafening, the bass so loud that Abby could feel it vibrating through her fillings. Girls in bodysuits and booty shorts with trays of shots around their necks threaded their way through the crowd, twisting like contortionists to serve customers lounging on the couches. The dance floor was packed with people, dancing and hollering along to the music.
Abby was throwing her arms in the air with the rest of the bridesmaids, gyrating happily and singing along to a remix of Cher’s “Believe,” when she noticed a guy standing in the corner, staring at her. He wore dark jeans and a short-sleeved tee shirt. His thick brown hair fell over his forehead just so, and his pale skin looked almost luminous in the club lights.
Abby turned away. She kept dancing, but her gaze kept landing on him, taking in a new detail each time—his full lips, his thick, straight eyebrows. She knew she was staring, but she gave herself permission. Looking at this guy was like looking at a two-thousand-dollar gown on the Nieman-Marcus website: a gorgeous thing she could appreciate, while knowing she would never take it home. And home was a hundred miles away, which made the likelihood of bumping into this handsome stranger at a dog park or a coffee shop unlikely. Abby could stare to her heart’s content.
Except, strange but true, it seemed like the guy was looking right back at her. Looking at her and smiling.
Abby watched as he detached himself from the wall and moved through the mass of dancers, until he’d arrived to stand right in front of her.
Bridesmaid? he mouthed, pointing at her chest. Abby nodded, and he leaned in close, saying something she assumed was his name. She felt the warmth of his breath on her neck, and he smelled delicious, musky and spicy and sweet.
Abby shouted her name at him, which was all the conversation the music would allow—a good thing, because his next question would have probably been Where are you from, and at some point he’d follow up with What do you do, and Abby would have to choose between lying or stumbling through an explanation about the gig jobs she took to pay her bills. It was embarrassing to be her age, to have made so many false starts and still not be any closer to figuring out what she planned on doing with her one wild and precious life. She reminded herself that her indecision, while unseemly, wasn’t actively harming anything or anyone.
Somehow, she and the guy had drifted away from the rest of the bridesmaids until they were dancing as a couple （Marissa, the only member of the bridal party who’d noticed this development, gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up, which Abby hoped the guy hadn’t noticed）。 He was close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. His scent made her mouth water; made her want to press her lips against him and taste the skin of his throat. After two songs, he started to touch her—reaching for her hand, letting his hand rest on her hip, always looking at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for her nod. Abby could feel herself flushing with each brush of his fingers, her skepticism—Me? This guy’s into me? Really?—warring with her desire.
After another three songs, he took her hand and inclined his head toward the corner. Abby let him lead her into the shadows, thinking Do with me what you will. She knew this was borderline scandalous behavior. She also knew that the guy might think she was acceptable, kissable, sleep-with-able, at two in the morning in a dark bar, with loud music and limited options and God only knew how many drinks inside of him, but that he might find her less impressive when he was sober. And there was Mark, back in Philadelphia. They’d been on only two dates since they’d found each other again, but maybe Marissa was right. Maybe there was potential for something serious.