For a moment he looked like a lonely fifteen-year-old, and she felt a flash of pity for him. She’d been lucky enough to celebrate her own twenty-first birthday at a bar in Boystown with a rowdy group of friends—people who liked her for herself. Maybe Logan knew that without his fame and money, none of these people would be here.

He swallowed the last of his current drink. “I wanna dance.”

Celebs frequently left VIP to go down to the floor, but there was a weird energy in the club tonight that she didn’t like. Too many people, everything louder than normal, guests bumping into each other, servers dropping trays, glasses shattering. A fight had already broken out, and although Ernie and Bryan had intervened so quickly that hardly anyone had noticed, she didn’t want there to be another.

“Let’s talk instead,” she said. “It’s a real crush down there tonight.”

“Tha’s what makes it fun.” He grabbed her arm. “Come on.”

The girls in the booth didn’t like seeing him leave with her instead of one of them, but Piper needed to stay close. Also, Jen would love hearing about this.

Spiral’s patrons were older than Logan’s core group of tween fans, but he was still a celeb, and people began to press in on him. His bodyguards made a phalanx through the crowd. The DJ segued into “Not Witch U Now,” his last hit.

She was a decent dancer, but, drunk or sober, Logan was a great dancer, and she didn’t try to compete but simply surrendered to the beat. He gave her a drunken grin. More people came on the floor, trying to get closer. Logan moved to the edge, grabbed the drink one of his drunken posse members handed him, and downed it.

The music grew louder. Three willowy hair-swishers cut Piper out. As they began grinding on Logan, she pictured a trio of beautiful sharks devouring a very small herring. One looped her arms around his neck, another around his waist. Even drunk, Logan started to look nervous. His security, along with Jonah and Bryan, began to move in, but something about the women’s determination made Piper certain there’d be trouble if the men touched them. She wedged herself in front of the closest woman, but there was only one of her, three of them...

And one of Coop Graham...

“Ladies...” He tapped two of the outliers on their shoulders, at the same time giving Piper the signal to close back in on Logan. “I’m getting lonely here.”

The women moved in for the bigger prize.

Logan, in the meantime, lost his balance. Whether someone pushed him or he was too drunk to stand, Piper couldn’t tell, but he staggered, then fell to the dance floor. His sunglasses flew off and crunched under one of the dancers’ feet.