Bunches Read Free Page A

laughs prettily, covering her mouth and pretending to feel bad.
    “Sorry about that,” he says to
me, pointing to my leg.
    Before I can say anything he’s
gone from right in front of me and I rock a little forward. I feel disoriented
in the most delicious way, and I know the heat is rising in my cheeks. Lizzy
doesn’t even notice. My head is feeling a little fuzzy, and I know it must be
the alcohol. I’m so intolerant, I can get drunk from proximity. At least that’s
a better justification for my embarrassing behavior than just being socially
incompetent.
    “Careful,” his voice comes again.
He’s come back to grab the broken wine shard. I stare down at him in confusion.
“If you clutch that glass any tighter it will shatter. Then I’ll have two
messes on my hands.”
    “Oh,” I gasp, and I release my
rum and coke before I see him chuckle. Of course he was teasing me. I must
still look like a deer in headlights. But now he’s gone again and I’m left
red-faced.
    Lizzy nudges me hard in the ribs
and gives me a glare. “He’s trying to make you laugh,” she grits out. “Help the
guy out and move a couple of face muscles. I promise smiling doesn’t hurt.”
    I looked around and try to see
where he is. To my horror, I see him coming around the bar, clean rag in hand.
    A blush creeps up my neck and
cheeks as he wipes the spilled wine off the seat of the chair and the chair
leg.
    “There really isn’t much,” I try
to explain. My heart is thumping in time to the music.
    He glances up, his face
unreadable, then he taps his ear. He didn’t hear me.
    I lean over and try again,
“There’s really not much,” I yell in his ear. He smells faintly of aftershave,
but not so much that it’s overpowering. I inhale deeply, then stop. What if he
can tell I’m smelling him?
    Oh. My. God.
    Finding the bartender attractive
is the last thing I expected to happen tonight. I expected to need to help
Lizzy home after she drank too much, then crawl into bed, obsessively reliving everything
I did wrong and everything that was embarrassing all night, even if no one else
remembers it.
    Mason reaches over, bending at
the waist without getting out of her seat, and taps JJ on the shoulder. He
turns, still in a crouch. I don’t know what she says to him, but she sticks out
her lower lip to do it and he nods. His face is still unreadable.
    “You should go to the bathroom if
you want to clean that up more,” he says, referring to my leg.
    Visions rush through my mind of
his slowly wiping his rag up and down my leg to get the wine off, and I can
easily feel his fingers through the cloth.
    I grip the back of my chair, nod,
and slide off the edge of the seat. I’m uncomfortable, but I don’t know why.
Lizzy follows me and we leave our jackets to reserve our seats.
    The bathroom is quieter, and I’m
finally able to steal a breath. There are four stalls, and the walls are
covered in a dark blue tile. I try to check casually under the stalls to make
sure no one else is in there. I can’t imagine how embarrassing it would be to
be overheard.
    “Star-struck much?” Lizzy teases
me as soon as we’re inside.
    I glare at her. So she did
notice!
    “I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” I insist.
    Lizzy giggles happily. “I never
see you look at guys the way you were looking at him. You couldn’t even talk!
Awesome.”
    My blushing starts all over
again.
    “That’s not true,” I argue. It’s
such a scary feeling that I want to explain it away with mere words, as if
somehow that will tame the wildness rushing around inside me. “I was just
surprised that someone spilled wine on me. And, you know, that I’m at a bar.”
    “There’s barely any wine,” says
Lizzy, examining me closely. “At least it didn’t get on your sweater. He could
have just cleaned it up.”
    “Yes, I’m sure it’s totally okay
for the bartender, whose JOB it is to be here, to just randomly run his hands
up and down girls’ legs,” I throw