Chapter 1 - The Meet Cute
Your POV
"Y/N! The car is here in 4 minutes!" yells Gemma.
“Don’t you fucking rush me!” I give myself a good look in the mirror, turning to examine my ass and flirt with myself. I tilt my head to the side a bit, displaying the glow on my cheekbones. Yes. I pucker my cherry red lips a few times. Mhm. I smooth my hands over the black fitted dress I’m wearing, reaching up to fix the shoulders so that you can see the definition of my clavicle, adjust my boots so they reach an even height on my calves, and align the pendant of my necklace to lay symmetrically against my chest. Damn, I look good.
Satisfied, I step out of the bathroom, ready to be praised by my friends. They turn around, giving me one quick look up and down. I flick a curly lock of hair over my shoulder and turn to the side for effect.
“I’d smash”, Mae says immediately.
Cleo adds, “Shit, girl. You lookin’ thick as all hell”, and Gemma says, “Twenty-one is a great look for you.”
“Thank you, thank you” I say, giving them a little twirl and a bow.
“Do you have absolutely everything?” Ari asks me, focused on keeping up with our schedule.
I whip out my new ID, flashing it at them in all its new glory and untapped potential.
“Who’s ready to break this thing in?” I say, raising an eyebrow.
♛ ♛ ♛
“Can I get a Mai Tai please?” I practically scream at the bartender after shoving through the throng of people in my way.
“Make that two, will you?” a deep voice with an Australian accent says behind me. I turn. Six foot, dreads pulled back in a knot, and a devious smile on his face, an incredibly attractive guy is looking at me.
“If you don’t mind,” he says, “I’d like to buy your drink”. Of course I don’t mind. Look at you. I attempt to play it cool.
“But I don’t even know you” I say, looking up at him through my eyelashes. Except I’ve definitely seen that jawline somewhere. He reaches around me and hands the bartender his card, all without taking his eyes off my face.
“Will”.
“Y/N”.
He smiles at me. “I’ll be straight up, I noticed you as soon as you walked in and so did half of everyone else here.”
“Only half?” I give him a fake pout.
“The other half are drunk off their asses and unaware at what they’re missing.” I can’t help but smile at him. He looks so good, like when-can-I-get-you-back-to-my-place good.
The bartender slides our drinks across the bar. Will hands me mine. He dips his head at me as we clink. I can see him looking at me out of the side of his eye as he sips his but I pretend to be unfazed by it.
“Thanks for the drink, but I think I should get back to my friends” I say. What am I doing? Why am I running away?
“That’s no fair. Hang out with me for a bit. I promise I’m fun.”
“Well, it’s girls night. Actually, it’s my birthday...”
“So give me a chance to celebrate with you.” he protests. I act like I’m thinking it over. Impatient with my teasing, he grabs my hand and pulls me from the bar with him. Bold.
Somewhere in the back, we make our way to a table crowded with guys.
“Guys, this is Y/N and it’s her birthday, so I’m taking her to dance.” Will says in a rush.
“Too cool to introduce us?” one of them says. Will glances at me.
“It’s the least you could do” I admit.
“Silas, Ricky, Julian, Alex, and sorry, I’m not sure who you are” Will says. The same guy who called him out rolls his eyes.
(SodTp/Keys Open Doors, Ricky Collier, Julian Petroulas, Alex Aiono, Phil Shaw)
“Fuck you” he says to Will, then to me, “I’m Phil”. Alex gets up, smiling, and rushes towards me immediately to give me a hug, nearly causing me to spill my drink. I can’t tell if he’s drunk or just happy to see his friend found a girl. I see Julian mouth ‘nice’. Will takes the drink from my hand and places both Mai Tais on the table. “I’m taking the birthday girl to the dance floor”.
Will pulls me by the arm to the center of the mass of people gyrating against each other. Immediately he pulls me to him by my hips. Over his shoulder, I see Mae giving me looks and mouths ‘Who is that?’ I wink at her, starting to move my body with the motion of his. The song changes and I look at Will, his face washed with red light.
“I hope you’re ready” I yell at him over the music.
“Ready for what?” he responds, smiling. Without another word I grab his hands, turn around, and placed them on my waist. Leaning forward, I move my body on him. I can feel his hands grasp onto me tighter. I flip my hair onto my other shoulder, sneaking a glance at him. He gives me a smoldering look and I return it with a winning grin. It takes no time at all for him to sync his rhythm with mine. With his hands he controls the direction of my hips to the beat of the music. He even manages to anticipate when I switch it up, leaving me impressed. He leans his head forward so he can speak into my ear.
“It’s so unfair knowing you can dance like this and I’ve just been missing out this whole time.” I can feel my heart rate accelerate. I can feel his breath against my neck and his hands move along my waist. He pushes the rest of my hair from one side to the other so I can see him better. I turn back to face him so the front of our bodies are pressed against each other. His face is unchanged as he slides his hand down my back and over my butt.
Naturally, I would have rejected a move such as this, but there was no denying this was exactly what I wanted from him. In this moment, I don’t care that all I know about him is his name and the fact that he has this accent which makes words sound infinitely better. Plus, it’s my birthday. I am allowed to be a little promiscuous. I move my hands up the front of his chest, aimlessly playing with his collar. I glance at his lips, right at my eye level. I can tell he’s expecting me to go for it, to plant one on him.
