Once Upon Stilettos

Feeling bolder from his attention, I shook his hand. “Hi, Matt. I’m Katie.”



He leaned one elbow on the table in front of me, then placed his other hand on my knee. “Tell me, Katie, how long have you lived in New York?”



“A little more than a year.” I looked over to my friends, who were all watching me. None of them had men around, so I felt bad for abandoning them. “It’s very nice to meet you, Matt, but I’m here with my friends, and I don’t want to be rude to them.”



He grinned. “See, that’s what I like about you. You’re a good person.” He pulled a card out of his back pocket. “You can give me a call and we can get together sometime when you don’t have your friends with you.”



“I’ll have to do that,” I said, taking the card from him and tucking it into my purse.



He gave my knee a squeeze and said, “Don’t ever change,” before disappearing into the crowd.



I turned back to my friends. “What did you do that for?” Ari asked.



“Do what?”



“Ditch the cute guy. You had him right where you wanted him. You might have even had a little fun tonight.”



“But I was with y’all. I didn’t want to ignore you because some guy was talking to me. I did get his phone number, though.”



“You have to promise to call it,” Trix said.



Isabel draped an arm around my shoulders. “I think it’s great that she didn’t ditch her friends. This is a girls’ night out, after all.”



Ari snorted. “Yeah, well, if someone who looks like that is all over me, don’t count on me joining you for dinner.”



A waitress came to our table and handed out another round of drinks. “These are from Matt,” she said. I looked up to see him raise a glass to me from across the room. The only other times a near stranger had bought me drinks, magic had been involved. As far as I could tell, this was the one time in my life when a man had bought my friends and me a drink just because he really liked me. I could get used to that, I thought.



The first little bottle of champagne went straight to my head. The second, along with the giddy feeling of having enticed an attractive man, made me unsteady. I didn’t see how I’d make it through the rest of the night, when Ari declared, “How about dinner now? This place is dead, except for Katie’s admirer, and I’m starved.”



I was proud that I only staggered a little bit when I slid off my stool. I caught Matt’s eye as I made my way out of the bar and gave him a wink and a smile. Take that, Ethan, I thought.



The cold air outside was almost refreshing after all the body heat in the bar, though I knew it wouldn’t be long before I was freezing. Isabel set out to find us a cab while Ari, Trix, and I stayed close to the building. Ari whipped out a cell phone and began chatting with someone about our evening’s activities so far. I’d just started shivering when Isabel called out, “Hey, I think I’ve got one!”



We all dashed over to her. I suspected Trix and Ari were using their wings, even though I couldn’t see them, because they easily outran me. Or maybe I wasn’t used to wearing such high, pointy heels. Before they got to Isabel, though, they came to a sudden stop. I picked up my pace, taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up with them. But then something hit me in the middle of my back, and quite suddenly I wasn’t cold anymore.



I fell forward, but Trix got to me in time to catch me before I hit the ground. She held tightly to me as Isabel joined us, looking like a sequined vengeful Valkyrie. I could feel the charge in the air from the magic that must have been flying fast and furious around us, but I couldn’t see a thing. Normally in a fight like this, I was the one who could tell what was going on, and I was usually able to pitch in by at least throwing a rock at something nobody else could see, but this time I was utterly helpless. At one point, Trix grabbed me tighter, like she was afraid of something. I kicked out blindly, hoping I hit someone where it would really hurt with my pointy heel.



Then the fight must have ended, for Trix, Ari, and Isabel were wiping sweat from their brows and heaving huge sighs. Isabel paused and looked like she was talking to someone I couldn’t see. “You okay?” Trix asked me, releasing her hold.



I checked my body as best I could for signs of damage. My back was sore from whatever had hit me, but otherwise I seemed to be unscathed. My shoes weren’t even scuffed. Trix must have shielded me before any real damage was done. “Yeah, I think I’m fine. Just a little shaky.”



“We’d better get a cab while Sam and his people wrap things up,” Isabel said, returning to the curb to flag one down. She must have let the last one go when she came to my rescue.