“To the rest of our lives!” Alyssa exclaimed.

She threw back her shot as I sipped on my glass of wine.

“Thanks for asking me to come out tonight,” I said. “I almost didn’t, seeing as I still have to work tomorrow.”

“Then how would we have celebrated my new promotion?” she asked with a grin.

“By waiting until tomorrow night to celebrate,” I said. “But really, Alyssa, I’m so proud of you. Fuck knows you deserve that thing.”

“And now I finally have a normal working schedule, a salary, and benefits,” she said. “Another shot! And you’re taking this one with me.”

“I’ll take one with you,” I said. “Just one.”

I threw back the burning vodka before quickly chasing it with my wine. How people did those things on a regular basis, I’d never understand. The bartender brought me another glass and set another martini in front of Alyssa, and Alyssa pulled out her phone.

Her fingers tapped along the screen at a frightening speed before she smiled.

“Uh-oh. I recognize that smile,” I said. “What’s his name?”

“Trevor,” she said as she raised her gaze to mine. “The two of us have been talking on Tinder on and off for a few weeks now.”

“Oh really? And I’m just now hearing about him? He must’ve passed your test finally.”

“Oh yes. That man knows what to do with his tongue,” she said with a sigh.

I shook my head and took another sip of my wine.

“So, tell me about him. Have the two of you gone out on actual dates?” I asked.

“Oh, you pain me. Your words, they sting. Help me. I’m drowning!”

“Get over yourself and talk to me, Alyssa. I want to hear about him. Lord knows you know about my torrid love life right now,” I said.

“Any developments on that front?”

“Oh, diverting the topic. So he’s good with more than just his tongue.”

“Kylie, he’s a really great guy. I’m trying not to get my hopes up about it because you know my track record, but we just click, you know? We talked for three whole hours before we had sex the other day. Three hours. No food. No drinks. Just sitting on his couch in our underwear and talking.”

“That’s hefty for you,” I said.

“He likes the same movies I do, and he has the same sense of humor I do. Every free moment I get, I ask if he wants to hang out, and he’s available! And he has a job before you ask. He’s an accountant at a prominent law firm in the area.”

“An accountant who’s good with his tongue and likes you for you? Sounds like a winner,” I said with a grin.

“I think he might be the real deal, Kylie.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Back up a second. The Alyssa Hill is talking about settling down with a man? I have to meet this guy and shake his hand.”

“Not after some of the things we do, you won’t,” she said with a grin.

“Then I’ll settle for a nice smile.”

“And he really does have one of those. So, will you talk to me about Ryan now? I’ve been dying for another update.”

“Two shots for the women at the booth underneath the yellow light,” the waitress said.

I looked down at the colorful shots placed on the table before I looked at the bar. I giggled and shook my head as Ryan waved his hand and Doug winked. I looked at Alyssa and nodded my head as the two started walking over, and she clapped her hands in delight.

“Oh, this is too good,” she said as she grabbed her shot. “Come on, Kylie. Don’t be rude.”

“Yeah, Kylie,” Doug said. “Don’t be rude.”

He slipped right into the booth with Alyssa, and she let him scoot as close to her as he wanted.

“Care to take a seat?” I asked.

Ryan smiled at me before he slid into the booth next to me.

“So what brings two beautiful women like yourselves out on a random Thursday night?” Doug asked.

“We’re celebrating Alyssa’s promotion at work,” I said.

“Oh really! Then congratulations is in order. Bartender!”

I groaned and took another sip of my wine. Doug ordered us all another shot and we took them in unison, cheering on Alyssa’s new lot in life. I shook my head and crinkled my nose, shivering from head to toe with how strong the damn thing was.

Ryan’s chuckle fell upon my ears and relaxed my body instantly.

“So, Miss Alyssa, what is it that you do?” Doug asked.

“You’re looking at the new manager of sales for Delacourt Advertising.”

“Really? Delacourt?” Doug asked.

“You’ve heard of them?” Alyssa asked.

“Heard of them? Our company is their primary customer,” Ryan said.

“Looks like you’ll be having to pick up a lot of my phone calls then,” Doug said as he stared into Alyssa’s eyes.

“Bring them on,” she said with a smile.

Despite the man she had just been talking about, I watched as she and Doug volleyed back and forth. It made me smile from behind my wineglass as she practically fell into the rich, older man’s lap. She ate up every word that dripped from his mouth, and Doug looked like he was having the time of his life. I looked up at Ryan with a knowing glance, then shook my head before I finished off my second glass of wine.

I could’ve sworn I felt his fingers grace my thigh.

“As much as I hate to ruin the party, I really need to get going,” Alyssa said.

“So you dragged me out of my apartment and you’re bailing on me at ten o’clock?” I asked.

“I have a salaried job to work tomorrow,” she said as Doug helped her out of the booth. “What’s a girl to do?”

I shook my head as Ryan passed me my third glass of wine.

“Let me walk you out then,” Doug said. “Did you drive here or catch a cab?”

“Definitely a cab. When Kylie and I hit the bars, we always take a cab.”

“Sounds like a good choice,” Ryan said.

“Then allow me to hail you a cab and see you to it,” Doug said.

“Make sure that’s all you do,” I said flatly.

“Hey, hey, hey! You zip it,” Alyssa said.

I threw my head back and laughed as Doug offered her his arm. I did watch them through the window, though. And even though Doug had a reputation, he put her in a car and saw her off without getting in with her. He stood there and watched her cab disappear before he walked around the corner, probably going to his own car so he could go home.

