“Hello ladies.”

Ashley was standing right beside us. 

Surprised as I was by her unexpected appearance, I was even more struck by how she looked. A black mini-dress clung to her body, showing off her curves.  Like mine, her dress had a deep plunging neckline, but hers also had waist cutouts on the side. 

My eyes instinctively wandered along her body, scanning it for some kind of flaw as evidence she was real.  But the search turned up empty. She was perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  I don’t know how long I’d been staring, but when I finally met her eyes I could tell from her smirk that she knew I had been.

“Ok, these four?”  I heard a guy’s voice ask. For the first time, I noticed Ashley was standing next to a man in a suit.

“Yeah, just them,” Ashley replied.

The guy lifted up the rope for us to duck under and we followed him and Ashley inside the club.  I trailed in the back still somewhat stunned by what was going on.  Ashley had never said she was coming to the club. 

Everyone in the club stared and whispered as the guy led us to a couch in the back of the. 

“Here you go, Miss Davies,” he said, taking her hand to help her into her seat.  The rest of us were left to seat ourselves.  “Would you like to open a tab?”

“Yeah, can I have a Pomegranate Martini?” she asked, slipping him her credit card. “Do you guys want anything? Drinks are on me tonight”

Everyone shouted out their drink choices: Rebecca a Cranberry and Vodka, Cindy an Amaretto Sour, Karen a Mojito.  But when it got to be my turn, I just stared blankly at the guy.

 “Um …a whiskey?”  I said. Everyone threw me a surprised look.

“What kind of whiskey?”  he asked.  Again, I just gave him a blank stare.

“Wait,” Cindy told the guy who was now impatiently tapping his pen on an order pad. “Are you sure you want that, Spence?”

“Um…” Maybe I should just tell them I’d never had alcohol in my life and didn’t even know the options. But I didn’t want to look as lame as I was.  It would’ve been easier if I’d just copied someone else’s drink order.