With a gallant flourish he unclipped the velvet rope and waved us forward, giving me a wink as I passed by. Once we were safely inside the club, Trix whooped and clapped me on the back. “Way to go, Katie!”
“What did I do?”
“I don’t know how you did it, honey,” Isabel said, “but he let us in because we were with you.”
“Maybe having a plain Jane in here will make everyone else look cooler by comparison,” I mused as we found seats on a big sofa overlooking the dance floor. It was still pretty early in the evening for New York club life, but the place was already packed with people who looked a lot like those who’d been in the bar in SoHo.
I’d barely seated myself and carefully crossed my legs—the sofa was low enough to make sitting in a short skirt a dangerous prospect—when a good-looking guy dressed in black slacks and a white shirt perched on the arm of the sofa near my left elbow. “Hi there,” he said.
Again I looked around to make sure he was talking to me, then I gave him a cautious smile. “Hi,” I said, in what I was sure would go down in history as a brilliant conversational opener. The guy reminded me of Rod’s illusion, except Rod would have had better taste than to unbutton his shirt that far down. Even in the crowded club, I could smell his cologne from where I sat.
“Come here often?” he asked, going for his own gold medal in competitive conversation.
“It’s my first time,” I said.
He nodded. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“No thanks. I’m not that thirsty.”
He nodded again, got up, and moved on to presumably greener pastures. Ari elbowed me in the ribs. “What was that about?”
“What?”
“‘I’m not thirsty’? Please! A guy offers to buy you a drink a minute after you walk in the door, and you turn him away?”
“I was choking on his cologne.”
Trix leaned forward to talk to me around Ari. “Don’t listen to her, Katie. If you had one within minutes, someone better is likely to come along.”
And, oddly enough, she was right. An even more gorgeous man who looked like he’d stepped out of a Gap ad—the edgy side of the boy next door—soon took the perch on the sofa arm. “I know I haven’t seen you here before, or I’d already be married,” he said.
I glanced over at my friends. “Okay, be honest,” I said. “You set this up, didn’t you? I appreciate it, but my ego doesn’t need this kind of help.” They all looked blank, so I turned back to Mr. Gap Ad and smiled. “It’s my first time here.” I had a burst of boldness and added, “You wouldn’t happen to know what the best drink in the house is, would you?”
You’d have thought I’d tied my scarf around his lance so he could go into combat in my honor. “I’ll bring you one, right away.”
When he’d gone, I turned back to my friends. “Really, you can tell me if this is a joke. I’ll laugh.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Trix said. “Have you ever considered that they might actually find you irresistible?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. Seemingly overnight, I’ve gone from invisible to hottest thing in town. Maybe it’s one of those contests to see who can snag the most boring or ordinary girl.”
“Or maybe he has an unhealthy girl-next-door fetish and is already dreaming about defiling you,” Ari suggested.
Instead of taking her bait, I smiled and said, “That could be a lot of fun.”
My suitor then returned with a bright pink drink in an unusually shaped glass that made me dizzy if I looked at it too long. “Oh, thank you,” I said with my sweetest smile. I couldn’t help but enjoy the expression of delight that spread over his face at my approval.
He seated himself once more on the arm of the sofa. “By the way, I’m Rick.”
“And I’m Katie. Nice to meet you, Rick.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you make him want to settle down and have babies?”
“Um, no, not that I can think of.” I couldn’t decide if he was being nice or creepy. While normally I’d like the idea of a guy thinking of me as someone to settle down with, it was more than a little weird for him to use that as an opening line. “Actually, I’d rather wait a few years to have children,” I added, just in case.
“You look like you belong behind a picket fence.”
And you sound like you belong in a padded cell, I thought, but I merely smiled at him before casting a Help! look at my friends.