CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

“There he

is

,” Kristin breathed. “Do you remember how amazing he was as … what was his name? Willy Lohan?”

“Um … Loman,” Audrey murmured, taking him in. Taking

all

of him in, including the extra hundred and sixty pounds he had with him.

No, Michael Breckenridge hadn’t ballooned quite

that

much. Oh, he definitely had the spare tire, a burgeoning extra chin … but most of the added weight belonged to the tall, Barbie-esque bleached blonde on his arm, drowning in sequins, like she was about to give away a sedan on

The Price Is Right

.

Audrey nearly spit her mouthful of rum and Coke out as he jog-strutted down the stairs, a sassy little swing in his step, like a cross between John Travolta and a motivational speaker. As he did, he snapped his fingers and pointed at different people in his adoring crowd. Caught a few kisses from the girls.

This was clearly a guy who

lived

for his high school reunions.

She squinted, wondering if it was just poor lighting, but were those long, luscious blond locks now the victim of … gasp! … a receding hairline?

Before she could make the determination, he deposited the blonde at a table like a Hefty bag on the curb and bee-lined it toward Audrey.

Or … not toward her. More like, toward the bar.

Unfortunately, as he got closer … this walking nightmare?

Only got worse.

He was tan, unnaturally so, but the tan didn’t hide the massive undereye bags and his Rudolph-red, runny nose. Or the freckles in his complexion and the general droopiness of his jowls. Added to the receding hairline, he looked about, oh … sixty. He was wearing a rumpled tux, but there was some foreign, greenish substance on his lapel. It could’ve been guac, snot, or vomit. None of those things seemed particularly appealing to Audrey at the moment.

And yep, definitely a receding hairline. Considering he’d grown his blond locks so long they touched his shoulders, he now looked a little like a swaggering Benjamin Franklin.

“Hey, girls,” he said, pointing at them as he sidled up to the bar. Appropriately, the bartender didn’t card

him

as he asked, “Open bar?”

When the bartender nodded, he said, “Fantastic,” and gave an itemized list, counting off on his fingers.

As the bartender lined them up, he grabbed the first one, a Stella, and chugged it.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he turned to them, elbow on the bar, and grinned. “Hey … I know you two.”

Sure. The two of them had been like peanut butter and jelly during their after-school rehearsals. One was rarely seen without the other. Audrey looked at Kristin, who seemed to have fluttered off onto some cloud, she was so starstruck. It was true, they’d spent hours inhaling paint fumes and fantasizing about the day when Michael Breckenridge would notice them. Despite the fact that their crush now looked like a Founding Father, for Kristin, it looked like that dream was finally coming true. She chirped, sounding no older than seventeen, “Yes, I’m Kristin? From scenery?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Thought so.” Then his eyes swung to Audrey. More specifically, Audrey’s boobs. “Audrey Smart.”

She nodded. At least

he

had the name right.

He leaned into her, his breath reeking of alcohol. His hand snaked around her back, landing on her backside. “Wow, aren’t you a little slice of pie.”

She winced and looked over at Kristin, hoping to be saved, but Kristin’s eyes filled with desperation. “Michael, we were just talking about your legendary performance in

Death of a Salesperson,”

she gushed, wrapping her arm around his elbow. “You really brought down that house.”

He’d been leering at Audrey, so uncomfortably close she could count the pores on his ruddy nose, but when Kristin touched him, he looked down at her hand and then at her face, disinterested. “Hey. Rachel Maddow. Scram.”

Wounded, Kristin took a sip of her wine and scurried off, thereby driving the final nail into the coffin that was Audrey’s pseudo-friendship with her.

He leaned forward, eating up whatever was left of her personal space. “So …

cutie

.”

Before, when written in a Facebook bubble, she’d relished it. Now that he’d said it, nearly spitting it in her ear, it sounded almost …

dirty

.

She managed to skirt away a bit, but came in contact with a wall at the side of the bar, where she could move no farther. He filled the gap, his hot, noxious breath assaulting her skin. She glanced at the table, where his female companion was chatting with the girls around her table, oblivious to Michael’s shenanigans. “You came with a date?”

“A date?” He glanced in her general direction. “No. That’s just my wife.”

Just

my wife.

He started to play with the spaghetti strap of Audrey’s dress, lifting it playfully and delving his fingers underneath as his eyes roved over her bare skin. She’d read it in romance novels before, but until then, she’d never quite known what “undressing her with his eyes” meant. “We have a, you know …” He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against her ear, nose burying itself in her hair. “…

open

relationship.”

Audrey’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t be … he wasn’t …

“And I saw a pretty nice coat closet on the way in. So, baby …I’m game if you are.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Oh, no. He

was

.

With that realization sending shivers—not the good kind— down her spine, the drink slipped from Audrey’s hands, landing on her toes before splattering everywhere.

Michael was too busy staring down the front of her dress to notice.

She really needed a drink right about then, to clear the gag that lodged itself in her throat. Instead, she started to cough, doubling over. Hacking like a lung cancer patient.

Thank goodness, Michael backed away, patting her back a little half-heartedly as Audrey’s choking began to attract a small audience, the first one Michael wasn’t happy to have. “Something go down the wrong pipe?”

She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. But you’re not,” she told him. “What happened to you?”

He reached for his drink. “Relax, cutie. Tonight’s about fun.”

She stared at him.

“And if you aren’t game,” he continued with a smirk, “I guarantee there are about a hundred other girls in here who would be. So if you’re not into this, don’t waste my time, all right, babe?”

She mulled the words over, their taste sour on her tongue. “Waste your time?”

He chuckled and winked at a waitress. “Yeah. You heard me.”

Before she could even think about whether it was the right thing to do, her heart took over. She grabbed the drink from his hand and tossed it in his face, eliciting a small gasp from a few people around them. “I wouldn’t visit the coat closet with you if I were your freaking ski jacket!” she shouted.

And in the next fraction of a second, her reputation as the Invisible Girl was shattered.

Because that’s all it took for every eye in the place to suddenly land smack dab on her.