Twenty-Three
ESSIE
V aleria links her arm through mine and tugs me close, nearly sending me toppling in my heels. The air is thick with the sound of Saturday, and music pours out of open doors, growing and shrinking as we jog U Street’s damp sidewalks.
Up ahead, Cora is walking with purpose and fury—par for the course for her. Her black boots scuff the concrete until she stops in front of another bar and starts talking to the bouncer.
“I hate this,” Valeria murmurs, drawing me even closer. Despite our heavy coats, we’re not dressed to be outside longer than a few minutes. Frigid air bites at my legs, numbing my exposed skin now that my adrenaline is wearing off. “We should have stayed.”
I glance back. “Shit. They followed us.”
“What?” Valeria demands, whirling around so abruptly that her hair whips me in the face. Her brow knots when she sees them: the three obnoxiously drunk assholes who made us flee the last bar.
It started when we turned down the drinks they sent over and continued when they followed us onto the dance floor. Apparently, they’re not done.
Luckily, Cora says something persuasive to the bouncer (or she made a compelling case for her ability to curse him and everyone he loves), because she’s in—and she waves for us to follow her.
It’s dark, and the pulse of music vibrating off the brick walls would make me think of Dalton if I weren’t already. He used to love when we went to places like this: noisy and anonymous so he could touch me without our friends seeing. I used to let him, welcoming the delicious hum of his tipsy words when he’d dance behind me and whisper into my ear, I’ll make you mine one day , while his hands grazed any skin he could reach.
The ache I’ve been quashing grows bigger. Needier. The look on Dalton’s face when I got out of his car is going to stay with me for a long time. It wasn’t anger—it wasn’t even sadness. It was this indescribable look of nothingness .
I want to text him.
No.
Absolutely not. I told him to go, and I have to bear the consequences of my choices.
I’m completely fine.
While Valeria checks our coats, Cora heads to the bar. I’d join her, but the three shots I did earlier remind me enough of Dalton as it is. I go straight to the dancefloor.
The tight press of bodies is sweltering in stark contrast to the biting winds outside, and my body eases when I’m in the center. Moments later, Valeria joins me. The tension still lives in her brow and the ever-vigilant way she side-eyes anyone in our periphery. I hug her, moving to the beat and trying to bear some of her residual frustration. When her grip loosens, I know she’s calmer.
I pull away, and she’s smiling now—and I wish I could find it in me to do the same.
I want to text him.
No.
But I’m wearing a dress he bought me. It’s skimpy and green and too expensive to be so little, but it does all the right things to my body. Unsurprising. Dalton would never give me a less than perfect gift.
When the song changes, Valeria curls her arms around me again, and this night feels salvageable for the first time. Then Cora is behind me, wrapping her hands around my waist and dragging her palm higher until it…cups my boob?
Alarmed, I spin around to find one of the guys from earlier: a blond wearing a button-down whose smirk cuts through his freckles and his fluffy hair. He’s the tallest one, the one who seemed to choose me at the last bar.
“Back off,” I snap.
“Did he touch you?” Valeria demands behind me.
But he’s laughing at us, staring down his nose and enjoying his considerable height and size, I can tell. His handsome face looks unaccustomed to rejection, and his smile is bright—pretty and tenuous like ice on a spring lake, bound to crack and reveal whatever slinks beneath its surface.
“You can’t even dance with me?” he asks as his hands go to my hips.
I’m completely fine.
The best thing I learned from raising three brothers was to pick my battles. I won’t win this one, so it’s my cue to go.
Without a word, I grab Valeria by the hand and practically drag her behind me, hurrying over to the bar where Cora is waiting.
“We need to leave,” I declare, nearly crashing into her and speaking right into her ear.
“I already called Everett,” Cora confirms. “He and Lander are going to be here in fifteen minutes.”
“You’re an angel,” I mutter, but Cora’s eyes aren’t focused on me. They’re fixed on a spot over my shoulder, and I know exactly what she’s looking at. Sure enough, when I turn around, it’s them again—the blond guy and his two cronies. All three are looking at us.
Minutes later, Cora is tracking Lander and Everett’s location while Valeria and I shiver in our coats. Valeria is doing that thing where she inhales through her nostrils, trying to find a place to put her anger when she can’t punch anything. She’s exceptional at it—her version of I’m completely fine .
But then a big arm loops around me, and I’m so not fucking fine anymore.
“What’s wrong with you?” I blurt out, wrenching the guy’s arm off me.
“Are you mad?” he replies, flashing a half grin I wouldn’t be surprised to see at Hannington-Hale on Monday morning.
“What part of ‘not interested’ do you not understand?” I demand.
“Come on. You can’t blame me for trying. You have to know how pretty you are.” His grin fills his face, extending from one elegant corner to the next, and he reaches for me again. Disgusted, I take an emphatic step back—
—which is impeccably timed. Within seconds of me moving, the asshole goes flying.
