REAGAN'S VOCAL CHORDS were beginning to feel taut from all the mindless talking she was doing that night. Whenever one person wished her well and drifted away, someone new took their place, shaking her hand and finding something trivial to discuss, whether it was the success of the party or business that she didn't feel like talking about.

She'd lost track of the celebrities she'd been rubbing shoulders with. Beck and the guys from Remy Zero had been fun to talk to, but she'd cringed her way into a corner when Axl Rose had made his pompous arrival.

Some time in the night, Reagan had lost track of Chris. Every now and then she'd spot her from across the room, usually draped over the bar with a new drink in her hand, and Chris would raise a toast to her. Reagan always offered her a smile, asking silently through her eyes if her friend was okay, but it appeared that Chris was content to be away from the masses of label people that held no interest for her.

A waiter stopped in front of Reagan, offering her another glass of champagne, and she happily took it. She'd been using each glass that found its way into her hand as a means to stop talking, often lifting it her mouth for pause as the person beside her droned on.

She wanted to go home, or at least back to her and Chris's room. Her feet were starting to ache in the strappy heels that she'd bought for the occasion and truthfully, she was bored. She didn't care to talk about work when she wasn't actually confined to her office.

The whole night was putting into perspective for her how utterly stale her job had gotten. It no longer was a channel of clinging to her musical roots. There was too much formality in it, too many businessman that lacked even one musical bone in their bodies.

Sighing, Reagan gulped back half the contents of her coupe glass and looked around warily, waiting for another man in a suit to come accost her with conversation that she didn't give a damn about.

When she rotated, she saw Chris shimmying her way through the crowd, a curious look on her face. Reagan reached a hand out and Chris took it, pulled into Reagan's side where she leaned in, murmuring in her ear over the sound of chatter and music.

"Hey," she said. "What label are the Foo Fighters signed to?"

Reagan drew back slightly and blinked, puzzled by the randomness of her question.

"Um," she began, lowering her champagne, "RCA. Why?"

"Odd," Chris said, screwing her mouth to the side as she gnawed on the inner corner of her lip, "because Dave is here."

"What?"

"Dave. Is. Here." Chris said slowly, separating each word with severe emphasis. She shuffled one step to the side and squeezed Reagan's wrist, jerking her head in the direction of the ballroom's bar.

Reagan's eyes followed to where Chris had gestured and she felt all of her vital organs seize up in her body, unsnapping from the tendons and muscles that kept them ordinarily locked in place.

Standing at the bar, with Taylor laughing freely at his side, was Dave. His shaggy brown hair, grown out so that it waved down to his shoulders, was unmistakable. His face was unmistakable, shaved free of the god-awful mutton cheap beard he'd been sporting for months. While Taylor already had a drink in his hand, Dave's jaw was working up and down on a piece of gum and he was chatting with Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows.

Reagan squeezed her champagne glass so tightly in her hands that she half-expected it to erupt in shards.

"That motherfucker," she said through her clenched jaw.

"He knew you were here," Chris murmured.

"Of course he did. Why else do you think he showed up?"

At that precise moment, Dave's eyes connected with hers from across the room. She thought that he would make his way over to her, but he stayed put, flashing her a close-lipped smile and wriggling his fingers in the air with a taunting wave.

Reagan took a long sip from her champagne, glaring at him as she did so, and turned around.

There was no use in being surprised. Dave showing up to the Geffen party was such Dave-like behavior that she berated herself for not thinking ahead, considering that he would do something of that extent earlier on.

"Well, it's not like he can embarrass you," Chris said, continuing to watch as artists and Geffen employees alike curiously began to approach Dave and Taylor. "Everyone loves him."

"That's not the point. It's so typical of him to do something like this," Reagan said under her breath.

"What? Try to get your attention in a stupid-as-hell way?"

"Exactly."

Reagan set her empty glass down on a passing waiter's tray. Dave wasn't looking at her anymore, but she looked at him, crossing her arms. He stuck out like a sore thumb in his color-blocked raglan shirt and jeans, but she privately acknowledged to herself that he looked good. Thinking about it made her want to bang her head against a wall for even giving him the compliment, though she hadn't said it out loud.

