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a …”
    “Perfect example of someone you’d meet in hell?” suggested Ted. “Maybe even the bloke who’d be in charge of the entertainments?”
    “Where did you spring from?” I demanded. “Did you
see
all that?”
    “I caught the last bit.” Jo squirmed.
    “Then why didn’t you stop him?” I started to ask, but she’d gone over to the stereo and was starting to whip everyone into joining her doing the “Single Ladies” dance. We’d spent many happy hours dissecting that routine, although only Jo could do it in high heels.
    From the way she was geeing everyone along, I assumed Marigold
hadn’t
left the gas on downstairs.
    “What’s up with her?” I asked Ted, as Jo did the flippy hand action with surprising attitude for a history of art graduate. “Did she invite him? Does she know him?”
    “Rolf? Oh yeah. I think there’s some history there,” he yelled.
    My eyes popped. “Rolf? And Jo?”
    I couldn’t hear what else Ted said, but his face was really saying it all. He was trying to make his face nonchalant, but failing as only a man allergic to emotional conversations can.
    I would have hung around and been more sympathetic, but unfortunately for Ted, at that point I realized that Rolf’s very handsome blond mate hadn’t left the party but was trying to catch my eye over his shoulder.
    *
    I t took all my concentration to walk over to him without treading on any guests or bowls of olives. By the time I finally made it to where he was standing by the door, my mind was completely blank apart from the word
gorgeous
. Because he was. Absolutely gorgeous.
    Just say hi. Hi is fine. Hello, even.
    Then he smiled at me, a quirky twitch of the lips, accompanied by an apologetic frown, and I lost even
gorgeous
in a sea of white noise.
    He looked like most of the men Jo invited to her parties—white shirt open at the neck, dark blue jeans, thick blond hair cut in a tously style—but there was an extra sharpness about him, as if he were just a bit more in focus than everyone else. And he was still smiling as though we already knew each other.
    “I didn’t want to go without apologizing,” he shouted in my ear over the sound of wine and crisps being ground rhythmically into our carpet. His breath was warm against my neck, and I felt all the tiny hairs spring to attention. “Don’t worry, Rolf is in a car speeding far, far from your flat.”
    I leaned into his ear and yelled, “Not in the driver’s seat, I hope.”
    Not bad. Where did that come from?
    He laughed, showing square white teeth, and leaned toward my ear again. “I wanted to check that he hadn’t damaged anything on your balcony. If he did, obviously he’s going to want to replace it.”
    I arched my eyebrow. “He is? Or you are?”
    “I am,” he said. “And he’s going to pay me back.”
    I felt the same fluttery excitement that I’d had the first time I’d driven to college on my own after passing my test: as if everything were rushing toward me and I was reacting second by second, not knowing where my reactions were coming from.
    We’d moved closer together as two guests (under)dressed as Botticelli cherubs tried to leave, and now we were nearly nose to nose. He had a straight nose with a few freckles scattered across the bridge, and I had to fight the impulse to tell him how glad I was to meet a fellow freckler. Either Jo’s blue cocktail was kicking in or there really was something in all that claptrap about certain people just being easy to talk to.
    “Shall we have a look?” he suggested.
    “At what?” I squeaked.
    “The damage to the balcony?”
    I nodded dumbly and turned to the window.
    He followed me across the room, and we had to swerve to avoid being whacked in the head by Jo and her line of would-be backup dancers.
    “How do you girls learn that?” he asked, touching my arm to direct my attention to where Jo was strutting in perfect unison with four other girls.
    “It’s just that one dance,” I