One Night With a Billionaire

I think my friends misunderstood something when I told them clubs weren’t my thing.

“You said it was because they’re too small and had bad music,” said Tammy, managing to look ridiculously pleased with herself and anxious at the same time. “We called ahead and gave them a playlist of some of your favorite dance songs for the next hour.”

I perked a bit. “Vivaldi’s Winter?”

Maria, on the other side of me and dressed like a disco ball, scoffed.

“Your favorites outside of the instrumental crap. They got to make money still, don’t they?”

“But you said—”

“It was songs already on their list,” Maria said. “Do I look like I’m made of money?”

Tammy smiled apologetically. “It was songs off their list. I promise, they’re ones you like.”

“But it’s a club.”

Maria let out a loud groan. “God, can you at least trust us for once? How long have we been friends?”

“Since high school, so…”

“Since forever,” said Maria. “Point is, when getting over a douche-bag, you’ve got to try all the tricks, and that includes clubbing.”

Tammy nodded and licked one of her fingers, which she used to fix a dark curl on my face. She had taken particular care in doing my hair and makeup that night, more than my own mother ever had. I caught a momentary flash of my reflection in her glasses as a particularly bright street sign went past.

Minutes later, the taxi with the three of us crammed in the back seat pulled up to the drop-off spot in front of a tall, modern building made of stars and tinted glass. Moonscape shone in bright blue neon near the top, making the snow and frost around us glow.

I allowed myself to gawk.

“It’s huge,” I said.

“Exactly,” said Tammy, all smug and no grace. “Plenty of room to dance.”

That didn’t change the fact that it was more likely than not filled to the gills with people, but…I really did want to dance. Dancing had been the only time I’d been able to breathe this past week, though the school studio wasn’t open the time I needed it most: at night, when thoughts of him came and stuck.

And, well, maybe Maria had a point about alcohol. I had never been much of a drinker. But she insisted once I’d had a drink or two, I wouldn’t care about the people watching and just let loose among the lights and darkness.

But it was mostly Tammy’s slender hand squeezing mine that encouraged me through the black glass doors.

A new world spread out before me. After the pair of bouncers at the door, the space spread out to the transparent ceiling, which showed the dark sky beyond. Three floors worth of balconies lined the sides but kept close to the edges like a poker player’s prized hand, leaving the majority of the space filled with lights, fog, and the vibrations of its own heartbeat.

Despite my apprehensions, the dance floor was relatively clear, though it could have just been the sheer size. The tube-like dance stages to either side of the DJ were empty at the moment. The drink bar had been tucked against the wall on the same level as the dance floor, covering the entire length, and lit with soft, but clear, blue light which turned all the liquid inside to the same violet.

“See?” Maria prodded my side. “Lots of space.”

“Oh! And one of your songs is already playing! Listen, listen!” chirped Tammy.

Their honest sincerity did more for the painful ache in my chest than the dance hall.

I grabbed Maria’s hand, so I had both hers and Tammy’s, and squeezed.

“I love you guys.”

Despite that, it was hard to get into the mood. True, the songs playing I liked when I was in a party mood. But I couldn’t quite ignore the presence of the other dancers, or even the few patrons drinking at the bar, never mind anyone who could be watching from the balconies above. Tammy noticed quickly, despite my efforts to hide it, and proceeded to drag me to the bar where she shoved something sweet and strong into my hand.

After that, I managed to sort of start moving. The weight of the eyes lightened, and my imagination happily lifted me off from the clouds and into the lights, where I flew, twisted, and fell in love with the curves of my body all over again. I could feel the urge to let go, to truly lift off and dance, but just as I’d start to spin into a pirouette, I remembered where I was and how stupid it would look to do a classical dance in a club. My friends’ happy faces flashed by with each turn I made. I could smell my own shampoo and whatever chemical they used in the fog machine. I thought I could even smell the cologne of the DJ, who bobbed his head to his own world. The pounding of the bass seemed to punch through my ears.