"Come on," she griped, grabbing Chris's arm. "Let's go to the other side of the room."

Chris rounded her eyes. "But . . . the bar . . ."

"Do you want to carry on a conversation with him for me instead?" Reagan asserted.

"Well, I kind of already talked to him."

"You what?!"

"He came up to me!" Chris said innocently, touching her hand to her chest. "He was all, 'hey Chris, you look great!' I didn't even think he'd remember who I was."

"Chris . . ."

"What? He's just so damn nice, Reagan, I'm sorry."

Letting out a noise of frustration, Reagan clamped her hand down hard on Chris's forearm and dragged her into a knot of people. Leave it to Dave to be the most well-liked person at the party, even if he'd shown up to it uninvited.

She spent the rest of the night hiding from him, though she refused to label the tactic as that. Chris was more blunt, insisting that she was cowering like a little kid, but Reagan preferred to think that she was simply portraying that she didn't give a shit. He was trying to get under her skin and the last thing she was going to do was admit that it was kind of working.

Only twice within the next hour had she found herself next to him. The first time, she'd brushed by him with her face buried into another glass of champagne, and the second time, he'd appeared behind her when she'd given her feet a rest at one of the many round tables in the room.

She'd known it was him when he'd leaned over her, the smell of his minty breath wafting by her cheek as he'd reached for a fresh flute of champagne that had been left, forgotten, atop the table's white linen. And then had come his voice, murmuring a quiet "excuse me" in her ear as he'd stood straight.

Reagan regretted that within the thirty seconds it had taken him to do all of that, goosebumps had erupted over her skin.

"Why don't we just leave?" Chris sighed. She sat next to Reagan, who had switched tables immediately after her last crossing of paths with Dave. "We can go up to our room."

Reagan's resolve to be angry at Dave had flattened into near-nothingness as she watched him from across the room, mingling with people and working his charm. He seemed to know everyone, and it was confessedly fascinating to watch people surround him, laughing at his jokes and smiling genuinely at everything he said.

He'd always had that certain way about him, a quirk that made any person fall head over heels for his warm demeanor and easy charisma.

"I have to talk to him," Reagan said, her chin resting in the palm of her hand.

"No you don't. Hey, you promised me only an hour and a half," Chris reminded her with a surly glower. "It's been almost three hours."

The party had very much cleared out by that point. There were still a few stragglers, guys from bands and other members of a younger crowd that could have partied until the sun came up, but the evening was winding down. Even Taylor had at some point disappeared from the ballroom, though Reagan couldn't decide where he would have gone without Dave at his side. They'd obviously been in cohorts together to pull their little surprise arrival off.

"I want to ask why he came," Reagan said.

"Oh, give me a fucking break, Reags. We both know why he came. He's here for you."

"We haven't spoken at all tonight."

"Doesn't matter. You guys have been looking at each other from across the room all night like you're two seconds away from fucking on the floor."

Reagan turned to Chris with an expression of shock. She'd been so certain that the only look that she'd given Dave since he'd shown up had been one of antipathy, not lust. She felt her face grow hot.

"I . . . haven't," she replied, floundering to sound sure of herself.

Chris slumped back in her chair and massaged her temples, closing her eyes.

"You two give me a fucking headache," she said. "Just fuck and get married again already."

"Not happening," Reagan said swiftly, though Chris's urging did make her heart stutter.

"Whatever you say. I'm going back to the room. I did what I came to do."

Pushing back her chair and standing up, Chris briefly leaned over the table and in close to Reagan's face.

"Are you staying down here?" she asked, though there was a poorly hidden double meaning in the question.

"I'll stay until I'm finished interrogating him," Reagan returned nonchalantly, tracing her fingertip around the stem of a wineglass.

"Okay, Inspector Gadget. Let me know what you find out."

