Chapter 8 #3
They drifted in slow circles, surrounded by the thrum of the bar and the blurred shapes of the other dancers.
Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love,” which was maybe too on the nose, played loudly through the speakers.
Want was a physical thing, a pulse coursing through him, and he knew she had to be feeling it too.
It was too strong for her not to. He squeezed her gently, and she responded by nuzzling into him and sighing again like she could fall asleep standing up.
Then she looked up at him. “Do you have any idea how good it feels not to wear heels anymore?”
Right. She was talking about her heels, not him. Everything he was feeling, imagining she was, was in his head.
“Yeah.” He made sure to mask his feelings. “Remember the shift I did at Hamburger Mary’s?”
Hamburger Mary’s was a diner that was known for nightly drag shows and drag brunch. His best friend Cam worked there junior and senior years. Liam spent a lot of time doing his homework while he waited for Cam to get off of his shift. They had amazing chicken strips.
“That’s right.” She slapped his chest. Hard.
Now he knew why Frat Boy had doubled over. He wasn’t being dramatic. She was a beast.
“You made such a pretty girl.” She touched his face.
“Thanks.”
Her face scrunched in the most adorable way. “Why did you do that again?”
“Because Cam was coming out to his parents.”
“Oh yeah.” She slapped his chest again, and he actually winced.
“Cause he worked there, and his dad was always saying, ‘You should be more like Liam, Liam is so smart,’ and Liam is so this and Liam is so that,” she said in a deep voice before poking him in the chest. “So you went to the management and asked if you could do the shift that he was going to be there with his parents and come out for moral support, and they said yes, and you surprised him by being their server. I would have loved to see the look on his dad’s face! ”
“It wasn’t good.” His dad got pissed and stormed out. But his mom stayed, and they still had a good relationship.
“How is Cam?” she asked. “I always liked him.”
He loved that she wanted to know how he was. She wasn’t just making small talk. She’d always had the best heart.
“Good. He’s in Florida. He and his husband work with endangered wildlife.”
“That’s nice.” She sighed and laid her head back on his chest as the song was ending. “What a nice life.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Liam started to walk off the floor, with her feet still on his, when the next song started and she gasped loudly.
“No, we can’t. It’s Daylight!”
He looked down at her. “Daylight?”
“Taylor Swift! Daylight!”
One more song might kill him, but if that’s what it took to put a smile on her face, then so be it. “Just one.”
Huge brown eyes stared up at him as she made a cross sign over the left side of her chest. “I promise.”
“Fine.”
Her face split into a wide smile, that caused his heart to split open even wider.
They began to sway again as the lyrics in the song spoke of love being as cruel as the cities she’d lived in, lines she’d crossed and not been forgiven, and that she’d tell the truth but never goodbye, and he realized this song might be as on the nose as Sam Cooke’s.
With each second they remained on the dance floor, Frankie’s breathing was becoming more and more labored.
He felt her heart beating through her back against his palm.
He could feel himself getting a little too swept up in the moment, physically, and needed to think of anything other than her breaths, her body pressed against him, and how good this felt.
“It’s in the center,” he said, his voice rough.
She tilted her head back, her eyes peering up at him through several pieces of hair that had fallen on her face. “What?”
He brushed the stray strands off her forehead and tucked them behind her ear as he told her, “You crossed over the left side of your chest, your heart is in the middle.”
“Oh.” She kept staring into his eyes as her breathing continued to come in shallow gasps.
Liam let his hands roam just a little lower, his thumbs began to trace circles on her back, marveling at how right it felt even if it was completely, totally wrong.
He tried to picture what would happen if he just scooped her up and carried her out of there, back to his place, back to anywhere they could be alone, away from the noise, and they could lose themselves in the memories.
But even in his fantasy, he knew she deserved better than a rerun of an old heartbreak.
Still, as he stared down at her he wanted to taste her, just once. Just to see if she still felt like home.
“This is a good song,” he managed to get out over the lump of emotion clogging his throat.
“It reminds me of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Have you seen it?”
He’d heard his fourteen year old niece Zoya talk about it and some of the staff at the hospital talking about it. He remembered them saying their kids watched it, and then they got hooked.
“Is that the show where people are either Team Jeremiah or Team Conrad?”
She nodded, her eyes wide as she sucked in a sharp breath. She seemed surprised that he knew what she was talking about.
“No, I haven’t. I thought it was a show for kids or teenagers?”
