I look out over the dance floor, watching the sway of the bodies under the pulsing, flashing lights, and stifle a yawn. Oh god – it’s always the same. Don’t people get bored with the same club scene, weekend after weekend? Don’t people want more out of life than this?

Except when I try to pay attention to what Dominic and Apollo are discussing – the futures market and whether it’s a good time to bet on grain prices rising – I can’t say that it’s any more enticing than going out and dancing to the same techno song on repeat for hours on end.

Okay, so maybe it isn’t the same exact song on repeat, but it might as well be. All of this music sounds the same to me. Thump, thump, thump, thump… Ugh.

I take another swig of my scotch and struggle to focus on Dominic’s words.

“I think that corn and oats are going to up this year because of the political climate here in the US, but rice is going to—”

And now they’ve lost me again. Seriously, who can give a flying fuck about the cost of oats? Are they being serious right now? Maybe they’re just trying to see how long I’ll pretend to listen to them before they bust up laughing and yell, “Psych!”

I study their faces intently and realize…nope, they’re dead serious. Oh my god, death. Death now.

And then it happens. No, I don’t die. I think my death at this very moment would lead to a pretty short book, don’t you think? No, something catches my eye and I look up from my drink and from my internal wrestle about how early is too early to just call it quits and go home, but then…her.

I have to be the least sappy, romantic, gushy guy I know. Especially since my closest friends, Apollo and Dominic, have both hooked up with two women who apparently make them Very Happy and thus Apollo and Dom feel the need to fawn, like schoolgirls, about the amazing sex and the sheer happiness and joy that comes from being around their girlfriends. I mean, I like sex as much as the next guy, but their over-the-top descriptions of being completed and whole because of it? Not exactly believable.

But watching the hottest girl I’ve ever seen work her way over towards my table, suddenly makes me sit up and notice. I’m not going to say that the heavens opened and the angels sang, but hot damn, if we’re going to call someone an angel, it would be this girl. Legs that go on for forever, a tiny waist, these perfect boobs that look like they’d just fit into the palm of my hand, and straight blonde hair that falls to her waist. I can’t tell her eye color from here and suddenly, that seems like the world’s biggest tragedy. Are they a brilliant green? A soft blue? A dark, chocolate brown? I have to know.

It’s only when she gets to the table and is smiling at the three of us that I realize that Ashley, Apollo’s fiancee, is with her. For a moment, I thought she’d headed straight for me because she felt the same pull towards me that I did towards her, but…

Well, I guess I’ll take what I can get. And the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, standing at my table and waiting to be introduced to me? Yeah, I’ll take that.

“Hey you guys, this is my old friend Vivian,” Ashley says, and Sex-Goddess-Come-To-Earth Vivian pops her on the shoulder. 

“Hey!” she protests with a laugh. “Who are you calling ‘old’? I’m pretty sure I’m younger than you.”

“Oh my god, that totally came out wrong!” Ashley says, laughing. “Let’s try this again. Vivian is Lisa’s younger sister and she also happens to be someone who I’ve been friends with for a long time. How was that?” she asks Vivian and they laugh together, Vivian’s cheerful laugh tinkling out of her like wind chimes in a gentle breeze.

Wind chimes? 

Gentle breeze?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Laughter is not a wind chime. There are no gentle breezes inside of the Marquee. But as Ashley introduces Vivian directly to me, I can’t contain my dick, which is currently straining to attention. I hope whoever put these pants together used some industrial strength thread on the zipper, ‘cause I’m sure pushing against those threads right now. That’s all I need – to bust the crotch of my pants open in front of a club full of people with the hardest hard-on I think I’ve ever had.

She puts her hand out to shake mine, and I reach out, grasping her hand in mine and oh fuck, the electricity bolts shooting up my arm right now? I feel like I’ve just touched a live wire, but in a good way.

Which is not a good thing. I don’t do this. I don’t do any of this. I don’t drool over hot young things and I don’t get a hard-on just by hearing someone laugh and I don’t, definitely don’t, think that someone is an angel come to earth just by spotting them across the dance floor.

Absolutely not that.