I accept the cup Brody pushes in my direction as he says, “Pick your poison.”

Tabitha eyes the bottles carefully before pointing at the rum. “I’m not mixing my alcohol tonight.”

Brody hands her the bottle. “I’m gonna take a lap, see who’s here before I commit to a drink for the night.”

He walks off as Tabitha pours rum and diet into her cup. “What about you Katrina?” She stops. “You go by anything else? Kat? Trina?”

I lift a shoulder and let it fall as I shake my head. When I was younger, friends tried to call me different things, but nothing ever stuck.

“Nicknames?”

The only one that comes to mind is…

“Kitty.” His voice, that voice, it’s husky yet smooth and when he says my nickname, the ridiculous nickname that makes my body tingle, it feels like a brand.

7

JOEL

“Kitty.” Her name is out before my brain fully acknowledges it’s her.

You could knock me over with a feather. Maybe it’s one of those weird dissonance things where your mind fails to associate a person outside of the usual place you see them or maybe I’m just that hammered. I’ve never run into Katrina anywhere but the café, but it’s clear I’m also drunk because it’s the only reason I’d be using nerdy words like dissonance. Even in my head.

The dress she’s wearing shows off long, toned legs, and the tits I’ve been admiring under the layers of material she usually has on are happily not the result of a miracle push-up bra. Her profile is to me, but I watch her react to my voice. She stills and her lips part as she turns toward me. She doesn’t respond until the girl next to her, a dark redhead who eyes me with a mixture of confusion and intrigue, elbows her.

“Joel Moreno.” The way she says my name is like a double shot from the bottle of Jack I hold in one hand. It burns so good.

“What are you doing here?”

One brow raises and a hand goes to her hip. It’s the same mocking look and stance she gives me every week, but tonight she looks nervous without the counter between us. “It’s a party. What do you think I’m doing?”

“Good point.” I give her friend, who looks familiar but thankfully not in an I’ve seen her naked way, a small head nod and step closer to Katrina. I grab three cups and fill each of them with a healthy shot from the bottle I’ve nearly finished off. I hand a cup to Katrina and her friend and then lift the other toward them. “Cheers to doing what people do at parties.”

Her friend smirks and looks between Kitty and me. Katrina lifts her cup to her pink lips but pauses before drinking. She grimaces at the smell, proceeds to take a sip, coughs, and then forces the rest down like a champ. “That’s disgusting.”

“Shots usually are,” the redhead says and takes hers all at once. She consolidates the cups in her hand and chases the shot with whatever she’s drinking.