Tammy and Maria, tipsy on a few drinks themselves, had attracted two male friends who’d come together, and I couldn’t understand how they could be comfortable arm in arm with strangers. I just managed to escape being pulled into a weird circle dance with them. The last thing I wanted was to be beneath some random’s guy’s armpit.

“I’m gonna get another drink,” I shouted above the music.

They just bobbed their heads like chickens and laughed. Maria’s frizzy hair had already been tamed by sweat, and Tammy’s glasses had caught a few strands of blond that had escaped her bun.

I didn’t think it’d be any quieter at the bar. Yet, somehow, through some strange trickery of modern architecture, it was. After a moment’s hesitation, I ordered something sweet but lighter than what Tammy had gotten me and set to sipping away the disappointment I hadn’t known I had. I loved my friends. Really, I did. But I would give anything to not be here.

I found myself ordering another drink after I’d finished the second. I was starting to finally get why people drank. My blood seemed to hum pleasantly, and I felt oddly warm and distant from the ache in my chest that made it hard to breathe.

Just as the third martini appeared in front of me, a man slid onto the stool next to me. I opted to focus on the light pink of my drink rather than look.

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

The smooth baritone threw me off for a moment, enough to make me wonder if I was more drunk than I thought to be so affected by someone’s voice. Not to mention that the amazing scent wafting over to me from him couldn’t be nailed down to mere cologne, or at least any that I knew.

For a quiet moment, I just sat there and tried to focus on that scent. So I had a thing for smells, shoot me.

“I wouldn’t drink too much. Your friends look close to their limit,” said the velvet voice.

I stiffened and glanced behind me, only to wish I hadn’t. While I hadn’t been looking, Tammy and Maria had gotten themselves glued to their new boys, doing who knew what with their legs to the music. Even from a distance I could see Tammy had somehow lost her glasses.

I groaned and slid my hands down my face, not caring if I smeared my makeup.

“After that whole show they made of picking out this place for me,” I grumbled, only realizing a second later that I had said it out loud. Not that it mattered.

“Is this your birthday party?” he asked.

“No. It’s my pity party.” I raised my hand to catch the bartender’s attention.

“Oh. Designated driver to your own pity party. That sucks,” he said.

“It sucks balls. And right after deciding that I actually wanted to get drunk. Seriously, these guys…”

The bartender scuttled over with that second pink lady drink, which he handed to the tall figure besides me. As he did so, I snuck my first full glance at my new neighbor and found myself stunned, truly stunned, as a one would be facing their favorite celebrity. The buzzing in my blood probably didn’t help dull the impact.

If there was the perfect ideal for tall, dark, and handsome, this man would be it. He was James Bond come to life, the figure of the perfect tux model, and all of those looks were carefully groomed in the sweep of his dark hair. To make matters worse, the hand which picked up the martini glass did so with long, fine fingers, like a piano player’s.

I gulped. Already my traitorous brain was imagining how much of my skin those big hands could cover.

I shook myself. Hard. And asked for my bill.

But as though she had heard my thoughts, Maria appeared over my other shoulder in all her glittery disco ball glory. I could practically feel the sweat radiating off her.

“Why aren’t you dancing, girl?”

I tried not to scowl. “Do you even know who you’re dancing—”

“Holy cow!” She’d spotted the man next to me. “Ain’t that a piece of man meat! Did you seriously reel that in?”

I almost smashed my face into the bar. I slowed down at the last second and just set it there.

“Oh! Did I say that out loud?” She giggled. “Don’t worry ‘bout us. I got my papa coming to pick us up in an hour. You just…” she flicked her fingers in my direction. “Do you, yeah?”

Before I could grab her by the front of that atrocious glittering nightmare she called a dress, she had already ambled off, tipping her head to the beat.

I had half a mind to chase after her, but I couldn’t find the strength to break through my embarrassment enough to peel my face off the bar.

The man besides me chuckled, making every hair on my body stand up.

