Page 45 of Hollywood Undercover
She unconsciously leaned her head on his shoulder. He cleared his throat and stepped away. She got the picture, and took a huge step further away. Sebastian was sure she didn’t want the guys questioning the nature of their ‘friendship’. He sure didn’t. He wouldn’t hear the end of it. Things would get crazy awkward in no timeflat.
He took a seat at a free table, and Alexandra sat across fromhim.
“Aren’t you glad you came out?” he asked, laughing as he said it. He had to get her to relax, or tonight was really going to be hell forher.
She shrugged, taking the first sip of her Scotch and soda. The minute the acrid liquor hit her tongue, she grimaced. It was comical. She may have been seconds from spitting it out, but managed to get itdown.
He took the drink away from her. “I can sneak you a Cosmo without anyone being the wiser,” he whispered, happy to keep up her conspiracy. It was entertaining ashell.
“God that was the nastiest shit I’ve evertasted!”
“It puts hair on your chest,” he told her, and jokingly added, “Looks like you could use afew.”
“I have enough,” she sputtered, clutching her chest. “I mean, I get waxed. You know? For theladies.”
“Yeah? I’ve never tried it. What’s itlike?”
“Painful, but worthit.”
He shook his head. Just then, the hostess stepped up to a podium near the back of the restaurant. She tapped on the microphone and smiled vibrantly at theaudience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get the festivities started. Thanks for coming out to ‘Speed Date Night.’ I need all of our speed daters to make their way over, so we can set the clock and start meeting each other.” She motioned to the row of tables located in front of thepodium.
Although the restaurant and bar was full of people, apparently only about thirty of them were signed up for the speed dating. He and Alexandra made their way over to the tables. Rod and Nate rejoined them and the rest of the hapless people here for theevent.
“I’ve never been to anything like this before,” Alexandraconfessed.
“None of us have, dude,” Nate whispered with a big grin. “Rough, rugged guys like Nate and me, and pretty boys like you don’t need speed dating to pick up chicks. It’s boring, set-in-their-ways, train-set-building bachelors like Bash here who need all the help they canget.”
He took the ribbing, and joined in the laughter. After all, he was here to spend time with Alexandra, even if she didn’t knowit.
“Alright, folks, let’s talk about how this works,” the hostess said. “We’ve got an equal number of men and women signed up tonight. Now ladies, you will each sit at a table. Ladies, you won’t move. Men, when I ring the bell for the first time, each of you will sit at a table and introduce yourself to the woman at that table. When the bell rings again, it means your five minutes are up, and you’ll move to the table to your left. The bell will ring fifteen times, men. You’ll get to meet every one of these fine ladies heretonight.”
She continued with some obvious ground rules—at least it was obvious to Sebastian. Things like no groping, no lewd comments, no future stalking, and basic common courtesy. She wrapped up with, “Everybodyready?”
Nate, Rod, Alexandra and Sebastian stood with the rest of the men to take the plunge. The first bell chimed, and they were off to theraces.
As Sebastian took a seat in front of a gorgeous brunette, Alexandra nervously stumbled into the chair next to him. She was sitting across from a striking blonde. Alexandra stared down at the table the minute she sat down. Sebastian focused on his speeddate.
No sense seeming way too interested in the ‘guy’ I camewith.
“Hey.” He reached across the table to shake her hand. “What’s yourname?”
“Brittany,” the woman answered pointing to her name tag. “And, you would be Bash, right? Wow, I didn’t expect the guys here to be as hot as you. It must be my luckynight!”
Alexandra’s date cleared her throat for the second time before Alexandra said something. “Uh, heythere…”
“Hello,” the blonde purred. “I’mAmy.”
“Nice to meet you,” she answered. “I’mAlex.”
She looked over at Sebastian andshrugged.
“Ask her about herself,” he told her out of the corner of hismouth.
“Uh, what do you do for a living,Amy?”
Sebastian gave Alexandra pointers throughout the five-minute date. It gave him little time to talk directly to Brittany, but that wasn’t much of a problem. Brittany enjoyed her opportunity to monologue through the time. Sebastian managed just fine with “oh, really?” and “that sounds good” while he coached Alexandra through her speeddate.
