Please tell me you’re in Raleigh without the uppity nuisance.

She giggled to herself about her jab on Erin as Victoria directed them into a bar on the corner. Liz followed at the back of the pack, waiting for Brady’s response to her jab about Erin.

Uppity nuisance, huh? I’m in D.C. Don’t make me fly down there and remind you why he’s just a boring fill-in. I do believe we own his desk, after all.

Oh shit! She gasped loud enough that Savannah turned around and looked at her. Liz stuffed her phone back into her purse and tried not to look scandalized at the thought of she and Brady sleeping together on Hayden’s desk. Then she quickly pulled it out again and typed out a reply.

You wouldn’t.

Baby, are you asking me to prove it?

“Who are you texting anyway?” Savannah asked as they walked into the club Victoria and Massey had selected. Savannah looked concerned, but Liz couldn’t figure out why. Did she look that drunk?

“No one,” Liz said.

“We’re going to go dance,” Victoria called back to them as she and Massey threaded through the crowd.

“Someone should take your phone away from you,” Savannah said. “You can’t be forming coherent sentences with anyone at your level of inebriation.”

Liz glared at her. She didn’t want anyone to take her phone from her. Brady was talking to her. But as drunk as she was, she still didn’t say anything about that.

“I’m so totally fine.”

Savannah rolled her eyes. “Why don’t we just go dance with Victoria and Massey? It might do you some good to sweat out some of that alcohol.”

“Seriously, Savannah. I’m fine,” Liz said as she stumbled forward and nearly tripped over her own feet.

Savannah grabbed her arm. “I know it’s your twenty-first, and I mean this with love, Liz, but please don’t do anything stupid. I really, really don’t want to have to call Hayden for you.”

“Um . . . yeah. No.”

“I mean, he can probably already tell how drunk you are from your texts.”

“Probs,” Liz said with a shrug as she pushed forward to the center of the dance floor to find Victoria. She didn’t want to continue that conversation. The alcohol felt as if it was sloshing around inside her head, and everything was getting jumbled.

Liz sent another quick message as she was walking.

So what if I am?

“Put that thing away,” Victoria cried over the music.

“Fine,” Liz snapped, shoving it back into her purse. “You guys are no fun.”

“The reason we left Lane at home is so that you’ll have fun with us. You can’t have fun with us while you’re messaging him,” Victoria told her.

The girls spent the next couple hours loading Liz up with more booze and dancing the night away with each other and any available hot guys. As much as Liz was dying to check her phone, she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn’t get away with it again.

And as the night grew longer, her head got heavier and heavier. She felt pretty sick, but the dancing seemed to be helping. Maybe there was something to Savannah’s comment about sweating out the booze.

Savannah dipped out first. She claimed that she had a test to study for tomorrow and she would call to check on Liz after. She didn’t suspect Liz would be awake before then. Massey left about an hour before bar close. She found a hot fraternity guy that she knew and they disappeared with a hasty good-bye.

Liz and Victoria danced until Liz felt as if her feet were going to fall off. And that was saying something through her buzz.

“Let’s get out of here,” Liz yelled over the music.

Victoria nodded and gestured to exit the dance floor. She was wobbling on her heels too. If they had drunk enough for Victoria to be unsteady, then Liz knew she was well past drunk. Luckily the sick feeling had passed and she just wanted to walk off the rest of the haze in her mind.

“Close out?” Liz asked.

“Yeah,” Victoria agreed. “Call Lane and tell him to come get us.”

Liz shrugged and fished her phone back out of her purse. She hadn’t checked it in hours. There had been no room on the dance floor. Her fingers fumbled on the keys as she tried to figure out what the hell she was doing. What was she supposed to be doing anyway?

Two new messages.

As good a place to start as anywhere.

Okay.

Okay what? Liz scrolled up through the conversation. She had told him to prove it and he had said okay. Fuck. What was the next text?

See you soon.

Liz panicked. Fire alarms were going off in her head. God, she wanted to see him. She really, really wanted to see him. But seeing him was a bad idea. Hayden. She was supposed to be calling Hayden. She couldn’t call Hayden if Brady was coming to see her.

She did the first thing that came to mind. She clicked the number to dial Brady’s phone and prayed that he wasn’t already on a plane . . . or maybe that he already was. She didn’t know how she felt in that moment.

Drunk. She felt drunk. And sick. The sickness was coming back.

She started walking. Out of the bar and onto the sidewalk.

The phone rang twice before the line picked up. She held her breath. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but all along she hadn’t thought he would answer.

“Hey,” he said, his voice as sexy as she remembered it.

“Hey.”

“You called me on my personal line.”

“You were texting me,” she said, finding a bench and plopping down.

“I’ve been drinking.”

Oh.

“How much?” she slurred.

He laughed, and it was one of the best sounds she had ever heard. “Not as many as you, apparently.”

“More than one, though.”

“Many more than one,” he agreed.

“I’m drunk.”

“I can tell.”

Victoria’s voice rang out behind her. “Liz, where the f**k did you go?”

“Hold on,” she told Brady. She stood and waved at Victoria. “Over here.”

“Jesus! Don’t do that!” Victoria said. “Are you talking to Lane? Is he picking us up?”

“Let’s just walk home. I want to walk off all this booze,” she crooned, and started walking away without waiting to hear what Victoria had to say. “So . . . what was I saying? Oh, you can’t come visit.”