“ What the fuck .”
He’s lying on the sidewalk a few feet away, sprawled like he got hit by a semi…
…or a six-foot-five investment banker.
Dalton moves quickly, gripping the guy’s shirt collar and tugging him to his feet purely to punch his face. And my god, is it a fucking punch . The sound is sickening, like an old jack o’ lantern toppling onto the cold pavement.
The guy careens backwards, stumbling against the wall of the bar and clutching his face with both hands while blood seeps through his fingers. Menacing, Dalton stands over him, shaking out his fist.
After a moment, he exhales and faces me. Our eyes meet under the faint glow of the bar’s exterior lights, and his murderous expression eases before he takes a single large step and closes the gap between us.
His hands immediately go to my cheeks, cupping them with warm palms. Beads of sweat dot his forehead, and his chest heaves with an inhalation.
I have no clue where he came from, but I strongly suspect he ran here—to me.
Dalton’s stare breaks from mine and drifts lower. His hands move with it, pushing aside my hair and parting my coat like he’s checking for signs of damage. They still.
“I bought you this,” he states, studying my little green dress.
All I can do is nod.
“I bought you this,” he continues, voice low, “and he—” Dalton cocks his head to the side. “— touched you while you were wearing it .”
I nod again, slower this time. “Dalton—”
His lips push together, and he fills his chest with air. “What did he fucking touch, Essie?”
I glance to the side at the guy already slumped in a pile. He’s trying to quell the bleeding while his two friends crouch uselessly next to him, and when he sees me watching, he spits in my direction.
Bastard .
“My hips, my stomach, and my tit,” I inform Dalton without hesitation.
It’s actually alarming how fast he moves. My coat has barely settled back into place when he gets the guy against the wall and shoves his knee into his stomach.
“Fuck!” the asshole blurts out.
“I’d kill you if we were alone,” Dalton hisses. “And I’d make you apologize, but that would require you to look at her, and you’re never going to do that again.” Dalton shoves him higher against the wall. “Are you ever going to harass and touch another woman? Say no.”
“No,” he manages. “Please—”
Finally, Dalton releases him, and he collapses back onto the sidewalk.
Straightening his spine, Dalton reaches into his back pocket and takes out his wallet. Licking his fingertips, he combs through a stack of cash, counting bills before he faces the two friends. “Don’t press charges,” he orders, holding the cash out.
The friends glance at each other, neither moving to take the money.
“Leave him,” Dalton reiterates, “and don’t let him press charges.” He extends his arm even further.
They cave. A moment later, they’ve left their friend on the sidewalk, where a random passerby is now kneeling by him.
“Shit,” Dalton mutters, patting his pockets. “I’m out of hundreds. What cash app do you use?”
The passerby’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Like, Venmo or…” Dalton waits. “You want a twenty?”
“Dalton,” I hiss.
“Fine, forty,” he offers.
“ Dalton . You came for me,” I call out.
He freezes before he hands the passerby a random assortment of cash and returns to me.
“You came for me,” I repeat, unable to tear my eyes from his handsome face. “Even though I told you I needed space, you still came for me.”
His expression tightens as he bends to look at me. “In what world,” he says, “would I not be the first one here if you needed someone? And yes, I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I am. I’m going to be here for the rest of your life, no matter how much it kills me. And I’ll film with you, and I’ll walk you down the aisle at your wedding—wait, shit . That’s not right. I’m your stepbrother, not your daddy—”
My jaw lowers.
This entire situation is a convoluted, chaotic mess, and this guy is, quite simply, the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met—but he’s my mess and it has never been more clear that I’m his too.
I grab his collar, and yank him down into a kiss.
And kissing Dalton is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. His lips are gentle, but every other part of the kiss is relentless in the right ways. Our mouths crush together, tongues twining amid the warmth of our breath, laced with the taste of lemon and liquor and mint I’ll always associate with Dalton.
“Fuck,” he groans into my mouth like he’s been waiting years for this kiss, and he has—and I have. And in the haziness of finally finding contact with the very mouth I’ve let explore me over the last week, I find an unprecedented feeling of protection, of stability.
Breaking the kiss is brutal, but one of us has to say what comes next. Keeping my mouth near his, I put my hands on his cheeks. “I’m so glad you came for me.”
“I always will,” he responds with a tinge of roughness in his voice. Then, a smirk rises on his lips. Even though he smashed some guy’s face, he’s still very much Dalton Cavendish when he says, “In more ways than one.”
I slap his arm. “You’re such a weirdo,” I say, laughing now.
He kisses me again—and again, and again.
“Take me somewhere,” I request, speaking into his mouth.
“Where?”
“Anywhere you want. I don’t need a plan tonight.”