Out of the corner of my eye I see a man approaching me. I turn. He’s got two beers in his hands and a cocky smile. The blue-green lights reflect off his eyebrow ring and two lip piercings. His head is shaved and there are words spelled out on his knuckles. He eyes me up and down and looks like he’s hit the jackpot. He probably thinks we’re soulmates.

He opens his mouth to speak and holds the beer out to me.

“No,” I say. “Thanks.”

He frowns and opens his mouth again, once more holding the beer out.

“Hard no,” I say.

His frown cements into place, and he opens his mouth one more time.

“Zero wiggle room,” I tell him. “None.”

He turns on his heel and disappears back into the crowd. By the time I’m peeking out from behind the pillar again, I’ve lost track of Eliot.

Panic closes a hand around my throat. Immediately, I’m scanning the second floor of the bar, looking for that golden head of hair, certain I’m about to see him staring at me from two feet away, his mouth dropped open as he realizes who I am, his bubble gum plopped on the floor.

It’s fifteen terrifying seconds before I spot him on the edge of the dance floor down below, drink in one hand and his cell phone in the other. His face is screwed up tight as he scrolls through it. He looks like he’s struggling to see it. Maybe his eyesight is bad?

Then his expression eases and his face lights up in triumph as he presses something on the screen and then holds the phone to his ear.

My pocket buzzes and embarrassingly enough, I actually squawk in surprise. He’s calling me. I press a hand over my pocket and just watch him for a second. This is what he looks like when he’s calling me. He gets that specific expression on his face. He bounces on his toes. He pulls his lips into his mouth.

Is he nervous?

Not once in all the hours we’ve spent talking did it occur to me that I might make him nervous at all. I really assumed that that was a one-way street.

I slip my phone out of my pocket and I’m about to answer it when a woman pulls apart from the crowd and approaches Eliot.

She’s short, with pretty black hair and a big smile. He leans forward and looks intently at her face for a moment.

I know in that moment, instantly, completely, that he’s trying to figure out if she’s me. I’m gripping my beer so tight my fingers ache. I realize I’m leaning out from behind the pillar way too far.