Love & Lattes

1

The club flashes blue, acid green, lilac, and back to electric blue. The bass thrums through my chest, my bones, and all the way to my fingertips, lifting me onto the balls of my feet with my arms in the air. Everyone’s swaying, shimmying, and singing at the top of their lungs to a Harry Styles song that slides seamlessly into a remix of Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u.”

For an icebreaker evening, this isn’t half bad.

And this place is definitely a lot better than the Pizza Express where we spent an awkward, stilted two hours earlier this evening, swapping details of our A levels and college courses and our preferred pizza toppings. (A necessary evil, given that the restaurant was booked for us by our new employer so we could all “get to know” each other ahead of working together on the Arrowmile internship program this summer.)

Tonight is about anything but the impending internship.

Which is really saying a lot, because it’s taken over my life for months, between the application process and the agony of waiting to hear if, out of five thousand applicants, I would be one of the fifteen who made it.

As of today, I am officially one of those fifteen. Tonight, we enjoy a taste of freedom and excitement before Monday, when we start one of the most coveted, prestigious internship programs in London.

Tonight, I let my hair down for once.

For me, that involves some rum and Coke, half a glass of prosecco, and dancing on the sticky floor of a too-­loud club with fourteen relative strangers. Four of whom have double-­barreled names, and three of whom are students at Cambridge. All of whom seemed pretty okay at Pizza Express, and right now feel like my new favorite people in the whole world.

There are hands on my hips, the brush of a body behind mine. Broad, masculine. One of my new roommates and fellow Arrowmile intern for the summer, Elaine, a tall, bony girl with long blond hair, catches my eye and waggles her eyebrows, apparently in approval of my new dancing partner. I glance over my shoulder, staring for a moment in the flashing lights before deciding I don’t recognize him; he’s not part of our group.

I turn back to Elaine and shrug, not minding the attention until I’m grabbed by one of the interns, who, laughing, pulls me away from my dance partner and into a ramshackle conga line back to the bar. By the time I’m jostled to the front of the group, someone’s bought a round of tequila shots and Elaine is pressing one into my hand, a lime wedge balanced on top of the glass. Someone else holds out a salt shaker to me. I follow their lead and lick the back of my hand holding the shot, spill some salt there, and pass it on to the next person.

Across the room at the other end of the bar, there’s a guy.

And, God, but he’s a cute guy. Dark, curly hair and chiseled cheekbones accented by a light scruff of stubble, and full lips. He’s sitting on one of the few barstools, his elbows on the counter (which, in that light-­blue shirt and in a place like this, is a risky move) and hands clasped around a drink.

In spite of all the people packed in here tonight, it’s like he can tell I’m looking at him, because he lifts his head and turns in the direction of our group.

Not our group.

Me. My direction. He’s looking at me.

My brain short-­circuits in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol and everything to do with the fact that a cute guy is looking right at me, and—­and he’s smiling, too, and all I’m doing is staring back at him with my drink in hand.

I only break eye contact because I realize everyone’s ready with their shots.

Burnley, a guy who just about clears five foot four, grabs all our attention and booms, “Arrowmile interns on three! One! Two!”

“Three!” we all scream in unison. “Arrowmile!”

It’s all I can do not to choke on the tequila; the taste is horrible. I suck on the lime wedge along with everyone else and my stomach roils, a clear sign that I need to ease off.

Maybe if I’d gone out-­out more often during my first year of college, I’d have a bit more stamina for this kind of thing. Or at least for shots.

Why, why, with the shots?

Everything feels very loud and very bright; the music is jarring, my skin crawling where some stranger’s arm brushes against me. I’m overwhelmed by the sudden urge to go home, where I can crawl into bed and listen to the soothing tones of an audiobook playing through my headphones. I watch with a weird sense of detachment as the others crush together, hands grasping at one another as they spill back toward the dance floor—­completely unaware that I’m not following until Elaine turns back to reach for me.

“Anna, come on! They’re playing ‘About Damn Time’!” she shrieks, like I can’t tell.

Actually—­I didn’t notice until she pointed it out. But I stay put, shouting back, “I need some water. I’m just feeling a little . . .”

I sift through the noise that’s crowding my brain for the right word, worried I’ll sound drab and dull for saying I want to sit out and take a breather, but Elaine must mistake my hesitation for borderline blackout drunkenness.

Her plain, freckled face puckers into a concerned frown. “Are you okay? Do you want me to stay with you?”