“No!” She shook her head. “You’re an ageist!”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are! That’s ageism!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” she maintained angrily.
“Being under the impression that a show is for a certain demographic is not ageism.”
She considered his response, then sighed with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “Ugh, fine, it’s not.”
The corners of his lips twitched. Frankie would always admit when she was wrong, even if she’d made a big deal about something. She would always listen to reason, he loved that about her.
Her eyes narrowed as she slurred, “Don’t get that smug smile on your face.”
“I’m not being smug, you’re just…” He stopped himself from saying cute.
He couldn’t say she was cute. She was engaged to his brother. In fact, he shouldn’t even be dancing with her.
“Whatever, well, I really relate to the show.”
“Do you?” He had no clue what it was about.
“Yep.” She popped the P loudly. “You know what they say, life imitates art, well, it’s like they read my diary.”
“Is it?” he asked as the song ended. “Okay, well, we need to go.”
She dropped her arms to her sides, her heels dangling precariously off of her fore and middle fingers on her left hand. “Fine.”
“Are you going to put your shoes on?”
“Sure.” She nodded, her head hanging down. Then she looked up at him. “When pigs fly!”
Okay, she was in that sort of mood. He scooped her up, carrying her like a groom would on his wedding night over the threshold. The way Tristan would be carrying her. He needed to remember that.
“What are you doing?!” she squealed as her arms flew around his neck.
“You’re not walking on this floor with bare feet.”
To his surprise, she didn’t protest, or kick, or fight. In fact, it was quite the opposite. On the way out of the bar, she relaxed into him. Her head rested on his shoulder, and she snuggled into the crook of his neck.
When they got outside, into the quiet of the night, he heard her audibly inhale. Her nose and lips grazed his neck as she whispered against his skin, “Mmm, you smell like you.”
“Thanks.” He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.
He did know that feeling her in his arms, feeling her lips against his neck, was sending messages to other parts of his body that they should not be sending.
Between the dance and her neck whispers, his jeans were growing tighter by the second.
He was doing everything he could to get himself under control, even picturing her walking down the aisle to his brother.
By the time he got her to his SUV, she was softly snoring. He gently put her inside and pulled the seatbelt across her body, clicking it in place as quietly as possible.
He was still leaning across her body when her eyes fluttered open and a soft smile appeared on her face. “Hi,” she breathed.
“Hi.” He smiled, he couldn’t help it.
She lifted her hand and placed it on his cheek.
Her forefinger traced his eyebrow, then his nose, then his lips.
He closed his eyes. His heart was pounding a thousand miles a minute, and his breaths were coming in short pants as he screamed at himself to move, to get out of the passenger side of the car, shut the door, and drive her home.
As that thought was being shouted in his head, she must have leaned forward because the next thing he felt was her lips touching his. He immediately pulled back, knowing that she must think that he was Tristan. They didn’t look alike, per se, but they did have the same coloring.
“Fine, don’t kiss me then, party pooper,” she slurred as her head fell to the side, and within a second, she was snoring softly once again.
The drive to her grandma’s house was short.
He knew where she lived because he’d looked up the address after Frankie left the offices the day before to find out how close it was to make sure she’d be safe walking home.
When he pulled up in front of the house, he saw, through the front window, that the TV was on and Yaya was sitting in her recliner watching it.
Or he thought she was. When he got to the screen door, he realized that, like her granddaughter, she was also fast asleep.
After taking Frankie to the room where some of her things were and making sure she was in the recovery position, he went to the kitchen.
He filled a glass of water after turning off not one but two burners that had been left on.
He also grabbed a sleeve of crackers and a pain reliever for her impending headache he knew she’d be waking up with.
He dropped them off on Frankie’s nightstand, and on his way out of the house, he placed a throw blanket on Yaya, said hi to the cat snuggled on the couch beside her, shut the curtains, and turned the bottom lock from the inside before closing the front door, making sure it was secure before he left.
He didn’t like that Yaya had fallen asleep in her house with her screen door open like that, she’d been totally vulnerable.
He was also concerned that two burners had been left on.
He’d only met her a few times when he was a kid, but he knew how much she meant to Frankie and to Cora, Frankie’s mom, who had been like a second mom to him.
Even if she wasn’t, he didn’t like the idea of any woman on her own at that age, having no protection or lines of defense.
He might not be able to do anything about his Frankie situation, but that—that was something he could fix.