"Ana! Are you almost ready?"

"Yeah! Almost."

I leaned forward toward my mirror and dabbed at my lipstick, making sure my signature red was as bold as ever. I stood up straight, tugged down the bottom edge of my black dress, and headed out of my room to meet Emilia.

"Okay, I'm ready," I told her. When it came to going out to a bar that I didn't work in, I was the one who always took forever to get ready.

"Well, you look hot," Emilia told me.

I cocked my head to the side. "Well, duh."

A club dress to me meant short hems, low necklines, and tight enough so that I had to breathe with my chest instead of my stomach. And both Emilia and I knew I had the curves to pull off a dress like that.

Oh, and stilettos. Of course, stilettos.

Emilia was slightly more conservative than me, but she matched me in black with a bodysuit, tight pants, and her own pair of heels.

"And you look hot too," I told her. "It's a shame for everyone else at the bar, tonight, to be out dressed by us."

Emilia just laughed. "Alright, just do me a favor and don't get too drunk, alright? I know you're not driving but I don't want you throwing up in my car."

"Emilia, I haven't thrown up from drinking since I was 18."

"Fair point. Fine, don't get drunk and then leave with some random guy so I have to worry about you."

That was more likely. "I promise," I assured her. "I will leave with you and not get completely wasted. And besides, it's not like I really want to do tomorrow with a hangover."

Emilia just chuckled, grabbed her bag, and followed me out the door.

We had just gotten down to her car parked out on the street when Emilia stopped and cursed.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, I just forgot literally my entire wallet," she said, peering into her bag. "Sorry, I'll be right back."

"It's fine."

I leaned against the side of Emilia's car as I watched her walk back into the building. The sun had gone down so it had drastically cooled off; I rubbed my bare arms in an attempt to keep them warm. In the distance, I could hear music coming from the festival.

"Ana?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of my name coming from the shadows and was fumbling for the pepper spray I kept in my purse when Alex came out into the streetlamp. I let out a sigh of relief, my heart hammering in my chest.

"Sorry," he said, coming up to me. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, it's fine." I let go of my pepper spray. "I just didn't expect to see you here. Er, what are you doing here?"

"Just out for a run."

It was only now that I realized he was sweating and in exercise clothes, not unlike when I literally ran into him outside of the coffee shop. "Wait, you run in the morning and at night?" Daily exercise I could understand. But twice a day? That sounded like hell.

"Well, no," he said. "I've been with you pretty much every night, remember?"

My mind wandered briefly into dirty, off-limits territory. "Right, true," I said.

"But you told me to enjoy my night off, so I thought why not?"

I stared at him. "Your idea of enjoying a night off is running?" Who the hell was this guy? Was I sure I was attracted to him? No, focus, Ana.

He chuckled. "Don't worry, I have a whole Netflix night planned for after this. I just wanted to get some energy out."

As we had been talking, it hadn't escaped my notice that he was blatantly staring at me. Although, I would have been almost offended if he hadn't been staring at me. I looked fantastic.

"You look really nice, by the way," he offered. "I'm guessing your night has barely started."
Really nice wasn't exactly what I was going for, but I figured that even if he thought I looked smoking hot, he wouldn't say it anyway. Our relationship wasn't exactly at that point. "Thanks," I said. "And no, we were just about to leave. Emilia, my friend, she just forgot something."

"Sorry, sorry, we can go now!"

Alex and I both turned at the sound of Emilia's breathless words and clacking heels. She stopped short when she caught sight of the two of us. "Oh. Hi."

"Alex, this is my friend Emilia," I said, trying to stifle a laugh at Emilia's dropped jaw. "And Emilia, this is my new coworker, Alex. I think you saw him the other night."

"Nice to officially meet you," Emilia said. She walked the rest of the way up to the car and opened the driver's door. "Whenever you're ready, Ana." She winked at me.

The nerve on her. "I should get going," I told Alex.

He nodded, taking one last opportunity to look me up and down. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"See you tomorrow." I watched him run off before getting in the car to yell at Emilia.

"Alright, the wink was a little much," I complained to her as she started the car and drove off.

She laughed. "Hey, I was being very discrete."

"Oh, yeah, about as discrete as a firetruck with its siren on," I berated her. "There's no way he didn't see that."

"There definitely is no way he did see that," Emilia argued. "He was too busy staring at you. As he should have been, your body rocks in that dress."

"Well, I know that," I sighed. "But still, he could have seen you."

"He could have," Emilia admitted. "But it wouldn't have mattered. You were being plenty obvious yourself that you're interested."

"What is that supposed to mean? It's not my fault he happened to come by while I'm dressed like this."

Emilia couldn't wipe the grin off her face. "You were doing the thing that you do whenever you find a guy attractive."

"What thing?"

"The thing with your hand on your chest."

I glanced down. My hand was still resting lightly on my bare chest. I hadn't even noticed I had put it there, and I quickly dropped it to my lap. "I don't do a thing with my hand on my chest whenever I find a guy attractive."

"Yes, you do," Emilia pressed. "You'll be talking to someone, and then someone your hand just finds its way up just below your collarbone, and then you slowly let it drop. Definitely brings attention to your boobs."

"Emilia!"

"What? It's true!" She was laughing. "Hey, I'm not criticizing, your boobs look great. And I take it back, you don't do it all the time. Only when you're dressed for partying."

I couldn't even argue. She was probably right. And it's not like Emilia would lie to me about something like that. "Well, he doesn't know me as well as you do," I said. "So how would he know that I do that when I'm attracted to someone?"

"He doesn't," Emilia agreed. "But that doesn't mean he wasn't feasting on you with his eyes."

I groaned and let my head fall back against the headrest. New Haven was only an hour away, but this was going to be a very long hour. "Why do you care so much?" I asked her. "It's not like this affects you at all."

"If I didn't think you were going to be drooling over him all summer, then I wouldn't say anything," Emilia said bluntly. "But from the few interactions I've seen between you two, it's obvious you find him hot and it's obvious he thinks you're hot. So if you want to have sex with him and he wants to have sex with you, what's the problem?"

"Who says I want to have sex with him? I do work with him, Emilia."

"So you're telling me, if you met and got to know him outside of a work setting, you wouldn't want to sleep with him?"

"He's hot. And yes, if I didn't have to see him every day for at least the next few months, I would probably go ahead and sleep with him. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yes." Emilia adopted a smug look on her face. "So now the only thing holding you back from making a move is your employment status."

"Which is a very big barrier for me. You know that."

"I also know that you don't meet many people outside of work. Which is saying something, given that you don't meet many people at work."

"Just drop it, Emilia," I told her. "It's not going to happen. And I'd rather focus on the fact that we're going to be in an actual city, surrounded by people we don't know, both of us looking sexy as hell, and no one from Delphine to bother us."

"Suit yourself. Nothing like an anonymous hookup to take the edge off."

I snorted. "You've never hooked up with anyone," I pointed out.

"I wasn't talking about me," Emilia said. "I'm talking about you."

I had to admit, I quite often ended up entwined with some random guy at the end of the night when Emilia and I went out like this. I would never go home and sleep with someone; I left that behind in my college days. But that didn't mean I couldn't have fun.

"Well, maybe that's what I need to get Alex out of my system," I pointed out. "Maybe I just need to hook up with someone, and he just happens to be around."

Emilia's laugh told me she didn't believe me. And while I would never say this to her, I didn't believe me either.