Chris walked away from the table and towards the double doors of the room. Reagan watched her, resisting the urge to roll her eyes and grit her teeth when she was stopped on her way out by Dave, who gave her a hug. He knew that Reagan was watching.

Over her shoulder, Chris flashed Reagan an impressed look and gestured to Dave with her thumb.

'So nice,' she mouthed at Reagan.

Reagan scrunched her nose and made a face back, sticking out her tongue in a similar fashion to the way Gracie did when she was displeased.

Who the hell's side is Chris on, anyway? she thought to herself, crossing one of her legs over the other and sitting back in her chair.

She thought that she was doing the right thing, waiting in the ballroom for them to be alone so that she could confront him. The idea of it made her feel in control, powerful, but the tiniest of voices in the back of her head was insisting that she had other motives.

Reagan didn't want to think about the reasons why she wanted to be alone with Dave. It was easier to tell herself that she was just angry, grouchy from the headache that all that champagne had given her, and irritated that he'd shown up to push her buttons.

That didn't erase the fact that the thought of being alone with him gave her a certain thrill, though. It was an old feeling, rickety to stand on its own two feet, but it was there. It was the same feeling she'd had when she'd first met him, strongly influenced by a pull to be the only person in a room with him.

She tapped her fingers on the table, feeling like her brain was unraveling itself down to broken bits of gray matter. What the hell was she doing?

"Miss?"

A voice caused Reagan to glance up and she saw a waiter standing next to her seat with his hands folded neatly behind his back.

"Can I, ah, get you anything else this evening?" he asked, clearly hinting to her that the night was over and she needed to hightail it out of the ballroom so that the staff could go home. She glanced around, noticing that all of Geffen's guests had finally left the premises.

"No, thank you. I'm just waiting for someone," she said politely.

The waiter nodded, looking as if what he really wanted to tell her was to screw off somewhere else so he could clear the table, but he walked away. She did another visual sweep of the room, noticing that there wasn't another staff member in sight. They were all waiting on her to leave. She winced.

"Nice party tonight."

Suddenly, she was joined by Dave, who slipped easily into the seat beside her as if appearing out of thin air. Reagan jumped, clapping one hand to her chest in surprise.

"Jesus, Dave," she said, catching her breath.

He grinned at her, leaning onto the table with a propped elbow.

"What? You thought I was going to leave so soon?"

Reagan glared at him, though she couldn't muster the suitable amount of rage that he was deserving of. She swung herself around in her seat, turning her back to him.

"I'm still wondering why you were even here in the first place," she said.

"I've got some old friends at Geffen." He poked her in her lower back, causing her to flinch. "You probably know some of them. Especially if you looked in a mirror."

Reagan whirled back around in her chair, prepared to chew him out for his impudence to piss her off, but she stopped when they nearly bumped noses. Dave was leaning in close to her, wearing a softer smile in contrast to his previous grin. He wasn't chewing his gum anymore, but she could still almost taste his spearmint breath.

Seeing him so up close when she'd grown used to keeping him at an arm's length was disconcerting. When he was that close to her face, she could see all the details of him that she'd grown to miss, like the line of his jaw and the faint shadow of a beard on his chin. And his eyes — downturned and such a sunny shade of brown that it was heart stopping.

It left her abruptly speechless.

"Did you . . . need to ask me something about Gracie?" Reagan began tentatively. She got out of her chair, wanting to be relieved of being so close to him so that she could breathe again.

"I would have just called you if I had to ask about Gracie," Dave replied. He got out of his chair too, walking around the table so that once again, he was close to her.

She pressed her lower back into the edge of the table and held her arms tightly at her side, propping herself upright with her fingers scrunched around the table's linen.

"So are you following me around L.A. now?"

"No. I just like parties."

He leaned into her, positioning his hands so that they rested on the table and locked her into the cage of his arms. Reagan swallowed, questioning what she could have possibly said that wouldn't hurt him to remind him that he shouldn't have been doing that. Since the divorce, he'd never been so forward with her, so why that night? Why then?

In an effort to create another layer of distance between them, she hopped up on the table, knowing that she wouldn't have been able to side-step him without touching his arms. She didn't think she'd be able to trust herself any further that night if she laid even just a finger on him.

