Good thing she’d already decided on this, or her poor, scrambled brain wouldn’t have been able to produce an answer. “Cherry Sourz.” It used to be her favorite.

Apparently, Red didn’t approve, because he snorted, the puff of air hot against her skin. Still, he caught the bartender’s attention, and before she knew it, three vivid pink shots were lined up in front of her, along with a glass of something dark. She was supposed to be paying for everything tonight—that had been her intention, anyway—but Red had handed over a note before she got the chance. She tilted her head back to glare up at him. He winked at her and picked up his glass. Coke and something, she thought, or maybe just Coke.

Then he brought it to his lips, and she caught the sharp scent as his throat bobbed with each long swallow. Coke and something, definitely. As definite as the slick arousal growing between her legs.

It really had been too long, if the heat of his body and the sight of him swallowing were enough to make her jittery like this. She faced front and grabbed a shot. It went down easy, but she found herself making a face. It was sweeter than she remembered. And, speaking of memories—this had been a lot more fun when she’d shared a row of shots with her girlfriends, drinking one after the other, shrieking foolishly afterward like they’d done something shockingly wild. But Beth wasn’t here, Sarah wasn’t here, Catie wasn’t here, none of them were here, and this wasn’t ten years ago. She bit her lip and downed the next shot.

Then she felt Red’s hot breath against her skin again, smelled sharp alcohol as he spoke. “You okay, Button?”

She held up the last shot of cherry Sourz and shouted, “Will you drink this?”

“You don’t want it?” He narrowed his eyes.

Awkwardly, she told him, “I want you to have it.”

He nodded as if that made a lick of sense, took the shot, and downed it. She took his glass in turn and had a taste, pretending it didn’t thrill her that they were now sharing a glass. He’d ordered rum and Coke. She licked his drink off her lips and tried not to enjoy it too much.

“Hey.” He took the glass back, his free hand running down her arm in an action he probably meant to be soothing. It set her on fire. “Slow down,” he said. “Give yourself a second.”

She bristled, all—okay, most—of her arousal forgotten. She was seconds away from a scathing comment on men who thought they could tell women what to drink when he leaned down and spoke again.

“Getting properly wankered,” he said in an academic sort of tone, “is a fine art. It is if you want to avoid the messier side effects, anyway.” While she absorbed that, he caught the bartender again. She didn’t know how he managed it. Must be one of the benefits of giant gingerism: he was impossible to miss.

The bartender produced two bottles of water—boo—and four more shots. Red shoved a water at her and paid again. Then he finished his rum and Coke in two impressive gulps, and drank his own water, which made her feel less indignant.

“All right,” he said finally, splitting the shots in half. “You and me. Let’s have it.”

Surprise filled her, chased by pure pleasure. She swallowed her share easily this time, barely shuddering at the taste, and when he did the same, something inside her felt lighter. Warmer. Chloe giggled at nothing and let her head tip back onto his shoulder. For one dangerous second, his arm wrapped around her waist and squeezed. His hair spilled over her skin as he bent his head closer.

Then he let her go, as if it had never happened at all. He caught her hand, stepped back, and they were moving again, their clasped palms their only connection now. Chloe wobbled behind him like she was on stilts. She hadn’t realized just how integral Red’s chest had been to her structural stability during the last ten minutes. Stumbling after four shots? How mortifying. But fun, too.

Until she realized where Red was leading her, anyway. To the dance floor. Because that was what she wanted. She’d told him so in the taxi: she wanted to go out, get drunk, and dance. Except, now that they were headed in that direction, deep into a churning mass of bodies, she didn’t want to do that at all. It was flooding back suddenly, how much she’d always hated this part. With her friends, she remembered, she’d bobbed awkwardly at the edge of the group, feeling like a ninny.

That wasn’t how she wanted to feel tonight.

She tugged at Red’s hand and he looked back at her, raising his eyebrows in question. When she looked at the dance floor and shook her head, he changed course without a word, pulling her smoothly toward the sticky, shadowy booths in the corner. They slid into one beneath an alcove, and by some audio-architectural miracle, the volume lowered just enough for Chloe to hear herself think. Thank God. All this pounding and pulsing was making her vaguely homicidal.

“What’s up?” Red asked, his knee nudging hers. She looked at their legs beneath the filthy table and a thought danced wildly through her mind: he could touch her. He could slide his hand up her skirt right now, and no one in this hellhole would be any the wiser.

Then she looked up, met his endless eyes, and could’ve sworn he was thinking exactly the same thing. Each flash of strobe lights in the room lit up another facet of the hunger on his face. But he didn’t move. He sat and waited patiently to hear that she was okay.

And suddenly, she was bored with lying to him. Must be the alcohol. “I don’t like it here,” she shouted.

He gave her a look that seemed to say, Color me shocked. But there was no gloating in his response. “Want me to take you somewhere quieter?”

“Yes. No. I—” She hesitated, her mind whirring. This, tonight … It wasn’t what she’d really wanted. Because she hadn’t known what she’d really wanted when she’d put this on the list. She’d been hunting for an indescribable thrill, a feeling she remembered from nights out with her friends, but she’d misunderstood where the feeling came from. It wasn’t about drinking and partying in some dingy club.

It had been about the people. The constant laughter they shared, too high on each other to care that they were being obnoxious. Group trips to the bathroom like a small army unit, where the mission objective was helping each other squat over filthy toilets without their dresses touching the seat.

Belonging.

Maybe her list wasn’t quite as perfect, or as clinical, as she’d assumed. Because this was the first item she hadn’t enjoyed crossing off, and she couldn’t deny that she was disappointed.

But she could fix this, couldn’t she? Plans changed, didn’t they? Wasn’t that why she’d written the list in the first place—to become the kind of woman who turned disappointments around, who thought flexibly and did what she wanted to do?

Yes, she decided. Yes. That was exactly why.

She turned back to Red, found him waiting with those three little lines of concentration between his eyebrows. “I want to go somewhere else,” she shouted.

He nodded. “We can do that.”

But she wasn’t done. “I want to know what you do for fun.”

His frown cleared, replaced by a startled, hesitant pleasure. “Yeah?”

“Yes. Show me.”

They left the club, and Red put his jacket over Chloe’s shivering shoulders. He wouldn’t miss the warmth—when he was around her, he burned from the inside out. She must be tipsy as fuck, because she didn’t push him off or say something smart; she just smiled all pretty and held his hand as they cut through the cold, wet night.