Chapter Seventeen
Present Day
I woke early the next morning. Theo was still asleep and probably hungover judging by how slurred his words were only a few hours ago. It was okay really, because I didn’t want to talk to him right now anyway.
I showered and dressed in a flowy black summer dress and then sent Sloane a message to pick me up on her way out to do errands. We had dance lessons at 11am today, so spending the morning with her just made sense.
I was in the hotel lobby when she pulled up, her black SUV idling by the curb. I climbed in before she could ask why I wasn’t waiting in the room.
“Morning!” She sang, way too cheerful for 8am. “You’re up early.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” I buckled my seatbelt, staring straight ahead.
“Everything okay?” Her voice shifted, the cheerfulness dimming. She knew me too well.
“Yeah. Just wanted to get out for a bit.”
She didn’t push. Not yet. Instead, she drove us to a coffee shop downtown, the one she’d been raving about all week. We ordered overpriced lattes and sat at a small table by the window.
“So,” Sloane said, wrapping her hands around her cup. “Want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Whatever’s making you wear your ‘I’m fine’ face.”
I took a sip of my latte, buying time. “I’m just tired. Last night was... a lot.”
“Christopher’s an asshole. I’m glad Theo almost punched him.”
“Yeah.” I stared into my coffee. “He was there for me.”
“He’s always there for you, Gin.” She said it like it was obvious. Like it was a fact of nature.
I wanted to argue. To point out that “always” seemed to have an expiration date—Friday, to be specific. But I didn’t. Instead, I just nodded and changed the subject.
We finished our coffee and spent the next hour running wedding errands—picking up the bouquets, confirming final numbers with the caterers, normal, wedding-related tasks that kept my mind busy and my hands occupied.
By the time we pulled up to the community center for the dance lesson, I’d almost convinced myself I was fine. That everything was going to go smoothly and whatever weirdness that had now settled over Theo and I would be gone.
I was lying to myself.
When we walked inside the worn down community centre’s dance room - The other bridesmaids and groomsmen were already there, milling around the dance floor. Jasper waved us over, grinning. A
And then I saw him.
Theo.
He was standing by the windows, talking to one of Jasper’s friends. He looked tired—dark circles under his eyes, his hair slightly mussed like he’d run his hands through it too many times. When he saw me, his whole face shifted. Relief, maybe. Or regret. I couldn’t tell.
He started toward me, but the dance instructor clapped her hands loudly.
“Alright, everyone! Let’s get started!”
We were paired off with one another, and it was just my luck that Sloane requested we be paired with whomever we were ascending the aisle with.
She gave me an encouraging smile and I walked to the middle of the floor. Theo followed.
The room seemed to shrink when we finally stood facing each other.
We weren’t close enough to touch, which I knew was going to be a problem - but right now I was grateful for the careful three feet of space between us.
The instructor, a tiny woman with an enormous voice, demonstrated the basic waltz steps.
She may as well have done a jig, because I had still had no idea what to do.
Once she’d gone through them a few times she moved on and I just knew I was going to fuck this up.
“Now, gentlemen, place your hand on your partner’s waist. Ladies, your hand on his shoulder. Other hands clasped. And...”
We took a step toward one another. There was no avoiding it now. We couldn’t waltz at the wedding three feet apart.
Theo’s hand settled on my waist. His touch was warm through the thin fabric of my dress, familiar in a way that made my chest ache. I placed my hand on his shoulder, the solid muscle beneath his shirt flexed under my fingers. Our other hands met, his fingers closing around mine.
“Look at each other,” the instructor commanded as she walked past us. “This is a wedding. You’re celebrating love. Try to look like you don’t hate each other.”
A few people laughed. Theo and I just stared at each other. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying. I didn’t hate Theo, and that was the problem.
“One, two, three...” The music started, some classical piece I didn’t recognize. I could sense the timing, how I should move - if I knew how to. Eventually we moved. Or tried to. I stepped on his foot.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay.
The music continued. We were stiff, awkward. Every step was wrong. Too formal. Too distant. Like we were strangers pretending to know each other instead of two people who’d spent the last few days memorizing every inch of each other’s bodies.
“Relax!” the instructor called out, placing her hand on the small of my back. “You’re too rigid. This should be natural.”
Natural. Right. Because there was nothing natural about dancing with someone while your heart was simultaneously breaking and trying to pretend it wasn’t.
We tried again. I moved left. He moved left. We collided, my shoulder bumping his chest hard.
“Sorry,” I said again, stepping back.
But my heel caught on the edge of the mat. I felt myself falling backward, my arms windmilling uselessly.
Theo reached out for me, to try and stop the inevitable, his reflexes quick, but my weight pulled him off balance. We went down together—me on my ass, him stumbling forward and landing half on top of me with a grunt.
For a second, we just lay there in a tangle of limbs.
His face was inches from mine, his hand somehow still holding my waist.
He was so close his breath was on my cheek, one slight turn of my face and we would be kissing.
I could see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, the way they studied me moving left to right in quick succession.
For a moment it felt like everything might be okay.
The studio went silent. Then someone snickered.
That broke the moment and Theo’s eyes went dark as he looked away.
“Are you two okay?” The instructor rushed over, but she sounded more exasperated than concerned.