“Just enjoy it while it lasts” I say. He looks disappointed when I say it. Before he protests, I interject, “I’m sure this isn’t the last you’ll see of me.”
Leaning closer to my ear he says, “And when I decide I want to call you..?” I can feel his lips brush against my neck with every word he says. He smells overwhelmingly inviting.
“I’d probably decide to answer” I say, nonchalantly. He gently grazes my jaw with his lips which warrants a sigh to escape from me. Hopefully the music is loud enough that he didn’t hear it. I can feel him pulling me closer to him, closing what little gap is left between our bodies.
Somehow Cleo has made it within inches of me without me noticing and I make eye contact with her. Around her neck is the arm of some guy with beads of sweat decorating his hairline, eyes half closed. She wiggles her eyebrows at me as if to say ‘He’s cute’. Well, obviously. I mouth at her, ‘pen’, and she instantly tasks herself with rummaging around in her purse, finding one almost immediately. She seamlessly slips it to me and returns to making conversation with the clearly intoxicated man draped across her shoulders.
Although I am thoroughly enjoying Will’s hands on my ass and his face against my neck, I pull back from him. I start to write my number on his forearm, avoiding the tattoo on his wrist.
“Don’t be shy, I still owe you a Mai Tai”. I reach my arm up around his neck and give him a quick kiss on the cheek. For good measure, I run my hand over his shoulder and down his chest as I pass him and head for the door. Cleo shrugs the drunk guy off, following my silent cue to leave. She grabs Mae on our way out, saving her from a blatantly painful interaction with some greasy guy in her face for the sole purpose of hooking up.
As we exit, I hope I’m not leaving too abruptly. But I know that I want to end and encounter such as this before it has the chance to go down hill. I fight the urge to look back to see if he’s watching me go as I elbow a path through the crowd of writhing club goers.
Will’s POV
“Aye, my man. Where-have-you-been?” Alex says.
“What’s that dumb smile on your face for, Liam?” Elz teases me. I didn’t even realize I was smiling. I try to relax my face but I can’t. I’ve lost complete feeling in my face and my hands are numb, my thoughts are all fuzzy. There’s a buzz in my chest. What the hell did that girl do to me?
“Ooooh, that girl got you so damn sprung. Look! His face is broke” Phil erupts into laughter. I roll my eyes at them.
“So what, she didn’t even want to come back for her drink? Scared her off that quick, huh? Happens to the best of us, bro. Don’t let it get you down.” I shoot Ricky a look in spite of his unsolicited optimism. Casually, I stretch out across the table to reach my drink. Alex’s eyes widen.
“New tat, Will? He got her digits!” Alex says enthusiastically. He gives me an acknowledging head nod and full toothed grin. Silas gives me an affirming slap on the back.
“She pulled a pen out of thin air, gave me her number, and dipped” I say.
“Maybe she’s a witch. You look bewitched. Did she put a spell on you?” Phil rambles on to no one at all.
“Damn, bro. She looked good, too.” Alex says, shaking his head.
“Yeah,” I say, “and she knew it”.
♛ ♛ ♛
Your POV
After me and the girls have a sobering hike back to the apartment, I finally relay to them what happened at the club.
“Ok, so are we just going to ignore that Y/N rubbed her ass on that god of a man for a solid two hours?” Cleo’s voice punches through the air.
“Spill. The. Tea” Mae begs.
I somehow managed to organize my thoughts on our way back, yet I could still feel the adrenaline pumping through me, the heat in my cheeks as if he were still staring into my eyes.
“Where do I even start?” I kick my shoes away from me. “First of all, he approached me. He told me he noticed me right away? Me.”
Gemma’s eyes widen. “Of course he did. What did he say?”
“He paid for my drink, got himself one too. But who the hell cares about that. All he had to do was give me a single look. I literally couldn’t have strayed from his gravitational pull if I tried. “
Gemma poked at me. “To be fair, did you try?”
“Briefly. Or, I don’t know. Not really, he was too beautiful. Somehow I kept my cool and I was, surprisingly, very mysterious and seductive.”
“Ok, but what is his name?” Ari demands.
“Yeah, what name will you be saying in bed?” Mae adds, resulting in laughter from all of us.
“Will” I say.
“Will? That’s kind of boring don’t you think?” Cleo says.
“Better than something pretentious like Chad or Brett. Names like that you can automatically assume his dick is like two inches” I respond. Gem gives me a look, both slightly amused and embarrassed by my comment.
“On a scale of 1-10, how good was his dancing?” Mae has crossed over into collecting intel mode.
“11? 39? I mean he definitely knew what he was doing.”
“You better have given him your damn number” Mae says, jumping up.
“She did. I gave her a pen and everything. I swear he was so shook because she wrote it on his arm and ditched him in the middle of the oons oons oons.” Cleo proudly shares. She turns to me, “So when is he gonna call you?”
“Well, based on the looks of how he was gripping your ass for dear life, I’d say tomorrow” Ari concludes.