Gigi was slightly nervous when she stepped into the City Supper Club. She'd been thinking about this moment all day, which had been a full workday-more as comforter-in-chief to her sister Janine, who was going through a divorce, than anything else, like nutmeg advertisements. She'd listened to Janine's horrible expressions of guilt and anger and loneliness and emptiness and rage and everything else, while suppressing her own anxieties about taking her own relationship to the next level. She had only been dating Alex for a little less than two weeks. True, they had slept together; that was just impossible to delay. That night he came knocking on her door, with his copycat fake excuse of returning a promotional pen, they couldn't stop once they had started. Kissing quickly turned to touching….everywhere! Kissing, touching, nibbling, fondling, penetrating…. Shaking her head and shuddering from the reminiscences, Gigi opened her eyes and suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. A bombshell blonde with perfect teeth and perky cleavage was looking at her with a knowing grin. "Gigi!" The woman approached her familiarly and hugged her.
Shocked, Gigi pulled back, torn between her instinct for being friendly and her slight feeling of this-is-creepy-why-is-this-strange-woman-touching-me? "Hi," she said hesitantly. "Do we know each other?"
The woman laughed. "Kind of! We've seen each other, but you probably don't remember, and I only know of you, from Alex. I'm Kelli Ann. I work here. I'm the hostess."
Gigi didn't remember interacting with Kelli Ann on the very night she had met Alex, when she had staged a "casual run-in [with Conner Barry] at the City Supper Club." She had been too distracted that night to notice, let alone remember, the faces of random City Supper Club employees-or really anyone whose name wasn't Conner Barry.
"Anyway," Kelli Ann spoke up, interrupting Gigi's failed attempts to match her face with past encounters. "I'll never forget you and Alex that first night. I can't help noticing what goes on in this bar. It's my job to observe the customers. You and Alex were so intently talking to each other. He never took his eyes off you. You must have talked for hours. You were still talking as we closed up the place."
Gigi let out her characteristic nervous laugh. "I learned a lot that night!"
Kelli Ann lowered her head briefly to hide the fact that her eyes rolled slightly. She wasn't mocking Gigi. She was mocking herself-her own past thoughts about that night. At the time, Kelli Ann had assumed that Gigi was Alex's latest conquest, or the next round of Petroleum-fueled fun. The heterosexual female in Kelli Ann was even now a tad-bit jealous of Gigi for doing the impossible-nailing down the ungettable guy. Alex and Kelli Ann had a one-night-stand ("amazing where ten shots of Petroleum will get ya".) To Alex, Kelli Ann was just another catch, not even as enticing as Lauren Bell, whose "ass looks really huge in daylight." But Gigi…. Gigi won the heart of the guy of called 15 Lauren Bells until he got the right Lauren Bell. Gigi apparently had none of the physical flaws of a Lauren Bell. Gigi's cute, embarrassed laughter were nothing like Kelli Ann's sly attempts to reignite intimacy between her and Alex.
This is amazing. You can't focus. Right? Jumping every time your phone rings. Checking your e-mail a hundred times a day. Wishing you could write songs.
Welcome to my world, asshole.
Sufficiently refocused on the present, Kelli Ann lifted her eyes to face Gigi again with a radiant smile. "You made Alex go from Wickham to Darcy practically overnight. I'm guessing you weren't the only one learning a lot that night."
Gigi was amused at the Jane Austen reference. "Wickham? Do you really think Alex was ever comparable to Wickham?"
Kelli Ann shrugged, making a questionable face. "I don't know. I might have my Regency literary references a little mixed up. My point being that Alex is crazy about you and all of us who work here are just tripping over the fact that he's, like, a completely different person."
Embarrassment overload. Gigi cursed herself for the heated feeling that was rising in her cheeks, which she couldn't stop. Kelli Ann perceived it immediately.
"Come on," she said, taking Gigi's hand and leading her through the club.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere good. Don't worry. Trust me?"
"Well, I don't know you very well, but…. Yeah." For some reason, Gigi did trust Kelli Ann.