“I wouldn’t recommend that.” His lips thinned and he grabbed my wrists. “That’s not the answer to any of this.”

“Well that’s not your problem, is it?” I smiled at him widely. “I can do what I want.”

“Liv.” He said my name slowly and his gaze was intense as he stared at me.

“Yes, Xander?” I said lightly. I’m not going to lie. I was getting off on our conversation. I was getting off on the fact that I could rile him up by talking about other men. I was loving the fact that he was acting jealous. The only problem was, he wasn’t giving me what I really wanted. He wasn’t breaking up with Gabby and telling me he had fucked up. He wasn’t pulling me towards him and telling me he wanted me and only me. He wasn’t telling me that Gabby and his family fortune meant nothing to him. All he was doing was showing me he was horny for me. And well, I already knew that. I wanted more than that from him. I wanted him to look at me with more than lust. I wanted to look into his eyes and see something akin to love. I know that was an unrealistic expectation. He barely knew me and I barely knew him, but that’s what I wanted. That’s what I hoped to see. I wanted to see a real emotion. A real, pure and heart stopping emotion that had nothing to do with lust.

“Have a good evening.” He said finally and turned away. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He said and then walked back into the living room. I stood there feeling gutted and rejected. I could still feel his lips on my neck. I still felt branded by his touch and I hated myself for it.

“You ready?” Alice walked out of the living room, her eyes bright and I nodded.

“What did Aiden say?” I whispered to her as I pulled up the Uber app on my phone.

“Nothing good.” She sighed. “He just asked me to make sure that you didn’t get into too much trouble.”

“What?” My voice rose. “I swear he’s the most annoying man. I know you like him, but ugh, Aiden is so annoying.”

“I think it’s cute that he’s so protective.” Alice looked wistful.

“Trust me, Alice. You won’t think it’s that cute, if you’re dating him.” I shook my head. “He’s bloody annoying.”

***

“Cheers.” Alice giggled as we took another tequila shot and then rose our glasses of vodka coke up in the air. “Here’s to the men we’ve loved, the men we’ve lost, the men we’ve screwed and the men we’ve booed, here’s to the men to come and the men to make us come.”

“Alice.” I laughed out loud. “You’re so bad.”

“I’m not done.” She winked at me and her voice rose above the sound of the music. “Here’s to the men to come and the men to make us come. Here’s to the men that last all night, and the men who make our days bright, here’s to the man we’ll ultimately marry, but his cock be bigger than a ferry.”

“Bigger than a ferry?” I said and then chugged my drink down along with her. “How can a cock be bigger than a ferry?”

“I don’t know what else rhymes with marry?”

“What about, hmm, let me think?” I paused and danced along to the music in the club, my mind spinning as the alcohol settled in my bloodstream. “What about dairy?”

“Dairy?” Gabby giggled. “How can a man’s cock be bigger than a dairy?”

“You know what I mean, may his cock be bigger than a dairy cows.” I laughed hard then. I felt someone behind me start to dance against me and I twisted my head to see if he was cute. It was an older man, with a buzz cut and bad acne scars and I was about to push him away, when I decided to just let him dance with me. What harm was there in that.

“Bigger than a dairy cows, ha ha.” Alice started laughing really hard. “That’s funny.”

“What’s your friend laughing at?” The man behind me whispered in my ear and I felt his hand creeping around my waist.

“You.” I elbowed him and moved away from him. “Let’s go dance on the dance floor.” I said to Alice and grabbed her hand.

“I want another drink.” She hiccupped and I shook my head.

“Not yet, we don’t want a hangover tomorrow. Let’s dance and then get one.”

“Fine.” She nodded and we made our way to the dance floor. I looked back towards the bar and I saw the older man with the buzz cut walking towards the back of the bar with someone and he didn’t look happy. My heart thudded as I wondered what was going on, but tried to forget it as the music changed to one of my favorite Jay-Z songs.

“I think Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake should collaborate on every song.” Alice shouted as we moved our hips in beat to the music. Or as in beat as we could.

“I thought you wanted Jay-Z and Taylor Swift to make a song.”

“Well they can all make a song. That would be cool.”

“Yeah, it would be.” I nodded in agreement and then closed my eyes and danced along to the music. I loved being in night clubs, they always made me feel so alive. Being on a crowded dance floor, dancing along with the crowd to different songs was such a collective high. I raised my hands up in the air and sang along to the song as I moved. Alice grabbed my hands then and we jumped around together singing loudly.

“Oh my God, I love this song.” Alice screamed as an old Backstreet Boys song started playing.