"Are you drunk?" she pressed, squinting at his face and trying to search for telltale signs that Dave was plastered. At least that would explain his forwardness.

"A little, but it's wearing off," he said. He stepped back as she crossed her legs, still seated on the edge on the table that wasn't covered in glasses and dirtied plates.

"I still don't understand why you came," she said slowly.

He looked at her, waiting a moment before answering.

"Who cares? I'm glad that I did. I got to see you. In that dress."

Heat flourished up Reagan's neck and to her cheekbones where it gave way to a rosy blush that she couldn't hide. She crossed her legs more tightly, remembering how short her dress was.

"You're going to regret saying all this," she cautioned him, trying to regain some of the lost moisture in her dry mouth. "You drank a lot. You . . . you know we can't say stuff like that to each other anymore."

"Sorry, Reagan, but I'm not going to my grave with this shit. I can't not tell you what I'm thinking because I've been doing that for the last two years and I'm sick of it. And I'm not drunk."

Dave edged closer to her, giving Reagan every ample opportunity to tell him to back off, but she couldn't. She wanted him closer. Every nerve ending, every cell in her body was willing him to come nearer and she knew that she would have been stupid to deny wanting it. Her face remained passive, but there was an uprising being set aflame inside of her.

"Are you drunk?" he asked softly. As he questioned her, he carefully tucked back a piece of her hair that had fallen into her face, snagging on her eyelash.

She shivered. "No. I'm not." There had been plenty of champagne to go around that night and she'd had her fair share of it, but being alone with Dave, being so close to him, had snapped her into sudden sobriety. She was more than enough aware of everything that was happening.

One of the bright overhead lights of the ballroom suddenly turned off, leaving them in a pocket of darkness. Other lights remained on, but the new dimness of the room made Reagan hold her breath. It may have gotten darker, but she could still see every trace of Dave's face directly in front of her own.

She glanced around anxiously, trying to spot one of the hotel staff members that must have shut off the light, but no one was there. The light going off had just been a silent nudge to further encourage Dave and Reagan to leave, but it looked to Reagan that they weren't going anywhere, not in accordance of how frozen she felt and how close he'd gotten again.

"You didn't get back together with that dipshit, right?" he murmured, resting a hand on the table centimeters away from her waist.

"He broke up with me," she managed to explain, each breath that she took coming out a little quicker than the last.

"See. I knew he was a fucking idiot from the moment I met him."

Dave delicately placed his fingertips on Reagan's knee, circling them gently over her skin. He was just barely touching her but she reacted strongly, gripping the table harder against her hands and squeezing her legs together.

"He, um," she said, tripping over her words, "he wanted kids. And I told him I didn't want to have anymore. So he left."

Dave's fingers steadied on her knee and he fixed his eyes with hers. "You told him that?"

She wet her lips with her tongue, feeling embarrassed to speak the truth that she was going to confess to him and wondering if it would be painful for him to hear.

"You're . . . the only person. The only person I'd ever have kids with. No matter what happens."

His brown eyes hardened and his hand left her knee to gently slide around her throat and to the back of her neck, where he gently grabbed a fistful of her hair.

"Reagan," he whispered.

When he inclined his head and leaned in, she didn't stop him. She closed her eyes, waiting for their mouths to connect as the sound of her heartbeat pounded painfully in her ears. He kissed her lightly, putting no pressure into the kiss, and drew away. As soon as Reagan guardedly placed her hand on his arm, digging her fingers into his bicep through the cotton of his shirt, he leaned in again.

This time, he kissed her harder. He pulled her in by her neck, holding her face to his and parting their mouths so that his breath mixed with hers. He held her there for so long that she had to eventually pull away, gasping for a breath of air as his mouth moved to her neck.

"Dave," she said through a heavy exhale, "this is stupid. We're being stupid."

"I know," he said against her throat, his words followed by a tender kiss that made her skin prickle. "I'm okay with being stupid at the moment."

