The Chemistry of Love(14)

“Thank you! This will only take a moment. Since both of our families are here, and the employees of this company are like my second family, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’ve asked Leighton to be my wife and she said yes!”

The whole room broke into applause and cheers, but I just stood there.

Craig was engaged.

Engaged.

The waitress from earlier walked by with an entire bottle of champagne. “Can I have that?” I asked her.

She handed it to me sympathetically, but I made my way through the ballroom doors and looked for the closest bathroom. I went in and collapsed against the far wall, sliding down to the floor. I took a big swig of alcohol.

Craig was engaged. I was too late. I was also pathetic and very, very ridiculous in this stupid costume. I had really thought he’d see me and swoon. That we’d get our happily ever after.

Then the tears started, and the mascara Catalina had made was most definitely not waterproof. Not tearproof, anyway. Although she probably hadn’t anticipated somebody trying to cry out all of their internal fluids through their eyeballs. I’d have to tell her to increase the amount of dimethicone copolyol to make it more moisture resistant tomorrow when I—

I wasn’t going to see Catalina tomorrow.

Taking off my glasses and putting them in my lap, I drank and cried, drank and cried, until I was very thoroughly wasted.

Which was another thing to add to the list of stupid things I’d done today, because I didn’t know how I was going to get home. I couldn’t exactly call an Uber given my lack of funds. I tried to call Catalina, but my phone wasn’t working properly, and I couldn’t dial her number. My grandparents were out of the question.

The bathroom door swung open, and I heard a man’s voice say, “Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” I cried. That seemed like a dumb question.

There was a pause. I couldn’t really see him because the dripping mascara was blurring my vision. That and I was not wearing my glasses.

“Are you aware of the fact that you’re in the men’s bathroom?” he asked.

“I’m in the men’s bathroom?”

“The urinals didn’t tip you off?”

I hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than the fact that the love of my life was about to marry someone else. “I didn’t see them. I’m very drunk!” I protested.

“I can see that. One too many?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “One or a whole bottle too many.”

He didn’t respond right away and then asked, “Do you want me to go and protect the door?”

Trying to blink, I asked, “Why does the door need protection?”

Another pause. “I mean, I could stand outside and keep people out. So you can . . . cry in peace.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” I said and realized that it was true. I usually preferred being solitary, but right now it wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t call Catalina, since my fingers weren’t working and because there would be so many I told you sos all over the place, and my grandma would tell me how disappointed she was and that I had to stop living my life for a man, which wasn’t even what I was doing. My grandpa would tell me to pet Meryl Cheep until I felt better, but that wouldn’t help.

“That’s . . . a lot,” the man said, and I realized I’d said everything out loud instead of in my head, like I’d intended.

“Yes, it is a lot. I’m a mess. I just want to tell someone about it who won’t judge me or him.”

Another pause. “I’ve heard it’s easier to talk to strangers. You could tell me.”

“Pull up a gross floor tile,” I said, patting the ground next to me. I lifted my hand back up as I registered how disgusting this was. I was going to have to burn this dress and sterilize my skin when I got home.

Instead of sitting next to me, he went into a stall. A moment later, toilet paper was being pushed against my hand. I was a mess of snot and mascara and tears. I blew my nose several times and then used some dry toilet paper to wipe the mascara off my eyes. I probably looked ridiculously bad.

He sat down on the floor next to me, and I noticed that he smelled . . . good.

And it suddenly occurred to me to care about who he was. I hoped he was a kindly old grandpa. As I continued to wipe my mascara off, I internally chanted, Please be a sixty-year-old man. Please be a sixty-year-old man.

I blinked a couple of times and then put my glasses back on. It took a second for my eyes to focus. He was not a sixty-year-old man. He was young and hot and very broad and all of this was bad.

“Why is your face so symmetrical?” I whined. He had dark hair, and I couldn’t tell if it was a dark brown or black. High cheekbones, a jaw I could cut hardened silicone with, and dark eyes.

“I’m sorry?” he said, sounding bewildered.

“Symmetrical?” I repeated, as if he hadn’t heard me. “Don’t people tell you that?”

“Oh, you said symmetrical. Yes, I get that all the time,” he said in a teasing tone.

“Really?”

“No.”

I let out a sound of disbelief. “You should. Everyone you meet should tell you that. You’re annoyingly handsome.” Even though I was highly inebriated, I could tell that he was a perfect male specimen. Then I realized that I might have been influenced by that inebriation and maybe in regular life he was far less attractive. I had a hard time believing it, though. “You’re hot in a you-should-be-studied-in-a-lab sort of way. Maybe they could make little clones of you. A whole platoon.”