I’m on my way to getting seriously drunk tonight.

It’s not just because my friends and I are in a swanky Vegas nightclub raising our glasses to my BFF because she’s getting married. It’s also not just because we’re hanging out with a table full of high rollers who’ve been buying drinks for our small bachelorette party for the past half hour. Basically it is because I’m an amateur drinker and partier and this is already my second awesome lemon drop tonight, so all I see ahead of me is a signpost for Blottoville.

But there’s an even better reason to get very drunk, and it has everything to do with letting off steam after the devastating news we heard earlier about our tiny hometown.

The bride-to-be, Rachelle, is wearing a fake veil with her slim, red tube dress, and she’s drunkenly sitting in the lap of a rich techie guy who keeps staring at her top as if willing her boobs to spill out. My other three friends are also inside this private booth with sheer white curtains that reflect the blushing, pulsing lights in the club outside. Everyone but Rachelle is wearing Elvis sideburns attached to sunglasses, and every single one of my friends has also found a lap of her own with these friendly guys, leaving me the last girl standing…er, swaying.

Rachelle toasts us with her martini and slurs, “Here’s to my bright future in Norfolk, Ohio, girls.”

She’s made the same toast two times now, and each passing toast gets a little more maudlin.

“Oh, Rach,” I say. “Maybe it’ll be a brighter future than we think.”

Right.

The nerdy guy named Richard, who’d pulled Rachelle into the booth and onto his lap earlier, gives me a long look. “I’m beginning to think there’s something about Norfolk, Ohio, that’s not so bright.”

I slip off my Elvis sunglasses and sideburns and toss them onto the table. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Rachelle slumps in Richard’s lap. “We got the terrible news just before you invited us into your booth. The manufacturing plant in town is shutting down and moving overseas, and almost everyone in Norfolk works there, including my fiancé.”

My friend Tanya leans over to Richard with her sideburn-sunglasses still on. Not that the nerd whose lap she’s sitting on cares, because her big boobs are in his face. “It’s not shutting down for sure, Rach.”

I clench my teeth. My father, brothers, grandfather, uncles, and cousins—right along with friends, neighbors, and almost everyone I know in Norfolk—work at Ally Steel. Our town practically exists because of the manufacturing plant.

I shrug at Richard. “Sorry we’re being such downers, but a huge company came in and took over the business, so that explains all these sad toasts our bride is making.”

“It’s a company that’s known for moving jobs overseas,” Rachelle says, withering even more.

By now, I’m ready to take another damned drink. “We heard that the factory will be dismantled in the not too distant future. We’re just waiting for the deathblow.”

Now I take that damned drink, dammit.

“Jeez, Everly,” my friend Millie says from across the table. She pushes her Elvis sunglasses up to rest on top of her curly head. “Weren’t you just saying the future might not be as dark as we think?”

Rachelle blows her veil back from her face. “No, Everly’s totally right. Neil might not even have a job by the time we’re married!”

She sounds so down and out that I can’t stand it, and, like a freakin’ champ in the Going for Drunk Olympics, I crawl into the booth and then over Tanya’s lap to sink between her and the Rachelle/Richard combo on the other side. I balance the rest of my lemon drop in one hand and hug Rachelle with my other arm. “Let’s forget about it. There’s nothing we can do tonight except drink and forget the troubles waiting for us back home. So let’s freakin’ drink.”

“Drink!” say the other girls, lifting their glasses.

And that’s what we do, downing our lemon drops as the guys with seemingly endless wells of disposable income call for our server to bring more to our table.

Richard sweeps Rachelle’s veil out of his face, where it’s been tickling him. “I’m sure there’re other jobs wherever you live.”

“In Podunk, USA?” I laugh. “You clearly haven’t been to Norfolk.”

He raises an eyebrow, obviously detecting my love/hate relationship with the town I’ve lived in for all my twenty-two years. And I’m sure it’s the only place I’ll ever live. Every day, in the teeny-weeny hair salon that I manage, I dream of getting the hell out of that speck on the map. I fantasize about fleeing those gray skies from all the smoke coming of the plant. Surely I’m destined for something better than Norfolk, right? I’ve always thought so, and ever since grade school, I’ve plotted my escape. But then I think about how much I’d miss my middle-class family and friends, and I sigh in resignation, cutting another head of hair, doing another coloring job, marking one more day off the calendar.

The truth is that, no matter how I feel about Norfolk, it’s my town, filled with my people. And Nash Industries, this new, greedy company that’s rolling in and destroying Ally Steel and taking away jobs from my father and brothers and everyone else just to make a buck, can kiss my ass.

I really need another drink to take this edge off.

Just as I’m considering the sad sight of my empty martini glass, I catch Richard creeping his hand up Rachelle’s thigh. I slap the imp away. He gives me a look that says I had to try, and I smile sweetly like, You might be buying our drinks, but you’re not buying us.

I pull Rachelle off his lap and onto mine. Oof.

“Girls.” I put down my glass and peer at my pals from around Rachelle’s body. “I believe it’s time to continue our revelries.”

Everyone but Rachelle knows what I’m talkin’ about, and they pull out their phones from the little purses slung over our chests. After a moment, Rachelle gets the hint and does the same. I see Richard looking at Rachelle’s boobs again, so I nudge Tanya to slide off of her guy’s lap and out of the booth, then pull Rachelle with me so we’re both standing.

Well…swaying.

Richard the friendly perv lets out a huge, disappointed sigh I can hear even over the music. I shrug at him.