“Fine,” Theo said, pushing himself up. He offered me his hand.
I took it and let him help pull me to my feet. My face was burning, my dress twisted around my thighs. I smoothed it down, not looking at anyone.
“Perhaps we should take a break,” the instructor said pointedly. “Five minutes, everyone.”
The other couples scattered, most of them trying very hard not to laugh. Sloane appeared at my elbow.
“You okay?”
“Mortified, but fine.”
Honestly I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. I wanted to run away and never return. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
She squeezed my arm, then drifted away to talk to Jasper.
I stood there, staring at the scuffed floor. Plotting my escape. Theo hadn’t moved and I knew he was watching me.
“Gin—”
“I’m sorry you’re stuck with me as a dance partner.”
Because I was. For a multitude of reasons.
“I’m not stuck-” he began.
I held my hand up and smiled. “You are. But thank you anyway.”
He sighed and then took a step closer and spoke under his breath.
“We need to talk about last night.”
“Do we? You went out, you came back - and now you’ve got work in Milan. It’s really simple.”
I tried to not let the words sound bitter, but I knew that they did.
“It is work—”
“I know it’s work, Theo. I’m not an idiot.” I lowered my voice, acutely aware of the other people in the room. “Look, can we just... not do this right now? We have three more days until the wedding. Let’s just get through it without making things more awkward than they already are.”
“Is that what you want?”
What I wanted wasn’t for him to tell me he was cancelling Milan, because I didn’t expect him to do that.
What I wanted was for him to say I was more important than any job - that there would be something for us to explore when he got back.
What I wanted was for him to choose me without me having to ask.
But I couldn’t say any of that. So I said, “I want to focus on Sloane. This is her week, not ours.”
Summer 2016 - Age 19
“Theo’s back for the summer.” Sloane said
“I know, he’s coming camping.”
I had to hand it to her. She’d never given up.
“You’re single and he’s single.”
I wasn’t sure what the two had to do with one another. I was not Theo’s kind of girl.
“Sloane, he doesn’t see me like that.”
Sloane’s expression softened. “Gin—”
“I’m not his type. He dates models for fucks sake.”
Beautiful tall svelte models, the polar opposite of me. Which was fine. But I had to stop fooling myself into thinking that he could see me in that way. He just didn’t and I’d slowly learned to understand that.
“Ugh, you’re as infuriating as he is.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If I can see the hearts in his eyes when he looks at you, and I can see the hearts in your eyes when you look at him… Why can’t you see it in each other?”
She was mistaking caring for one another for something else entirely. Theo had only ever seen me as an extension to his family. A bonus sister.
“You’re wrong, he just cares about me. Besides, would you find it weird if I was ever with your Brother?”
“No, you’d be my sister.” She grinned standing up and putting her hands on my shoulders. “Stop pacing, you’re giving me anxiety.”
I stopped and took a deep breath.
“Please. Drop it. Promise me you’ll drop it.”
She’d sighed, long and dramatic. “Fine. I promise. But for the record? You’re wrong about him.”
“Okay,” Theo said quietly, pulling me back to the present. “For Sloane.”
The instructor clapped her hands. “Alright, everyone back! Let’s try this again. And this time, maybe we can get through it without anyone ending up on the floor?”
There were a few chuckles. I felt my face heat again.
Theo held out his hand and I took it. Committed to putting Sloane first and pushing my libido down as far as I could stuff it.
We resumed our positions, and this time we just danced. I just followed his steps. Just how I had at prom - like no one else was watching. The instructor didn’t give us any more notes so we must have done a decent enough job.
The dance lesson finished around one. Sloane and Jasper had a spa evening booked so I returned to the hotel with Theo. We didn’t talk at all on the drive. Theo turned off the ignition but stayed sitting in the seat. I looked at him but he was scrolling through his phone.
“I uh, I need to make some calls, but I’ll see you in a bit.” He said, without looking up.
I didn’t say anything, I just got out of the truck and walked up to the hotel doors.
The shift was polarizing, the change in how things were between us, painful.
The last few days had been something out of a fairy tale and now that was all over it had been replaced by something I didn’t like.
A weirdness that had never existed between us before, even when I was in the thick of my one sided crush that had been the worst kept secret in town.
I had to protect myself, I couldn’t let this break me. So I made the decision to find my own way home. To let this go and finally resume living. Maybe I would date again… Maybe not.
Once I was up in the room I booked my bus ticket and flight home for Sunday.
I was working on an article when Theo finally came back into the room. I’d promised myself not to work while away - but writing about something completely removed from myself kept me out of my head and right now, that was what I needed.
Technically this How To article wasn’t due for two weeks - I’d managed to build up a portfolio of work for vacations like these - but that didn’t matter.
To Theo at least, it looked like I was busy.
Time passed ridiculously slowly in the room when we weren’t really talking. The air was punctuated by sighs and words unspoken. For the first time, maybe ever - things felt awkward between us.
I finished my article around 5 and we ordered room service, but even then we barely spoke.
I hated every second of it.
I almost called sloane to ask if that room was on offer, but I couldn’t bring myself to interrupt her night. I also didn’t want to face the barrage of questions that would follow.
In the end I went to bed at 8pm and forced myself to sleep.