Six days before

Vanessa and I had been at the party for all of twenty minutes, and I was already giving her the look.

Me: You regretting this yet?

Her: No.

Me:

Her: Well…maybe a little.

Me: How much longer do we have to stay?

Her: Just until I find Tim and say hi.

Me: Then we can go?

Her: Then you can go.

We were standing at an impossibly small table in the middle of Agave Restaurant and Bar, a beautiful, modern restaurant in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. To be fair, the high ceilings; deep, red-and-gold booths; and inherent sense of celebration were infectious, and there was a small part of me that was happy we’d come.

But the rest of me was uncomfortable, awkward, and, more than anything, tired.

All I could think about was how much money I could make if, instead of partying with them, I was spending the night taking all these people home.

The large-screen televisions around the room were showing pop music videos, the sounds of which had several people bopping back and forth while they sipped their cocktails and pretended to be disinterested in everyone else around them.

“I know what we need,” Vanessa said suddenly. “Shots.”

“No,” I said. “That is precisely what we don’t need.”

“Yes!” she said, launching both fists into the air, as if I’d agreed with her. She spun around toward the bar. “I’ll be right back.”

I sighed and finished the cocktail I’d bought when we first arrived, the one that I’d promised would be my first and last. It was sort of an unspoken rule: the more Keith drank, the less I did, since it seemed that one of us should be sober, at least most of the time.

Besides, I’d never done well with alcohol. I treated alcohol the way some people treated sweets. I never had to have it, but one taste, and I craved more, and more, and more. Whereas Keith could drink just the right amount to knock him out and allow him to wake up refreshed in the morning, I tended to be either completely sober or completely horizontal—there was rarely much in between.

As I stood there, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to tell Vanessa that she was on her own with the shots, but instead found myself face-to-face with a man who was about my height and wearing a leather vest with no shirt beneath it.

“Hey,” he said, stepping close and talking loudly near my ear. “What kind of guys…”

“Sorry?” I asked as the end of his sentence got lost in the noise around us.

“Oh, I just said what kind of guys do you like?”

I held up my left hand. “Oh, I’m married,” I said. “Thanks, though.”

He frowned. He started to walk away and then turned back. “Thanks for what?”

I blinked. “Huh?”