A cocktail waitress stopped at their table. Shane waved off the offer of another, his eyes rooted on the crying girl at the bar. She looked as out of place in this crowd as he felt. Dressed unassumingly in jeans and a black top, her brown hair a curly crown that stopped at her jawline. In the flashy crowd, she could have been dismissed as plain…but she wasn’t plain. She was pretty.
He watched as she brushed a lock from her damp face as her shoulders rose and fell. The pile of crumpled napkins next to her paired with the far-off look in her eyes suggested she was barely keeping it together. Grief radiated off of her in waves Shane swore he could feel from where he sat. Witnessing her pain made his gut clench. Probably because somewhere deep inside, he could relate.
Aiden said something about a girl on the dance floor, and Shane flicked him an irritated glance before his eyes tracked back to the girl at the bar. She sipped her drink and offered the bartender a tight nod of thanks as he placed a stack of fresh napkins in front of her.
Shane felt an inexplicable, almost gravitational pull toward her, his feet urging him forward even as his brain raised one argument after the next. Part of him wanted to help, though if she wanted to have a heart-to-heart, she’d be better off talking to Aiden. But if she needed advice or a solution to a tangible problem, well, that he could handle.
He glanced around the room at the predatory males lurking in every corner and wondered again why she was here. If he did approach her, an idea becoming more compelling by the moment, she’d likely shoot him down before he said a single word. So why was he mentally mapping a path to her chair? He pressed his lips together in thought. Because there was a good chance he could erase the despair from her face. A prospect he found more appealing than anything else.
“Okay, her friend is hot, I’ll give you that,” Aiden piped up.
Shane blinked before snapping his eyes to the brunette’s left. Her “hot friend,” as Aiden so eloquently put it, showcased her assets in a scandalously short skirt and backless silver top. He’d admit she was hard to miss. Yet Shane hadn’t noticed her until Aiden pointed her out. His eyes trailed back to the brunette.
“Okay,” Aiden said on a sigh of resignation. “Because I so desperately want to see this, I’m going to take a bullet for you. I’ll distract the crier. You hit on the blonde.” That said, he stood up and headed toward the bar…to flirt with the wrong girl.
The platitude of only having one chance to make a first impression flitted through Shane’s head. He called Aiden’s name, but his shout was lost under the music blasting at near ear-bleeding decibels. Aiden may be younger and less experienced, but he also had an undeniable charm girls didn’t often turn down. If the brunette spotted his cousin first, she wouldn’t so much as look at Shane. He abandoned his beer, doing a neat jog across the room and reaching Aiden just as he was moving in to tap the brunette’s shoulder.
“My cousin thought he recognized you,” Shane blurted to the blonde, grabbing Aiden by the arm and spinning him in her direction.
The blonde surveyed Aiden with lazy disinterest. “I don’t think so.”
Aiden lifted his eyebrows to ask, What the hell are you doing?
Rather than explain, Shane clapped both palms on Aiden’s shoulders and shoved him closer to the blonde. “His sister’s in the art business.” It was a terrible segue if the expression on Aiden’s face was anything to go by, but it was the first thing that popped into Shane’s head.
The music changed abruptly, slowing into a rhythmic, techno-pop remix that had dancers slowing down and pairing up. Aiden slipped into an easy, confident smile. “Wanna dance?” he asked the blonde.
The moment the question was out of his mouth, the scratches and hissing of snare drums shifted into the melodic chimes of the tired and all-too-familiar line dance the Electric Slide.
Aiden winced.
Shane coughed to cover a laugh. “He’s a great dancer,” he said to the blonde.
Aiden shot his elbow into Shane’s ribs but recovered his smile a second later. Turning to the blonde, he said, “He’s right, I am,” then offered his hand.
The blonde glanced at his palm, then leaned past Shane to talk to her friend. “You gonna be okay here?” she called over the music.
The brunette flicked a look from her friend to Shane. The moment he locked on to her bright blue eyes, his heart galloped to life, picking up speed as if running for an invisible finish line. Her eyes left his as she addressed her friend. “Fine.”
It wasn’t the most wholehearted endorsement, but at least she’d agreed to stay.