Millie and Cindy are out of the booth now, too, and they’re telling Rachelle to access her email as I give the boys a wave. “Thank you so very much for a lovely, lovely time.”

The guys, including Richard, seem disappointed as they wish Rachelle a happy life. But the smiles most of them are wearing also seem hopeful, because there are still four bachelorettes left and there’s four of them.

Dude, if they think I’m ending up with Richard and his octopus hands, they’ve got another think comin’. Besides, I’ve done the boyfriend thing—well, one time seriously—and I have to say, I wasn’t so impressed.

We part the curtain and walk outside into the humid club air. Millie, Cindy, and Tanya are giggling while Rachelle squints at her phone and tries to read the scavenger hunt email I sent everyone a half hour ago.

“What is this?” she says over the banging music.

“A delightful bachelorette game,” I say.

Now Tanya is looking intently at her phone. “Everly, where did you get this list?”

“I made it up.”

Cindy starts reading the items. “Find a man who resembles the groom and Instagram a picture of you licking his cheek. Use the hashtag #TastesLikeNeil.”

“Hey,” Rachelle says. “I’m the only one who’s supposed to know how my fiancé tastes!”

“Ew,” we all say.

Then Millie reads another. “Ask a guy for a condom. Then blow it up and make it into a balloon that you have to carry around for the rest of the night. And no going to the gift shop to cheat!”

Rachelle leans her head against my shoulder. “This is so awesome.”

Tanya takes off her Elvis sunglasses and rolls her eyes. “Even the part where we have to taste a guy who looks like your fiancé?”

“Nope.” Rachelle sighs once again. “I am just so happy and drunk. I love you guys.”

“We love you, too.” I hug her close.

“And I’m marrying Neil. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah.” I hug her closer. “You two have been crazy about each other since sixth grade.”

Millie chimes in. “You were meant for each other!”

Cindy hops up and down, her Elvis sunglasses bobbing. “Can we get on with this hunt or what?”

Rachelle pops up to attention and lifts her hands. “The bride is ready! Whoop-whoop!”

We smile at one another like idiots while the music throbs, pushing its way into my chest and making me feel as if I’ve got a second heartbeat. The room is crowded under the flashing lights and mingling bodies. There’s so much skin around us with all the women in their sexy gear that I almost feel like a Puritan in my white cocktail dress. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever worn, but that’s only because it clings to me every which way. I’m getting a few looks from the guys at the bar, but most of the attention goes to my friends, who’re wearing far hotter dresses and are taller, skinnier, and prettier. Also, they have way better noses. I really hate my nose.

But none of that matters, because I’m going to throw myself into this game tonight—I’m going to drink and party and forget all about what’s happening in Norfolk and how devastated my family will be. There’ll be enough time for sorrow when I get back.

Shit. When I get back to that little small town…

“All right,” I say, snapping out of it and gathering everyone around. “Rules. We all do this hunt solo, and we have only an hour. And you can go out of the club if you want but we need to meet back here.”

“No way,” Millie says. “I worked too hard to get us in here. We stay inside the club!”

I’ve got to give that to her. She went through a lot of trouble to search the internet for a nightclub promoter, and she scored VIP tickets. “Then we’re staying inside. Got it?”

“What do we get if we win?” Rachelle asks.

I laugh. “You get a husband.”

Tanya nudges me. “And we get the privilege of making asses out of ourselves and spreading the results all over social media for your sake, Rach. Is everyone ready?”

“Ready!” we all say.

We high five, bump hips, and break.

As my friends scatter, I wander to the side of the room where there’re some more private booths sheathed in diaphanous curtains that allow you to barely see inside to the tables. But as I hang out, totally intending to scour my list and then look around the club to see who matches the different tasks, I accidentally look inside the nearest booth and—

Oh.

I blink, not only because I’m already drunk, but there’s also a lone man resting his thick arms on the back of the booth, a tumbler dangling from the long fingers of one of his hands as he clenches his jaw and broodily stares at the table as if he’s capable of burning a hole into it. An ice-filled bucket of vodka waits in front of him, and it’s probably the most expensive brand, judging by his dark, silk designer button-down and the impeccable cut of his ink-black hair.

As I take in a breath, my belly tightens so violently that my clit begins to throb, pulsing with a wet heat that spreads through me with every beat of the music. He’s so damned hot that I can’t look away. There’s just something raw and rough yet polished about him, his face all angles and intrigue, his jaw strong, his bottom lip full enough to leave a sullen shadow beneath it. Even through the curtains, I can see that his eyes are a piercing color, and the breadth of his shoulders is steel-beam powerful, his chest strong.

Without looking away from the table, he takes a long drink from his tumbler, sucks the liquid in between his teeth, then discards the empty glass onto the table as if dismissing it. He grabs the bottle from the bucket, but it’s empty, and when he tosses it back into the silver container, I just keeping looking at his fingers. Long and sexy fingers that I imagine reaching under my dress to feel the cream between my legs, testing the erotic response he’s brought out in me…

I’m still rooted to the spot as his gaze slips upward, fixing on me through the filmy curtain. He lowers both arms from the booth and—

Shit!

I back away, flushing like mad. Did he see me?

With my heart kicking, I get the hell out of there. As I wind my way through the crowd, I realize that I am not just drunk but super drunk, and I’ll need another drink to put out these flames. Or maybe I could use a lobotomy instead. What the hell was I doing, gaping at him like that? He’s probably laughing his ass off at the dopey girl who was standing there and slobbering all over herself because she was getting off by just looking at him.

As I careen toward the bar, I blush and fume and look down at my list, knowing that a guy like that will never be on it.