Page 59 of No Match Found
It wasn’t a chill, live music venue. It was a club.
I didn’t do clubs. All the bodies pressed up against each other, the bone-rattling bass, the wild lighting…
My natural habitat was an office with floor-to-ceiling glass walls and windows, space to swivel around in my chair, and nothing but calendar reminders to interrupt the silence. And, lately, The Truth Machine’s tapping.
“You’re not going in there, are you?” Grant asked, echoing my thoughts exactly. He looked at me quizzically, like he could see my thoughts and found them mildly amusing. Or maybe just predictable.
And his prediction was spot on. I didn’t want to go in.
But I’d committed to discomfort tonight. This situation wasjust…adding an extra dash of spice to a dish I didn’t usually eat. Or a couple tablespoons of spice.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Doesn’t really seem like your scene.”
It didn’t really seem likehisscene, either, but knowing him, he’d manage to look at home inside despite that.
“Maybe you don’t know as much about me as you think you do.” I held his gaze for a second, then turned and approached the giant-like bouncers, my heart pounding as violently as the bass.
“Vivian,” Grant called after me.
I took a breath, then turned toward him, bracing myself for whatever he had to say.
“I hope you have a good time,” he said. “You deserve it.”
I swallowed, then thanked him and turned toward the club. The bouncer on the left opened the door for me, and I thanked him, then stepped inside, trying not to wonder if Grant was following.
He would, wouldn’t he? He wasn’t the type of man to be deterred from his job by this lively scene.
A combination of dark and neon flashing lights accosted me. The light was diffused by a haze in the air, like they were using a fog machine—or everyone was smoking, though it didn’t smell that way, thankfully.
Up ahead, a thick crowd of people was dancing, and it occurred to me that it might be difficult to spot Leo—a man I’d never met—in these circumstances. Maybe I was supposed to wait outside, but given how late I was and the fact that he hadn’t been waiting for me out there, I doubted it.
Instinctively, I glanced over my shoulder to look for Grant, but my view was blocked by a couple who’d decided the best possible place for them to level-up their PDA was directly behind me.
“Vivian!”
I searched for the origin of the call through the strobing lightsand spotted a hand above the group of heads to my right. The group parted, and Leo smiled, shouldering his way toward me.
My heart swooped at the sight of him—tall, built, tan, and blond, like he moonlighted as a stunt double for Chris Hemsworth.
“I thought you might’ve stood me up!” His arm wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me in for a hug. It was like hugging a thinly-padded wall.
“Sorry,” I said over the music, trying to act like my regular Friday nights involved hugging strangers in night clubs. “My car wouldn’t start.”
“I could’ve come to get you,” he said.
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now. Car trouble means you probably need a drink.” He grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd.
Part of me wanted to tug my hand away—we’d literally just met—while the other recognized that keeping track of each other in these crowds required something like this.
I was on edge, and I needed to take a breath of the hazy, vibrating club air and simmer down.
We reached the bar, which was lined with an enormous assortment of colorful bottles. A small menu on the wall offered fries and sliders.
Leo let go of my hand, then leaned on the counter and looked at me. “What do you want?”
