“Keri. I like that.” Whitley grinned big at the waitress. “You’re hot.”
Keri laughed. “Thanks. So are you.”
Whitley leaned back toward me. “I think I’m going to take her home. Girls are so much less complicated than stupid boys.”
“Are they?” Katherine asked. “I wouldn’t think that.”
Whitley looked her up and down. “Girls like you maybe.”
English just shook her head. “Can’t we just have drinks and dance and leave worrying about going home with someone to Lark? Because she needs it.”
“I do not need a one-night stand.”
Whitley nudged my glass. “Yes, you do. Drink up.”
I narrowed my eyes at her but tipped the second shot into my mouth. It went down better than the first. And I felt the effects almost immediately. I went from steady to shaky as soon as it hit my stomach. If I didn’t slow down, I was going to be throwing up in the bar restroom.
“You know…maybe you do,” Katherine finally said.
“Traitor,” I said, sidling up to her.
Katherine arched an eyebrow. “It’s not like it’s your first time.”
“Well, I haven’t since…right after Thomas,” I admitted.
“Are you telling me that you haven’t gotten laid in over a year?”
I blushed. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I just…well, I had an arrangement.”
“With whom?”
English’s eyes rounded. “Oh my god, yes, tell us who.”
“Um…Kurt Mitchell.”
“No!” Katherine gasped.
English and Whitley focused intently on me now.
“Who is Kurt Mitchell?” Whitley asked.
“A guy who got kicked out of our prep school freshman year and bounced around European boarding schools. He’s like the Upper East Side fuckup. I didn’t even know he was in the city,” Katherine said. “How did that happen? And how the hell did you keep it from me?”
“My mother,” I admitted, ashamed. “She set us up when he came back.”
“You didn’t!” English gasped.
“It was never serious.”
“And when did it end?” Katherine asked.
I shrugged. “A few months ago.”
“So, you do need to get laid,” Whitley chimed in. “A few months is a lifetime.”
English turned back to face the crowd in front of us. Even on a Wednesday night, the place was packed. “Well,” she mused, “we should look at our options.”
Whitley laughed and shook her head. “I’ll go scope them out from the floor.”
Then she vanished into the crowd as quickly as she had come.
“Are we ever going to see her again?” I asked.
English shook her head. “It’s probably fifty-fifty with Whit.”
Katherine asked Keri to make us a round of drinks. “You know, I think she’s toned down some.”
Our eyes met, and we both burst into laughter. Because this was toned-down Whitley, and that was pretty terrifying.
I took a dirty martini from Keri and knew this was a bad idea. But what the hell? I was with my girls.
“I swear, in my next life, I just want half of her confidence,” English said.
“Whatever. You’re insanely confident,” I said.
She pointed at a guy standing at a high-top table nearby. “Him?” she asked.
I shook my head, taking a long sip of my drink. “I’m definitely tipsy, but I’m still firmly in the I don’t need dick to feel better about Sam category.”
“The fact that you just said that proves otherwise,” Katherine said.
“Both of you are married,” I said, gesturing between my two closest girlfriends. “You seem to be doing just fine. But neither of you found your significant other because of a one-night stand.”
Katherine’s eyebrows rose, saying everything that I’d left out of the conversation. She and Camden had an arrangement. She got access to the considerable Percy hotel fortune, and he got…her. I was still unclear if that just meant sex or what. She’d been totally weird about it all since the honeymoon. It used to be clear that she hated Camden with a fiery vengeance and was only doing this by the contract, but now, I didn’t know.
“So, okay,” English said, “I didn’t meet Josh in a club, it was a film party at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” I rolled my eyes. “But we slept together on the first date. Does that count?”
“Nope.”
“God, Josh Hutch. He’s so…Hollywood,” Katherine said with mild disdain. “But damn, does he have a rocking body, and he’s a great actor.”
“Yeah, I locked that down quick,” English said. She pointed out another guy, dancing in the middle of the room.
He was in a business suit, and his hips swayed to the beat.
I shook my head again.
“Are you going to disagree with all of them?” English asked.
“I think we should just stick her out in the middle of the room and let the guys flock to her,” Katherine said. She twirled my red hair around her finger. “Guys go crazy for redheads.”
“That’s a big no,” I said. I polished off my drink and reached for another one from Keri.
English grinned. “This is way more enjoyable than work. If I have to deal with another movie star throwing up in a limo or a rockstar getting caught with a groupie or have to try to calm down another irate wife, I might quit.”
“Is it that bad?” I asked, leaning forward and nearly falling over. “I thought you loved it.”
“I do,” she said, blowing out a breath. “I really love the PR part. Working for Poise PR is like the best thing that could have happened. And I don’t even mind fixing things. It’s just, sometimes, I wonder if I’m fixing the right things, you know?”
I blinked back the alcohol. “I think I’m too drunk to know.”
“Well, I get it,” Katherine said. “Everyone thinks it’s easy to be me, to work as a socialite. But it’s a literal job to keep my place in this world. And sometimes, I just want to fucking stop.” She shrugged one petite shoulder and downed her martini. “Poor little rich girl.”
Wow. Katherine had to be drunk to be opening up to English. She didn’t open up to anyone. Hardly even to me.
I opened my mouth to reach for something profound, but nothing was there.
Then Whitley appeared with a super-hot guy from the dance floor, and I didn’t have to respond.
“Y’all,” she cried, “look what I found.”
“What did you find, Whit?” English asked with a shake of her head.
“A guy for Lark.” Whitley not-so-subtly winked.
“Oh,” I muttered.
He was incredibly good-looking. Platinum-blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a dimpled chin. He wore fitted dark jeans and a short-sleeved button-up. He wasn’t exactly my style. But then again, I was used to Upper East Side guys. And while they all dressed nice, they were also douche bags.
“Hi,” he said, stepping forward. “I’m Chad. You must be Lark.”
“I am.”
English nudged me toward him. I stumbled forward a few feet, suddenly losing control of my legs with all the alcohol. It was like it all hit me at once. I’d thought I had control over it. I wasn’t a lightweight. My parents had started me drinking wine at a very young age because they said that you were never too young to develop tolerance and taste. They’d hardly approve of the option before me. But maybe that was perfect.