Chapter 11 – Kat
ELEVEN
KAT
Exactly as one would expect, syllabus week passes with minimal work on my plate. I swear, it’s like professors know that the chances of us mentally being present are slim to none. We’re now halfway through the second week of classes and, to my delight, we’re finally receiving homework. Nothing insanely time-consuming, but I like feeling like I’m accomplishing something.
I’ve always loved the start of a new semester. Fresh pencils, new notebooks—something about it has always felt like a perfect fresh start.
However, no matter how new the textbooks and the pencils and the notebooks, at the end of the day it’s still the same school that you left last semester. Nothing changes; no new experiences except for the ones that you go after yourself.
So when my newly formed group of friends decides that they want to go to college night at the Dusty Armadillo, I can’t help but find a poeticism in the fact that we are starting a new semester at the same line-dancing bar that Jenna and I have gone to since freshman year.
The parking lot is crowded as our Uber drops us off out front, the line around the side of the building filled with mostly freshmen in pristine new cowboy boots, undoubtedly ready for their first college night at Kent State’s favorite country bar.
The guy manning the door, Darren, happens to know me and Jenna really well. Well, “know” is an exaggeration. Jenna and I have spent far too many drunken nights at the Dusty, one of which involved Darren having to pry Jenna off the bathroom floor after one too many shots. Somehow, we still didn’t manage to get kicked out that night.
If we’re being honest, I think Darren has a crush on Jenna. I mean, why wouldn’t he? Everyone likes Jenna. If I were attracted to women, I would probably like Jenna.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Marcus pulls Jenna closer as we approach the door, not bothering with the line nearing the corner of the building.
“Hey! Wait your turn!” some girl yells.
“Are you twenty-one?” Darren asks her.
“Well, no, but?—”
Darren cuts her off. “Well, people over twenty-one buy drinks. Freshmen, which I’m assuming you are, wait in line.”
The girl shoots him a glare, but she doesn’t bother to retort. I think she knows that it would fall on deaf ears anyway.
“There’s my girls!” Darren grins as he greets us, managing to completely ignore the four guys in our group.
In the human equivalent of peeing on Jenna’s leg, Marcus kisses her forehead. Jenna melts into him, but I can’t help but chuckle at him being so obviously territorial.
Darren doesn’t so much as acknowledge Marcus as he scans our group, counting and marking something on his clipboard. With a wave of his arm, he ushers us into the bar.
The dark room is lit almost exclusively by the lights behind the bar on the far wall and the ever-changing lights on the dance floor. There is a clear separation between the door and the dance floor, intentionally placed in order to allow people to mingle without getting in the way.
“Have you been here before?” Elijah asks, yelling over the music with his lips inches from my ear.
Jenna and I look at each other and exchange a knowing smirk.
“Yeah,” I reply, “we used to come here all the time. Last semester not as much, but freshman year this is where it was at.”
Elijah nods, acknowledging my words but not expressing his thoughts.
“You?” I ask.
“No, I’ve never really been a big dancer.”
If he doesn’t like dancing, then why did we come here?
“But I’ll dance with you,” he adds.
I grab his hand to pull him out onto the dance floor, but he resists.
“Later,” he says with a laugh. “After I have a few drinks in me.”
“Of course.” I smile up at him, welcoming his lips as he leans down and kisses me.
Jenna grabs my hand and whirls me away, leaving Elijah and Marcus standing there in confusion. Brendan and Tanner join us on the dance floor, falling into the rhythm of the dance and picking up the moves with ease.
Stomp, stomp, whirl, clap, whirl, whirl, whirl, stomp.
Despite not having come here in close to a year, the dances haven’t changed at all. I whirl and I whirl until I accidentally ram into Tanner.
He laughs. “Okay, killer. You’re gonna knock someone over.”
I simply roll my eyes before falling into step between him and Jenna, our synchronicity a pleasant surprise.
Brendan isn’t quite as in sync. God love the lovable goof, but the boy doesn’t have a shred of rhythm inside him. And yet he powers through, trying to keep up and fumbling through the dance, all with a grin plastered on his lips.
In a move that is most definitely not part of the choreography, Tanner grabs my hand and twirls me away from him. Before we know it, three songs have passed and we’re panting from all of our laughter.
“Drink?” Jenna asks, sweat glistening on her brow.
The four of us walk over to the bar, where Elijah and Marcus are perched. I wrap my arms around Elijah’s waist with ease, the quick rapport we’re finding between us a pleasant surprise. He welcomes the hug, but I can’t help but notice he doesn’t kiss me at all. He sits ramrod straight with my arms around his waist and a glass of whiskey pressed to his lips.
“Hey,” I whisper, pulling his attention to me.
As soon as our eyes meet, I can feel him relax into my touch.
“Hey.” He grins, finally wrapping his arms around me and pressing his lips to my forehead.
The cold of his glass bites into the exposed skin on my back as my shirt rides up, but I don’t move, content in his arms. The smell of whiskey coats his breath, but he leans down and kisses me and any concern I had vanishes without a trace.
Upbeat line-dance music shifts through the speakers as a familiar country ballad rings through the room. I look at Jenna and Marcus as she asks him to dance and he complies without restraint. When my gaze returns to Elijah, his eyes are already on me.
I want to ask him, but I get the sense he’ll turn me down. He said it himself; he doesn’t dance.
As if he can read my mind, Tanner yells over the music from a few feet away. “Wanna dance?”
Just as I’m about to say “Yes,” Elijah’s glass meets the hard top of the bar and he’s grabbing my hand. He pulls me toward the dance floor without giving me even a moment to respond to Tanner’s question.
We land on the dance floor and instantly my body is flush against his. Hard, strong arms wrap around my waist and I melt into his touch.
“I thought you didn’t dance,” I laugh.
“I don’t…but you wanted to, so.” He says it nonchalantly, almost irately.
I can’t help the way my stomach sours at his words. “I’m sorry,” I mumble, almost too quiet to hear over the music.
As if he can already read my tells, Elijah uses his pointer finger to nudge my chin up to look at him. There’s a warmth in his eyes that wasn’t there moments ago. “I mean…I want to dance with you. If you want me to dance with you, then I want to dance with you.”
And just like that, my anxiety is quelled .
Elijah pulls me flush to him once more as we sway to “Wanted” by Hunter Hayes. He hums along to the song, his lips pressed just above my ear, his warm breath only causing me to melt further into him.
“I want to make you feel wanted,” he says, and at first I think he’s singing along…but he’s not. He’s saying the words to me.
My chest fills with warmth at his admission, the statement giving me a sense of understanding that I’ve never experienced before. No one has ever expressed such unadulterated desire to make me happy.
“I do,” I say as I grin up at him, my chin resting against his chest.
“Good.” He smiles back, the joy in his expression causing warmth to flood my body.
Just as swiftly as the song came on, the music shifts again, this time to an upbeat Alan Jackson tune that causes the crowd to go wild.
I see the moment pass behind Elijah’s eyes, but I don’t let it get to me. He has his interests and I have mine. I simply have to respect that.
“Go back to the bar,” I mumble, pressing my lips to his. “I’ll probably be over there in a few songs. Can you get me a water?”
“Of course.” He squeezes his arms around me once more before letting go. As he walks away, Jenna darts toward me, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the front of the dance floor.
I dance, I twirl, I stomp and move.
All to the beat of “Chattahoochee” reverberating in my ears.