“Here,” she said, and handed me a glass. “I see a free table over there — let’s snag it before it gets too crowded in here.”
I nodded and headed for the table in question. It had four chairs around it, which I guessed we didn’t need. I draped my purse’s strap over the empty seat next to the one I took, and Sydney sat down next to me.
“To fate,” she said, and lifted her glass.
“To fate,” I repeated, although I wasn’t sure if fate had been particularly friendly to me lately. Still, I supposed it never hurt to offer a libation to the gods and hope they might be listening.
The wine wasn’t as good as what we’d had with dinner, but it would do. At the rate Sydney was gulping hers, she’d be done before I got halfway through my own glass.
“Hey, there’s Anthony!” She set down her wine and started waving. “Anthony! Over here!”
So much for her irritation at me inviting him along. I looked where she was waving and saw that Anthony wasn’t alone, that he had someone else with him, a guy around my age, maybe a few years older.
Tall…dark-haired…. I couldn’t see the color of his eyes because of the dim lighting in the building, but even so my heart began to beat a little faster. No way it could be this easy….
“Hi,” Anthony said as he approached the table. “This is Perry. I figured you wouldn’t mind if I brought a friend, so we wouldn’t turn out lopsided.”
“No, that’s great,” Sydney said at once, giving me a significant look. “I’m Sydney, and this is Angela. Hi.”
“Hi,” Perry said, his gaze shifting toward me.
I found my voice. “Hi,” I replied. “Um, let me get that purse off that chair — ”
“It’s cool,” he said. “Looks like you two have already got your drinks, so my man Anthony and I’ll go get our own and be back in a few.”
“Okay,” Sydney and I said together, and the guys grinned and then headed off toward the bar.
Once they were gone, she turned to me. “Oh. My. God. It’s like he was served up on a platter for you.”
It sort of felt that way. “He seems nice,” I said cautiously.
“‘He seems nice.’ For fuck’s sake, Angela, he is totally hot!” She tossed a lock of perfectly streaked dark blonde hair back over her shoulder. “I’m kind of jealous.”
“Anthony is very cute, too,” I pointed out. Most of the people who worked at Fire Mountain Wines were Native American, and so was Anthony, although I didn’t know which one of the local tribes he was from. Yavapai, maybe.
“Oh, I know.” She drank some wine. “You know me…I’m always distracted by the new and shiny.”
“Well, I’d say Anthony falls in that category, considering you haven’t even gone out with him yet. Give him a little time before you dump him and break his heart.”
“I would not — ” she began fiercely, but had to stop as the two guys approached. They were both carrying bottles of beer, but a local brew from Oak Creek Brewery in Sedona, not the cheap stuff. I had to approve.
Perry and Anthony sat down, and although I was feeling sort of awkward and tongue-tied, not sure what I should say, they both started talking about the band, how they’d gone to high school with the drummer. As I’d guessed, they were local but several years older than Sydney and I. Maybe I should’ve remembered them from school, but, as Sydney had pointed out, I’d kept my head down through high school and had barely talked to guys in my own class, let alone an exalted upperclassman. And although she’d been far more popular, even a popular freshman generally didn’t hang out with the seniors.
Slowly, though, I got drawn into the conversation, drinking wine, sharing some laughs about Cottonwood High, until the band went on stage and it got a little too loud to talk. They were good, too, a crazy fusion of bluegrass and punk that somehow seemed to work. I finished my wine, and Perry offered to get me another one. Even though I knew I should be pacing myself, I told him sure, that sounded great. Anthony went along with him to get refills for himself and Sydney.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t stay home and sulk?” she half-shouted at me.
I nodded, since I didn’t feel like having to scream my reply. But that seemed to satisfy her, since she nodded in return, smiling, a smile that only widened as the guys returned with the next round of drinks.
And that was how the night went, alcohol flowing, music pounding. It felt good to get lost in it, to get carried away by the false euphoria all that alcohol brought. I suppose that was why I didn’t question him when Perry suggested we step outside to get some fresh air, even as Sydney giggled at me from within the curve of Anthony’s arm as he nuzzled her neck.