fun. When a song she loved drove through the speakers of the club’s sound system, she stood quickly. A little too quickly, as evidenced by her slight wobble. She grabbed Abby’s hand.
“Come on, we’re dancing!”
Abby’s mouth dropped in surprise and she squealed with glee. “It’s about time, Maya. I love the new you.”
At that moment Maya did, as well. The music pumped, as did her body to the beat. She focused on nothing else but how she felt at that moment. She dismissed all thoughts of her upcoming final exams and her 9 a.m. class, and she allowed Abby to pull her into the center of the dance floor. But neither her mind nor her body could forget the handsome stranger. In an attempt to shake his image from her mind and the feel of his lips burning on her own, she danced harder. But it was no use; he wouldn’t leave her. Perhaps instead of just kissing him, she should have talked to him, asked him his name, gotten his number.
Maya stopped dancing, however, when some movement caught her eye. It was him, and he was standing on a staircase which overlooked the dance floor. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest. And she was transfixed when he raised his hand to scrub along the rough bristles of his jaw, before dragging it through his dark hair.
It would have been her chance—to go up and talk to him. If only she had time to cross through the packed dance floor to get to him. She felt a sharp pang of remorse when he turned and walked up the dark staircase, forever relegating himself to her memory as the handsome stranger. She shook her head at the events of the evening. It was fun, but it was definitely over.
THE NEXT MORNING Maya awoke with the worst hangover of her life—not that she had many in her life to compare it to—but this was definitely the worst! She groaned at the buzzing alarm on her cell phone and, with her eyes tightly shut, felt around her night table for it. When she couldn’t manage to turn it off with her eyes still closed, she threw it into the pile of dirty clothes in the corner of her room. But much to her chagrin, doing so did nothing to silence the dreadful racket, and she pulled her comforter over her head.
Once Maya managed to roll out of her bed, she pulled on a tank top and a pair of shorts. She padded barefoot to the kitchen, where she found Abby sitting at the narrow breakfast bar, with her head on the table—thankfully she had managed to make some coffee.
“Can we just skip class today?” Abby pleaded, obviously not faring any better than Maya. “Also, can we just skip today, in general? And don’t answer too loudly. Please.”
Maya poured herself a cup of coffee and sighed. “I wish we could do both of those things, but you know Carmichael is gonna test us somehow on the guest lecturer.”
“Why is he so evil?” Abby whined.
“Because he’s tenured.” Maya laughed quietly. “Also he’s a very sweet old man and not at all evil, and you know it. And he didn’t make us stay out last night until 3 a.m.” She closed her eyes and groaned. God, 3 a.m. It had been years since Maya had even thought about staying up that late. She brought the mug to her lips, holding back a slight wave of nausea as she sipped her black coffee.
“Don’t remind me,” Abby groaned. “Oh, man, we were out so late. I don’t even want to know how much I owe you for all those drinks.”
Maya opened her mouth, but the words stopped as a thought struck her. “Huh. Actually, I just remembered something. I didn’t pay anything for them. When I went to settle my tab, the bartender told me it was taken care of.”
“Really? Taken care of?” Abby raised her head. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know who, but someone paid for our drinks. I didn’t think about it too much because I was so drunk.” She pursed her lips in question. “Who would do that?”
“I have no idea,” Abby replied, raising her eyes to meet Maya’s. “Unless it was that man you sucked face with.” She grinned. “Wait. That wasn’t grammatically correct, was it? Uh, how about ‘the man with whom you sucked face’?”
Maya’s mouth dropped. “What? No. That’s not possible. Why would he do that? Why would he pay for all of those drinks? It couldn’t have been cheap.”
“Well, I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the gorgeous, exotic creature who walked up to him and shoved her tongue down his throat,” Abby surmised. “Maybe he thought you would find him again, to properly thank him for taking care of your tab. You said he seemed friendly with the bartender.”
Maya rolled her eyes, grimacing at the resulting headache. She would have to remind herself not to move her eyes for the rest of the day. “He thought I would repay him? That’s just gross.” She took a gulp of coffee, finished it and placed her empty mug in the sink. “And please, don’t remind me about that whole kissing-a-stranger thing,” Maya pleaded, glancing at the time. “And, to make this morning even better, we’re going to be late for class. I call first shower.”
* * *
CLASS HAD ALREADY started when Maya and Abby arrived, sunglasses on and heads pounding. They opened the closed door as inconspicuously as they could, to avoid attracting too much attention. They drew the eyes of the twenty-six other students in the class as well as Dr. Carmichael, who cast a disapproving glance in their direction.
They muttered their apologies, and Maya scanned the room. Abby’s plan to nap in the back was thwarted because the back rows of the small lecture hall were already occupied, and they were forced to sit at the very center of the front row.
They took their seats and Dr. Carmichael resumed his introduction of the guest lecturer. “Now that you’re all here,” he said, glancing at Maya and Abby. “Ladies and gentlemen, I know that your time here is drawing to a close and you’re all busy studying for finals, but today I invited someone to come in and talk to you, perhaps to inspire you on your paths in business and in the hospitality industry. The remarkable young man you are about to meet has done so much since he was my student, including becoming one of the most successful businessmen in his industry as a, how do the papers put it, nightclub mogul?” The professor laughed to himself. “Students, please welcome the owner of Swerve nightclubs, Jamie Sellers.”
The professor got Maya’s attention at his mention of Swerve Nightclub, and her eyes sharpened. But her mouth completely dropped when she actually got a good look at the man walking into her classroom. Jamie Sellers. The man she had kissed the night before. The owner of the damn club. The man who had paid for their many, many drinks and, if it was possible, looked even more gorgeous than he had the night before. Maya cast a quick look at Abby, whose eyes were as wide in shock as Maya’s, and she silently hyperventilated in her seat. In an act of desperation, she took a look under her desk. Is there enough room to crawl under there and die?
Maya watched Jamie’s acute eyes survey the class until they settled on her, sitting front-row center. Their eyes connected and she nearly trembled under his scrutiny. How could she be expected to sit still for fifty minutes with him in front of her? Mortification and sudden desire made her flush and she could feel her temperature rise.
Their eyes held for a beat too long, and Maya held her breath. She was relieved when his gaze roamed elsewhere. He cleared his throat. “Hey, guys. I don’t normally do things like this, but when Dr. Carmichael asked me to come in, how could I say no?” He cast an affectionate glance toward the professor. “Because I don’t believe that I would be the person I am today if not for him and his intervention.
“You see, I wasn’t always a ‘nightclub mogul.’” Jamie smiled and made air quotes around the phrase with his fingers. “I was a punk kid, my parents were never around and I just barely graduated from high school. I got into trouble quite frequently. But I met Dr. Carmichael one night while I was working as a busboy.” Jamie briefly described his history with Dr. Carmichael, and Maya admired how far Jamie had come in such a short amount of time. “He showed me that if you have a passion for something, no matter what’s standing in