“I’m going to need to see some ID.” He was small and compact, with a humorless gaze and biceps he probably spent most of the day flexing.

“I’d be happy to show you my driver’s license,” I replied, “just as soon as you circumvent the fight that’s about to break out between Inebriated Frat Boy . . .” I nodded to our left. “His friend, Drunken Heir to the Family Fortune . . .”

The bouncer turned to look.

“And the guy they just bumped into for the third time, who we’ll just call Are You Boys Looking for an Ass Whupping?”

The bouncer turned back to me, folded his arms over his chest, and humorlessly demanded my ID a second time.

“Are you boys looking for an ass whupping?” someone demanded—loudly—from our left.

The bouncer made a beeline for the frat boys. Sometimes, it paid to be observant. I moseyed on by the ropes and helped myself to a barstool right next to the White Glove. I still couldn’t see her face. She was leaning forward, elbows on the bar.

“Can I get you something?” someone asked her.

I recognized the voice that had asked that question a second before my eyes settled on familiar hazel ones behind the bar.

“Nick,” I said. I hadn’t expected to see him here. I told myself that was why I felt a jolt, borderline electric, as the ghost of our single shared dance solidified in my memory. At the time, he’d been a fish out of water, the boy at the country club dressed in a T-shirt and faded jeans. Now he’d traded the jeans for shorts—or possibly a swimsuit. His T-shirt was threadbare and worn.

Soft, some part of me thought, imagining the feel of it beneath my touch.

The girl beside me chose that moment to let her hood fall back. Victoria Gutierrez. “Another half-dozen drinks,” she told Nick, commandeering his attention. “Same deal as before.”

“Pretty, colorful, and watered down,” Nick said, stealing a sideways glance at me. “Coming right up.”

He had the kind of voice that made everything sound a little ironic. When he turned to fill Victoria’s order, I tore my attention from the back of his head—and the back of the rest of him—and reminded myself that I’d come here to talk to her.

“You two know each other?” Victoria asked me once Nick was out of earshot.

“Something like that,” I said, refusing to allow him any more real estate in my mind. Instead, I searched Victoria’s features for some resemblance to the Ana I’d seen in pictures. Their hair was different, but they had the same eyes—same shape, same color.

“He’s cute,” Victoria commented offhandedly. “If you go for the rough-around-the-edges, angry-at-the-world type, which I suspect you do.”

I didn’t go for any type. I preferred flying solo—and Nick had reason enough to avoid girls like me.