His free hand, the one that wasn't tangling itself into her hair, clasped her knee and crept upwards. Reagan instinctively uncrossed her legs, vying for him to move his hand further despite knowing the consequences of what would follow. His fingers toyed with the hem of her dress, tugging on it.

"I already told you that I like this dress, right?" he asked, pressing kisses along her jawline as he spoke.

"Have you ever thought about getting into the fashion industry as a side project?" she attempted to quip, feeling her eyelids flutter. "You seem to be really into it, considering how much you comment on my clothes."

"It wasn't a comment, it was a compliment."

Dave's fingers snaked a path up between her thighs and Reagan inhaled sharply. He hadn't yet touched any of her body parts that were sheathed by the dress, but she still spiraled at the feeling of his calloused hand on her skin. It was enough to make her forget wanting to protest or remind him that they were divorced, which inevitably meant they shouldn't have gone any further than they already had.

She couldn't resist and it was obvious that neither could he.

With two fingers, he caressed the front-facing scrap of lace that was her underwear, laughing quietly when she jerked forward into his chest, gasping.

"You still do that," he remarked.

"Do what?"

"Die a little on the inside when I touch you."

His fingers pressed more firmly against the lace, rotating in small circles. Reagan rested her forehead on his shoulder and wrenched her eyes shut, her legs going weak from her thighs all the way down to her ankles.

Dave pried her underwear aside and touched her without the barrier of it, guiding his thumb into the pattern he was tracing while he slipped his pointer and middle fingers inside of her. He was breathing as heavily as she was.

"Dave," she whispered, reveling in the pleasure that swirled in her lower stomach as his thumb continued to roll against her in soft circles.

He went in to kiss her neck, moving his mouth down her chest and yanking the neckline of her dress down. When he bit her skin lightly, she wrapped her fingers into his hair and let her head fall back.

It felt like it'd been a century since he'd touched her so intimately, holding her close with combined force and tenderness that blended together flawlessly. Reagan wanted to melt against him, to let time go on for as long as possible without pulling away, satisfied by his touch in a way that no one else would ever manage with her.

It didn't feel as wrong as it initially had. Before Dave had buried his hand between her legs and kissed her, she'd been steadfast in her belief that them getting close like that, bordering as close to sex as they'd gotten in nearly three years, was forbidden.

It couldn't have been forbidden, not when the act of it tumbled together so smoothly, emphasizing the perfection that came from her being in his arms.

He pulled at her underwear, gliding them down her legs and over her heels, and as soon as they were off Reagan widened her eyes.

She quickly pulled the front of her dress up, but Dave fell into her again and his hand found its way back between her legs.

"We need to stop," she whispered shrilly, trying not to fall back into the daze he was creating with his fingers.

Dave paused. When he looked at her, there was a flicker of worry in his eyes as he prepared for her to turn him away.

"How come?"

"Have you forgotten that we're literally in the hotel ballroom right now? The staff are probably watching us! They want us to get out."

She brought her legs together and adjusted her dress again, anxiously glancing side to side in search of a witness to what was happening on one of the hotel's expensive dinner tables.

"I did actually forget about that."

Reagan sighed, still feeling flushed in the face as she outstretched her hand, palm facing up, towards him.

"Can I have my underwear back?" she asked.

A mischievous smile crept onto Dave's face, slowly growing bigger until its smugness made her automatically distrustful of him.

"These?" he asked lightly, holding her black underwear up in front of her.

"Yep, those are the ones."

She made a swipe for them, but he balled them up into his fist in a flash, tucking them into the pocket of his jeans. She gulped, staring incredulously at him.

"David," she insisted firmly, reaching for the pocket that he'd stowed them in.

He caught her wrist and lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing it once before he leaned into her, his lips brushing past her cheek.

"If you want them back, you'll have to come get them. I'm on the twenty-fifth floor."

He whispered his room number into her ear and Reagan stuttered.

"You're staying here?"

"See you soon, Reags." He grinned as began walking away, slipping one hand into the same pocket that held her underwear. "Or not."