Our eyes met across the murky bar, flickered and he disappeared. We'd come here to the sleaziest bar in Kensington to party. My parents thought we were having my birthday sleepover at Connie's and the boys' parents thought they were at Jason's. My eighteenth birthday present from Jake had been a fake ID, I was a sophomore at Colorado U. So here we were, at a bar crappy enough to take our fake IDs. My eighteenth birthday present from all of my friends was to get really drunk for the first time.
"And to get you a cute boy," Jenny whispered in my ear before bursting into the giggles with Connie. Their plan was to set me up with Ben or Will. After I was good and drunk, one of them would lead me through a few stumbling dances to the juke box music. We'd be led by our friends back Connie's house and given a room together. He'd kiss me and I'd struggle to keep all the booze in my stomach. After feeling me up for a few minutes, we'd collapse in each others arms and sleep the drink off. In the morning, he'd say nothing and leave awkwardly.
This was not my plan for my birthday night. Here I was, an eighteen-year-old virgin who'd never even been in a relationship. How had it happened? I never really thought of myself as the goody-goody virgin girl who smiles at the teacher and gets to church every week. I just sort of drifted into virginity, it wasn't hard with the options life had presented me. All the boys I'd know were just idiots. Or dull. A lot of dull idiots went to my high school, I guess.
No, tonight wouldn't be about giving a stupid boy I'd known since we were children a shot at 'second base'. I was going to go all the way or not at all, and with a beautiful man at that. I had to pace myself with the drinking, I didn't have much experience in that either but I'd looked at some body weight charts and had a good idea how much and how fast I could drink. I had to stay just sober enough to be rational in the pursuit of my man, and just drunk enough to go for it.
I was nursing my second cooler when I saw him, the perfect man. The man who would make me a woman. He was gorgeous, cut from marble and just a little dark. Our eyes drifted towards each other and we paused in admiration. I fluttered and he smiled. But then Jenny leaned over to draw my attention to Jake's failed attempt to chug a beer, which had left him drenched. I glanced back and he was gone, vanished into the crowd.
Rob appeared before me with two shots of something brown. "Wanna do a shot with me, Libby?" The girls tried to hide their disappointment. In their mind, Rob wasn't even on my short list. But looking into his puppy dog eyes, I just couldn't turn him down in this. He'd understand that I didn't want to lead him on. He was one of the good ones.
So I smiled at him and took the shot glass from his hand. I beamed an appreciative smile at him. He clinked his glass on mine and spilled a little liquor on my new dress. As we took the shot, I remembered what my sister had told me, just to empty my head and open my throat. The awful stuff went down relatively smoothly, and I found myself cough only a little bit. But poor Rob had crossed some pipes and looked as green as the grass. He hurriedly slammed his half-empty glass onto the table and ran off for the boy's room. I had to leap up as his glass tipped over so I wouldn't get anything more on my lap.
"I'm just going to go to the bathroom," I excused myself.
"Don't, Libby, it's your birthday," the chorus chirped. "Let the boys deal with Rob, he'll be ok, don't worry about him."
I smiled as I swayed. They are so committed to their hook-up that even repulsive Rob becomes Mr. Right if I even appear to show interest. But I had to get away from the group if I was going to find mysterious. I could feel the liquor start to burn in my body and I went off to the girls' room.
That's when I saw him again, ducking out the back door. I glanced over my shoulder - Connie and Jenny were distracting all the boys - and followed him into the ally.
"Hi," I spoke.
"Hello," his eyes drifted over me as he lit a cigarette. "Do you smoke?"