Abaddon was an assault on the senses. The music was incredibly loud, with a driving backbeat that practically rattled Lily’s teeth. Lights flashed constantly in a rainbow of colors, sending the gyrating bodies into stark relief one moment, eclipsing them the next. And then there were the smells: sweat, alcohol, and an odd sulfurous smell that made her feel jumpy and nervous. She hoped the wiring wasn’t about to go; with her luck, she’d be trampled under the stampede if the place caught fire.

A mezzanine lined three walls of the club, and it was packed with dancers and drinkers. She worried briefly about how sturdy it was—there had to be 200 people up there—then followed Miri through the crush of gyrating bodies, headed for the bar.

The bar was an enormous square in the middle of the huge, warehouse-like room, manned by two bartenders. At each of the four corners was a raised platform; a pair of women danced on each, clad in bikini tops, cutoff shorts, and furry go-go boots. They writhed in lascivious abandon, creating a spectacle that would make most people blush. At one time, in fact, it would have made Lily blush, but not anymore. She had lived in New York for three years now, and was accustomed to people making displays of themselves in one way or another—and more often than not, that way was sexual. It wasn’t her style; she was far more reserved than her peers when it came to sex. Not a prude and definitely not a virgin, but still … she was picky, and she was careful, and she was not interested in jumping into bed with just anyone.

She and Miri reached the bar and immediately a bartender was there, leaning towards them.

“What can I get ya?” he asked, shouting to be heard over the music. Miri ordered a Dos Equis, Lily a mojito.

For a few minutes, the women nursed their drinks, backs to the bar, surveying the crowd. It was so odd, but Lily would have sworn there wasn’t a single person in the entire place who wasn’t incredibly attractive.

“Do you think they turn ugly people away at the door?” Miri asked, leaning over and shouting an echo of Lily’s own thought into her ear.

Lily grinned. “They let us in, didn’t they?”

“Speak for yourself,” Miri shouted, and did a little shimmy. “This girl’s looking really good these days.”

That was true. Until about six months before, Miri had been a good fifty pounds heavier than Lily, but she’d done the whole low-carb thing and dropped a lot of weight. At this point, she weighed about the same as Lily and, since she was a couple of inches taller, she looked amazing—curvy and slender and just really fantastic.

“You certainly are,” Lily said, leaning over and slapping her lightly on the rear. “Maybe you ought to see if any of the dudes here want to break off a piece of that.”

Miri laughed and shook her head. “Nah, I’m just looking. Things are going great with Matthew.”

Lily nodded, but said nothing. She didn’t care for Miri’s boyfriend. He didn’t seem to be interested in anything but video games and smoking pot, and Lily had been sort of hoping they might not work out, but it seemed things were getting more serious instead. As a friend—as a best friend—it was her job to be happy when her friend was happy; for now, Matthew made Miri happy. Lily planned to keep an eye on him, though.

“Now, you, on the other hand,” Miri said, waving a hand in the air. “I think you should definitely do a little prowling here. I don’t think I’ve seen a non-hot guy yet.”

Lily shrugged. She wasn’t much for prowling; she preferred to wait for someone to approach her. Of course, that hadn’t worked out earlier at Club Domino, and the guys here were definitely smoking hot. She looked around appraisingly, noting a blond guy with a great body at the edge of the dance floor closest to her. She nudged Miri with her elbow, pointing discreetly in his direction. “What about that guy?”

“Oh, he’s a cutie,” Miri said. “Maybe you—nope. Scratch that.” Quick as lightning, she moved to Lily’s other side and said, “Look at me.”

Lily obeyed.

“Now look behind me. Dreamboat at 1:00.”

Lily shifted her gaze over Miri’s shoulder and almost swallowed her tongue. The guy Miri was talking about, who was standing at the bar watching the dancers with a bored expression on his face, was without a doubt the hottest guy Lily had ever seen in real life. His hair was jet-black, the kind of hair that looked almost blue under certain lights, and curled appealingly down to his collar in a way that was casual but managed not to look unkempt. He had the face of a model—square, chiseled jaw. Sharply defined cheekbones, full lips. A tight black T-shirt stretched over his wide chest and broad shoulders, and faded jeans rode low on his narrow hips.

Lord have mercy.

“Am I drooling?” she asked Miri.

Miri giggled. “Not yet, but I don’t think anyone would blame you.”

“No, I think—shit!” Lily snapped her gaze away, mortified, and turned to the dance floor again. “He caught me looking.”

Miri shrugged. “I imagine he’s used to being looked at,” she said pragmatically.

“He looks familiar.”

“Yeah, he does,” Miri said. “That’s because he’s Superman-handsome. They all start to look alike after a while. You should ask him to dance.”

“Have you seen me dance?” Lily asked, shaking her head. “If I wanted him to like me, that would be the last thing I’d do.”

“Oh my God, Lily,” Miri said, shaking her head. “You dance fine.”

“I don’t,” Lily said. “It’s like an epileptic on ice skates.”

Miri sighed and repeated herself. “You dance fine. If it was anyone but you, I’d say you were fishing for compliments.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’d call you a liar, you weirdo. But it’s not lying if you really believe it, which you shouldn’t. Now go ask him to dance.”

Lily opened her mouth to give another reason why she couldn’t, but the thing was … she could. Damn it, there was no reason she couldn’t go over there and ask him to dance.

“Okay,” she said.

She set her mojito down and headed over to the other side of the bar. Superman-Handsome was standing on the opposite side of the bar square, so it took her a few minutes to make her way through the little knots of people congregating along its length. She used the time to run lines in her head.

Hey, wanna dance? Not exactly scintillating, but sometimes the old standbys got the job done.

I couldn’t help noticing you look like Superman. Yeah, no. Even though Miri was right, no. He’d probably heard that, or variations of it, a bunch of times, anyway.

If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?

Her own silly thought actually made her have to stifle a giggle, and by that point she was approaching him from behind—and what an approach it was, because the view was pretty spectacular. She took a moment to appreciate it, which turned out to be a very good thing, as it also gave her a moment to overhear what he and the bartender were talking about.

“—just saying,” the bartender said. “They toss themselves at you like nothing I’ve ever seen and you just turn them all down. What’s up with that?”

“It’s boring,” Superman-Handsome replied, and he did indeed sound bored, perhaps terminally so. “Have you ever gotten sick to death of something?”

“Sure I have,” the bartender agreed. “Like, the first Halloween in the new house, we didn’t know the neighborhood, right? And we bought three times as many of those little mini candy bars as we needed. So, of course, for every one I handed out, I ate two. Wound up with a stomach ache.”

“Yeah, like that. Too much of a good thing.”

“And then after the kids were in bed,” the bartender continued, “I banged the hell out of my wife, bellyache and all, because you know what never gets boring? That.”

Superman-Handsome just shrugged. “Anything can get boring.”

The bartender noticed Lily standing there and said, “Sorry, can I get you something?”

Lily shook her head, avoided Superman-Handsome’s gaze as he turned to look at her over his shoulder.

“No, sorry,” she said. “I have a drink, back with my friend,” and she backed up, carefully, three or four steps, then turned and fled back to Miri’s side, giggling the whole way.