Brilliantly colored canvases hung on the wall like exuberant splashes of paint, and sculptures dotted the hardwood floor between buffet tables and a few brave couples whirling elegantly through what space was left to the strains of Mozart from the nearby orchestra.
“Wine, Kate?” Grant offered, holding out a bottle of very fine California red.
I held out my glass. “You are my savior.”
Lacey raised an eyebrow and chuckled as I tossed back a decent gulp. “Damn, Katie. Looks like you needed that.”
“You have no idea.”
“Hang in there, partner. You’ll make it.”
I was going to tell Lacey how much I seriously doubted the truth of that statement, but that would probably have taken at least five years, and anyway, our waiter chose that moment to politely interpose himself and let us know that our table was ready.
I sank into my chair with relief—while not rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off was restful, standing around in heels had not been proving to be a popular decision with my feet—and poured myself another red with an amount of relief that was even greater. Ah, sweet alcohol, solver of all life’s problems. Well, delayer. And okay, occasionally the cause, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
“Do I need to stage an intervention?” Lacey asked teasingly.
“Do you want to keep your hands attached?” I shot back.
“Hey, hey!” Grant protested. “I like Lacey’s hands right where they are.”
“And other places, too,” Lacey added in a low tone that I probably wasn’t supposed to hear, a wicked smile stealing across her lips.
“Ew, you’re getting love all over the table,” I told them disapprovingly. “Stop that. It makes me want to vomit or cry or do something else not sufficiently fabulous for me to do it.”
Lacey suppressed a chuckle. “Want to slow down on the wine, there, champ?”
I sighed and let her take the bottle from me. “All right, all right, I’ll get some food in me before I have any more. But the week I’ve had!”
Lacey’s brow creased in sympathy as she passed me a basket of bread rolls. “I thought things were looking up between you and Asher?”
“Sure, sure,” I said, grabbing a roll and passing the basket back to Grant, who passed me the string beans. “Asher’s great. We’ve sorted out all our issues. Oddly enough, while we were doing that, the huge mountain of work we still had to do did not get any smaller. I’m pretty sure it actually got larger. I’m pretty sure it’s just going to keep on growing forever.”
“But it’s easier now that you’re getting along better, right?” Lacey pressed, shooting a worried look at Grant that I didn’t quite understand.
“Of course,” I agreed. “But at this point, we’ve been working around the clock so long I know what he smells like when his deodorant stops working, and that is way too much information for me to know. To tell the truth, I’m glad to have this break from him tonight.”
Lacey and Grant were now looking downright panicky.
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth. “What? Do I have string bean in my teeth?”
“Hello,” said a cheerful voice from behind me. “Not too late, am I? The Whomobile sprung a leak, and you would not believe how hard it is to get that thing serviced.”
Asher?
I turned to confirm it, and there he was, looking relaxed and delectable in a loose blue silk dress shirt and tight black slacks.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. I’d managed to keep from ravishing him because of the tight schedule and role constraints of working together, but this…where we were tonight, the way he looked, the way he made me feel…
Grant shot me a sheepish, pleading look. “We, ah…we invited him to join us?”
“Great,” I said, trying to smile like I meant it and not like I was showing my teeth to the dentist.
Asher took my hand and kissed it. Lacey’s eyebrows shot off in the stratosphere.
“It is good to see you outside of work, Kate,” he said, low, his eyes almost… smoldering? “You look like an entirely different person.”
“Kate? Who is this Kate you speak of?” I said in my best robot voice, and took the opportunity of everyone laughing to grab back the bottle of wine and add a hefty portion to my glass.
Great, a double-date with the one person in the world who it would be the worst idea for me to fuck. What could possibly go wrong?
Thanks to that dear old friend and life partner, alcohol, nothing went wrong for quite some time.
Asher and Grant traded stories of college days and the escapades they had gotten themselves into, including Grant getting stuck on a fire escape in his underwear, and Asher trying to rescue him, only for his bowtie to get caught on the rusty metal, leaving them both trapped until the girls’ basketball team happened to be passing by to catch their bus for the early morning game.