“I wouldn’t worry. I get that a lot,” he said.

“Good for you.” Screw it. If we really had a ride coming, I was done thinking. “Scratch getting my bill. Get me something stronger.”

I could feel the bartender’s frown in his hesitance, but then I heard the rustle of his clothes as he moved away.

When I found my face cool enough, I lifted it and kicked back the last of the martini. Only then did I ask my drinking buddy why he’d chosen to sit next to me while gesturing to the long line of empty seats to either side of us.

His small, polite smile struck me as being practiced.

“I thought I recognized you,” he said.

“Is this a pick-up line?” Alcohol had emboldened me. On any normal occasion, I would have struggled just to say hi, let alone accosting him bluntly like this.

“Never been the one for pick-up lines. Usually they come to me.”

“Good for you,” I said again. I’d call him out as being arrogant if I couldn’t see that it was true.

“No need to sound bitter. It isn’t as great as it sounds.”

“Not bitter. Just don’t care.” The bartender returned with my new drink, this one still sweet, but it stung on the way down.

Only after the burn had disappeared from my throat, and my blood was all but singing, did I ask, “Am I who you thought?”

“Maybe. Are you a dancer?”

“Yep.” I let my lips ‘pop’ with the p and couldn’t help but notice his eyes jumping to the movement.

“Then, are you perhaps the same dancer who turned down the offer to join the Axis Dance Company?”

I felt my cheek twitch. “Others have turned down offers, haven’t they? It’s been like a year.”

The man’s eyebrows went high. “You must be drunk already. Axis doesn’t even need to scout. The dancers come to them, and yet they couldn’t help but hear of you. Surely, you knew that.”

“Yep,” I said with another pop and another sip. The burn of the alcohol was starting to feel good.

“Why on earth did you say no?”

“Because I don’t like performing,” I said as though it were obvious because, honestly, it was.

“…you’re a dancer…who doesn’t like performing?”

“Here.”

“With your talent.”

“Yep.”

“…Why?”

This should have also been obvious. “Because I don’t like the idea of trying to convince people I’m good enough to be given money. If they like watching, good for them. I don’t need it.” I twisted the narrow neck of my glass between my fingers. “I just…I just want to dance because I like it. Not because I’m good at it.”

I took another swallow of my poison of choice. For a minute, only the pound of the dance floor behind us could be heard.

“You could have made thousands, maybe even millions,” he said.

“So?”

“So?” he said, his voice pitching a bit higher with disbelief.

“Yeah. So.” I shrugged. “I only want enough money so I don’t have to think about it. You can lose your life trying to get it, you know?”

Like my parents. What was true love or your own children in the face of money?

The alcohol loosened my tongue, and I found the screen between my brain and my mouth somewhere else.

“Nah, I want a little cottage far away from people with a nice big plot of land for me to dance on. Under the sun. Not that fake light crap, like hot, burn your eyes out sun and grass. I want to cut my feet on that grass.” This drink tasted really good. “No cars, no lights—why’d they even pay the money to make the ceiling glass if you can’t even see the stars? Freaking city lights. I want butt-naked sky. Ugh, this music stinks.” Why’d I ever thought it was good now escaped me.

I was only half-aware of his gaze on me now. I’d drifted somewhere full of sunshine and the rattle of tree leaves. But I somehow noticed the smile he wore now no longer looked so practiced.

“That…sounds perfect.”

“No duh it sounds perfect. Ugh, what am I even doing here? I hate places like this. Stupid people, stupid noise, can’t even hear myself think.”

“Yeah,” he said, slowly. “There are private dance rooms on the second floor. We can play whatever music you like there.”

“Seriously?” My flying mind skipped over his use of ‘we.’

“Seriously.”

“Vivaldi?”

He flashed me his smartphone, his smile widening. “Anything.”

And in that moment, facing his smile, I wanted nothing more in the world than to dance my heart out to some heavy Vivaldi strings.