Finally, the hall ended at a row of elevators that looked somehow even older than the building. I followed Alex into the only one available—I wasn’t sure if that was because the half dozen others were in use or because they were busted—and once I’d closed the metal screen door, Alex punched the B on the panel and the elevator jerked into motion.
“Hang on, Cowboy. We’re not in Montana anymore.”
Yep. Wherever we were, Montana felt like it was on the opposite side of the world.
The elevator screeched and jolted down for a couple more minutes. The music droned louder, and the air got heavier. Everything said that club was a place to run from, not run to, yet I was smiling. I was getting closer to Rowen. When the elevator jerked to a stop, Alex threw open the metal door, and I got a good look at the Underground. I realized that would be one of those times when I had to walk through hell to get to heaven.
“This is the place,” Alex shouted above music blasting to the point I half-expected to see blood trickling from people’s ears. I gave her a curious look. “Where the rabbit hole winds up taking you.” She waved around the room. “You’ve arrived.”
Because it felt wrong to scream at a woman, and a scream was the only way for her to hear me, I chose to flash her a thumbs-up instead. She rolled her eyes at my fake enthusiasm, grabbed my elbow, and steered us through the crowd. The Underground was . . . well, it was like nowhere I’d ever been before. Rowen had taken me to some funky, word-of-mouth places around Seattle, but nothing like that. I’d certainly never been to a place like it back in Montana. A big night out in Montana included a big barn, a rented dance floor, and a local country band.
The Underground was huge, probably the size of a couple of football fields put together. As big as it was, it still felt small since there was basically standing room only. There were thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people bouncing to the music, swaying into the person next to them, moving like waves on the ocean. As if the mass of people and the volume of the music wasn’t overwhelming enough, strobe lights went off around the entire room. It was different from anywhere I’d ever been, but the verdict was still out if it was a good or bad different.
“Pick your poison!” Alex called over to me once we’d worked our way to one of the bars. The music wasn’t blasting quite as loudly there, but I still felt my brain vibrating against my skull.
“I’m only twenty.” I leaned closer to Alex so I wouldn’t have to shout. She gave me a So? look. “And I don’t have a fake I.D.”
One more So?. That one was more pronounced. After a few moments, she rolled her eyes. The way Alex had mastered the eye roll led me to the conclusion she thought humanity was clueless. Apparently she believed I was. “This isn’t the kind of place that checks I.D.s.” Indicating at the bartender who’d just meandered up to us, she winked up at him. “We’ve got an Underground first timer on our hands here.”
The bartender’s eyes sparkled as he turned his attention on me. A smile I wasn’t used to having directed at me from a guy slowly moved into position. “He’s getting his Underground cherry popped tonight, and I get the honor of serving him his first drink?” He flashed me a wink that made me guess he was more into my kind of equipment than Alex’s.
Alex nodded and shoved my arm. “He might be now, but this guy’s not leaving here a virgin.”
I thanked her with a tight smile.
“Well, paint me Judy Garland and slap on some ruby red slippers because, honey, I’ve just landed myself in Oz,” the bartender said with a wave.
I was just working through my options in the reply department—I was coming up on empty—when every nerve shot to attention. I’d been growing accustomed to that sensation, and it could only mean one thing.
Rowen was close by.
“You okay on your own for a while?” I asked Alex, who was ordering her drink.
She narrowed her eyes like my question was insulting. “Yeah, I think I can hold my own against Dorothy here.” The bartender who shot me another wink when I glanced at him.
I certainly didn’t need to worry about him taking advantage of Alex if I left the two of them alone. Me, on the other hand . . . Backing into the crowd, I waved at both of them. Their parting words?
“Hurry back.”
“Away with you.”
Spinning around, I wove through the mass of bodies, getting closer to Rowen with every step. I couldn’t see her, but I didn’t need to. The feeling inside of me told me all I needed to know. It wasn’t like an invisible rope where when she pulled, I came, or when I pulled, she came. It was more like . . . a magnetism. The closer we were, the stronger the attraction became.
I followed that attraction to the other side of the club where a smaller room was separated from the rest of the place by a pair of sheer red curtains. That room was far better lit than the main room and nowhere near as packed. A few dozen people wandered around, inspecting some familiar and some not-so-familiar paintings and drawings.
That was when I saw her. She was standing in front of one of the paintings I hadn’t seen yet talking to a middle-aged couple who was inspecting the piece like they were envisioning it above their fireplace. Rowen looked . . . well, she still made my heart hammer like she did when I first starting falling hard for her last summer. Falling like I couldn’t even stop it if I wanted to.
She was in a black and silver beaded dress, the one she’d found at an antique store on Queen Mary Hill last month when I’d been over. She’d glommed onto that dress like it was a homing beacon. After admiring it for a while, she announced she was confident she must have owned the dress in a former life—apparently she’d been a flapper in the ‘20s—and that she had to buy it. Then she checked the price tag, frowned, and put it back. We walked out of the antique store without the dress, and Rowen headed for the nearest cafe to drown her sorrows in a cappuccino and a croissant. I’d excused myself to go to the restroom, returned ten minutes later to find her picking at a second croissant, and set the dress in her lap.