“No! No, go have fun! I’ll catch up soon.”

Reassured, she nods, gives me a thumbs-­up, and yells, “Okay, don’t go too far!” before diving into the crowd on the dance floor to find the others.

I turn away, leaning over the bar. Immediately, my forearm lands in something wet and sticky—­ugh. I think it’s lemonade. I hope it’s lemonade.

There’s a mirror set behind the bar. It reflects a colorful collection of liquor bottles and the rainbow lights of the club—­and a pale girl with flushed cheeks and smudged makeup, loose strands of bright-­orange hair limp and sticking to the sides of her face, a dribble of spilled rum and Coke staining a white blouse that belongs in an office, not on a night out.

I hardly recognize myself, and tear my eyes away.

A few songs later, I’ve had no luck getting the bartender’s attention, always interrupted by someone louder and pushier and then having to wait my turn again, but somehow missing it each time.

An elbow knocks into mine. I glance over on instinct, then do a double take.

It’s him. It’s Cute Guy From Across The Bar.

Oh God.

He looks even more attractive up close. He’s even got a little Clark Kent curl lying across his forehead and everything. I look at his sleeves, which somehow seem to have made it through leaning on the bar unscathed, which is just . . . witchcraft.

He’s staring at me.

Me.

Although, I suppose, that is probably because I’m staring at him. I’d probably try to stare down a weird stranger, too.

But then he opens his beautiful Cupid’s bow mouth and leans in close enough to speak near my ear so he doesn’t have to yell over the music, and he says, “You know, the secret is a little patience. Here.”

Cute Guy stands up straight. He’s a couple of inches taller than me and ooh, those cheekbones. Those curls, too. The kind you want to run your fingers through—­the kind I want to run my fingers through. His hair looks inky blue in the light, shining like liquid moonlight.

A moment passes, then two, then he catches the bartender’s eye and lifts his hand slightly, gesturing with his index and middle finger. He nods, but when I look back at the bartender, they’re serving drinks to someone else.

I twist around to scowl at him. “What the hell was that supposed to be?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is this your way of picking up girls?” I ask him, the words tumbling out before I can second-­guess them. “You swan in with this failed attempt at chivalry to order their drinks for them? Emphasis on failed attempt.”

He quirks one eyebrow up, his mouth sliding into a bemused smile.

“You know your shirt’s wet,” he tells me, with a pointed look at my soggy, sticky sleeve.

And then the bartender is standing opposite us asking, “What can I get you guys?”

I shoot Cute Guy a glower—­it’s not lost on me that he’s smirking and as smug as anything right now—­and ask the bartender for three cups of water. I’m parched.

My new friend gets himself a Heineken, and after he’s paid for it and we’ve got all our drinks, he nods at my collection of waters in plastic cups.

“Enjoy. Have fun with your friends.”

“Huh? Oh, no. These are for me.”

I neck each of them, chugging the water down, and I feel human again. The effect is much better than any booze.

Cute Guy laughs at me when, horrifyingly, I knock all three empty cups over as I put the last one down. His hands brush mine as he takes over and sets the cups back upright for the bartender to collect, and something electric rushes through me with the contact. I suddenly become all too aware of my body, feeling awkward and unsure in a way I’m not used to. I can’t remember what I normally do with my hands, or how I usually stand, and it has everything to do with him, not some alcohol-­induced clumsiness.

When he speaks, it’s once again with his mouth close to my face. He doesn’t shout, and it feels like we’re in a bubble all our own, where the music becomes muted and distant, oddly intimate in a way that sends a shiver down my spine.

“Successful attempt, then.”

“What?”

Cute Guy gestures with his beer bottle at the cups. “My attempt at ‘chivalry’ ”—he adds air quotes around the word—“in helping you get the bartender’s attention. It was successful.”

“Hmph. Sure. Yes.” And then, because I suppose I owe him that much, I add through my teeth, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he tells me, his words slow like honey, his voice smooth. His lips tilt up again with another halfway smile.

Before I can drown in that smile—­or do something ridiculous like kiss this complete stranger, because he makes it so tempting—­I turn away from him to face the dance floor again, eyes scouring the room for my new friends and soon-­to-­be colleagues. I spot Burnley standing on a table by a booth, slut-­dropping his heart out. He’s acquired a lurid pink feather boa from somewhere—­I can only assume there’s a bachelorette party nearby—­and a security guard is shouting at him to come back down.