“And then there were two,” Ryan said.

“I shouldn’t stay much longer anyway,” I said. “My boss’ll kill me if I come in hung over.”

Ryan chuckled again, and the sweet sound rattled my rib cage.

“Are you okay, Kylie?”

I looked over at the man sitting beside me as I leaned my back against the window of the bar.

“Better than I was a couple days ago.”

“That’s good. I’m glad. I was worried about you there for a little while.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I always find a way to get by,” I said.

“A woman like yourself should have more than simply getting by,” he said.

“It’s better than what I was raised with.” That statement came out a little flatter than I’d wanted it to. “Sorry. That was a bitter way to deflate the evening.”

“Not at all,” Ryan said. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“Oh, sure. Listen to your employee rattle on about her pathetic childhood while drinking red wine. Sounds like a rousing evening.”

“I could regale you with stories of how awful my parents were.”

“You don’t have a good relationship with them?” I asked.

“Not at all. Especially after I amassed my first ten million.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If I tell you, then you have to tell me.”

I swirled my wine around in my glass before nodding my head in agreement.

“Growing up, my parents weren’t bad, merely absent. They weren’t rich by any means, but they were upper middle class. Had enough money to pawn me off on a babysitter for the weekend while they went vacationing at the beach or jetted off to Switzerland or some country on the other side of the world.”

“I’m so sorry, Ryan.”

“That’s how it always was, so I didn’t question it for the longest time. Until I got older, got into sports. I tried out for a summer soccer league and made the team, but they didn’t come to one game I had. Not one over the course of five summers.”

My heart broke for the man sitting next to me.

“My life went on and I went to college, met Doug. We built our company. And the second I became successful enough for the masses to acknowledge me, my parents popped up from out of nowhere.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. It was ‘We should spend Christmas in the Maldives. What do you think?’ and ‘My birthday’s coming up. You know what I was thinking?’ Suddenly, all these holidays that weren’t much in our house and all these celebrations we didn’t partake in were the cornerstone of our relationship.”

“They wanted a relationship once you had money,” I said.

“Which made me upset, given that Adam had already been born and was three years old when all of this took place. They didn’t come around when their grandson was born, but they did come around when Forbes did an ‘up and coming’ article on me.”

“I’m so sorry, Ryan. I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say. Sometimes parents are what they are. But they don’t have to dictate who we are.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said. “My childhood was kind of the opposite, though. Everything was micromanaged to a point where if I wanted anything from them or needed anything from them, there was a bartering system in place. I couldn’t add another gigabyte to my phone’s data plan without doing an after-school activity they thought would help bolster my college résumé. I couldn’t stay out an hour later on a Saturday night with friends without spending Sunday having my mother teach me some skill she thought I needed to have for the rest of my life. That doesn’t sound so bad until you get to the fights.”

“What kind of fights?”

“The first one that really did me in was the fight about Beta Club. I didn’t want to do it because it conflicted with the dance classes I was taking in order to help me relieve stress.”

“I didn’t know you danced.”

“I do. Ballroom. I took it for years,” I said.

“Why did you stop?”

“My parents,” I said. “That was what the fight was about. They told me the fact that they allowed me to take extracurricular dance courses meant I owed them Beta Club.”

“They said it in those words?”

“No. Their actual phrasing was, ‘Just because you don’t work a job doesn’t mean you don’t pay us to live and eat under our roof. If you want to continue dancing, you do Beta Club.’ Which didn’t make any sense because if I did Beta Club, I’d only have time to dance once a week.”

“Either way, you weren’t dancing.”

“Exactly. It was the first time I got a decent whiff of my parents’ ability to manipulate me. And it spiraled from there.”

I took a long pull of my wine before I sighed.

“I think that’s why I allowed Adam to manipulate me for so long, because I was used to it,” I said.

My eyes rose to meet Ryan’s as he turned his body toward mine. Facing me. Paying attention to me. Giving me the room to talk.

“I took so much of it for so long from my parents, and it was always a knock-down, drag-out fight. But with Adam, it was subtle. It was encased in romance. So, I tolerated it because the subtle manipulation and the premise behind it was still more romantic than someone simply wanting something from me and not giving me a choice about it. I know Adam loved me. Deep down, I know he did. I know he still does. But I also know that’s not how love is supposed to work. Not really.”

“No,” Ryan said, “it’s not.”

“Do you dance?” I asked.

“Probably not as well as you do, but I get by.”

“What’s your favorite kind of dancing?”

“The tango.”

“Now why does that not surprise me a bit?” I asked.

“Because I’m a sensual older male and it’s a sensual older dance?”

I giggled and shook my head as I polished off the last of my wine.

“Care for another?” he asked.

Against my better judgment, I nodded my head. The two of us sat there and talked for what seemed like hours, and when the bartender called for a last call regarding alcohol, my eyes widened. Ryan and I had sat there for four hours, talking aimlessly about everything and nothing. I had told him about my favorite childhood memories and the places where I wanted to travel someday, and he told me about all the places he’d already been and where he still wanted to go. I learned so much about him, so much that intrigued me and made me want to peel back his layers even more.

I watched him foot the entire bill before he offered me his hand.

“Come on. We’ll share a cab back. I want to make sure you get home safely.”

The second I slipped my hand into his, I knew I was a goner. I knew there was no way in hell I was letting him go that night if he gave me the opening.