Twenty-Two
AS I TAKE IN THE LOUD, BUSTLING SCENE BEFORE ME, I frown. ‘Do they know it’s a weekday?’
Heath laughs, not nearly as perplexed by the sheer volume of students spilling out of a two-story house and onto a lawn littered with solo cups and stumbling bodies. Although, why would he be? He’s used to it.
Curling his fingers around mine, he starts to tug me down the gravel driveway we stand at the end of. ‘You’re an eighty-year-old woman trapped in a hot young body, you know that?’
‘That I have a hot young body? Uh-huh.’
Something between a groan and a laugh escapes him. ‘You sure about this?’
‘I can’t say I am. Are you sure about this?’
‘Oh, I’ve been waiting years for this.’
‘Hey, I thought we were friends now. You’re not supposed to bask in my inevitable ostracization.’
‘Am I supposed to be turned on when you use really big words?’
With a dry laugh that hurts my throat, I wrench my hand free of his and shove him away. ‘Stop that.’
Sighing as if such a command is damn near insurmountable, he takes my hand again and gives me a tug. ‘C’mon. Everyone’s already inside.’
Right. Inside. Party. Distraction. That’s what I need. A big ol’ distraction. I need sensory overload until I literally have no room in my mind left to think about my stepmother. Until there’s no room to think at all.
Steeling myself against the very big part of me that wholeheartedly disagrees with that plan, I speed up so that I’m the one dragging Heath inside.
Body heat hits me like a slap to the face.
The stench of alcohol makes my nose scrunch, the music makes my whole face crumple, makes me want to cover my ears, makes my entire body thrum, but I welcome the sensation.
Embrace it. Dive into the chaos by surging through the swaying crowd, no idea where I’m going, but hey, that’s what the man on my tail is for.
A tap on my shoulder has me twisting toward him – and abruptly realizing just how close he is.
Plastered to my back, a proprietary hand on my hip.
The other releases the one of mine it holds, rising to shove some guy out of the way before pointing to where I guess his friends are, and then dropping to my other hip.
He holds me close as he strong-arms his way through the crowd like some kind of bodyguard, and the comparison makes me snicker because, honestly, that’s like giving a golden retriever a rottweiler’s job.
‘You’re here!’
Even over the din, I recognize Matilda’s joyous tone a second before one of the many bodies surrounding us shifts and the redhead comes into view. A hand stretches through the crowd, perfectly manicured fingers wrapping around my bicep, and with a tug, I break through to the inner circle.
Shooting the others a stiff smile, I let Matilda guide me – and Heath too, considering his grip doesn’t let up – to stand beside her, wincing at her smile because, fuck, it’s so bright it hurts my damn eyes. ‘How was it?’
And there goes my chest. Hurting too. ‘She likes him more than she likes me.’
Everyone laughs like I cracked a joke, and I don’t bother correcting them.
‘You drinking?’
‘No, I’m here for the ambiance.’
Imani snickers. With a flick of her wrist, a drink materializes, and as she hands it over, she offers a shot too, both of which I accept.
The latter disappears in the blink of an eye, and while I intend on making quick work of the rum and coke too, a mouth tickling my earlobe causes me pause. ‘Practice tomorrow?’
I wave Heath off, my other hand bringing my drink to my lips. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘This,’ Matilda holds up another shot, ‘is an act of humanitarianism. She’s just evening the playing field so her teammates can lose a little bit to her instead of a lot.’
‘Exactly.’ Taking the one she offers me, I clink our glasses together. ‘I’m being kind.’
Heath squeezes my hip gently. ‘Doesn’t suit you.’
Dropping my head back, I pout up at him. ‘Ouch, baby.’
When that uber-concerned expression goes nowhere, I sigh and turn around, rising on my tiptoes and, shit, these drinks are strong.
So strong that I wobble a little, and in leaning forward to balance, my forehead winds up pressed to Heath’s.
Quietly, only for him, I murmur, ‘Your boyfriend duties are limited to PDA, y’know.
The overbearing concern for my wellbeing isn’t necessary. ’
‘I’m a method actor.’
Snorting, I drop to my soles again. ‘Try acting like you want me to be here then.’
‘Don’t have to act that at all.’
‘Then stop ruining my fun.’
A dramatic exhale skates across my face as palms drag up and down the length of my biceps. ‘Okay.’
‘And,’ I add – I blurt, more like, when his touch falls away and when he starts to fall away too, when I suffer a sudden flash of parties past. Of me by myself, searching for my boyfriend, for anyone at all to talk to, and coming up completely empty. ‘Don’t leave me alone.’
In the blink of an eye, all of that concern melts away. Another blink and he’s as close as close can get again. Our fronts practically flush. Our pinkies linked and hovering a millimeter away from his mouth, so close that I feel him breathe, ‘Promise I won’t.’
Something inside me, something deep-buried and dormant, trembles ever-so-slightly.
‘However.’ Heath tugs and I go careening into him. ‘That means you’re gonna have to dance with me.’
‘Over my dead body, carino.’
Eyelids dropping to half-mast, a content little noise rumbles in his chest. His smile blooms even brighter.
The hand still hooked around mine rises, pulling me up to my tiptoes, guiding one arm around his, then the other, while his snakes round my waist. His palms flatten against the small of my back. ‘Really like when you call me that.’
‘I’ll stop doing it immediately.’
Heath barks a laugh and it’s like a freaking sonar weapon, like some kind of manipulative soundwave that has me beaming against my will, won’t let me stop.
Something clicks to my left, and I don’t even register the noise until it sounds half a dozen times over.
‘Sorry.’ Not looking even a little bit so, Imani holds her camera aloft and shrugs. ‘Couldn’t resist. Y’all are cute.’
‘Told ya.’ Heath pats the curve of my ass. ‘Send me those.’
Imani salutes and then she’s off, wandering into the crowd, snapping as she goes, completely oblivious to the tall, ginger man who wanders in her wake. I glance at Heath, wondering if he notices Brendan’s pursuit too, only to find his gaze steadfastly locked on me.
I get the distinct feeling that it never strayed.
‘C’mon,’ he mutters, his favorite command, providing me with the false sense of choice because I don’t come anywhere so much as he tightens his grip around my waist, lifts me off the ground, and fucking carries me onto the makeshift dancefloor against my will, protests be damned.
Protests.
What protests, Daniela?
I squeal and I laugh and I holler his name, but I never actually say put me down, do I?
My legs swing as he spins us, knocking into a whole lot of people that don’t do much protesting either – they don’t care, they’re too drunk or high or happy to give a shit about a giggling girl and the stupid, smiling boy tossing her around like a ragdoll.
No, as Heath keeps me firmly aloft and does the dancing for us, I don’t actually fight to be put down at all.
If anything, I cling. I lace my fingers together at the base of Heath’s neck, and my own creaks backwards as I cackle at the ceiling, I laugh so hard my freaking stomach hurts, and I don’t even know what’s so damn funny.
I don’t know the song playing. I don’t know the vast majority of the sweaty bodies pulsing around me. I don’t know what’s in the cup Imani and Matilda take turns refilling.
For what feels like the first time in life, I don’t know.
And I don’t care either.
I dance until I’m sweaty and breathless and exhausted in a way I never have been before.
And I drink until most of my senses are blessedly numb, but I don’t drink enough.
I don’t drink myself into oblivion. I am still very much in control of my faculties, still so scaldingly aware of fleeting kisses and wandering hands and bright, warm eyes that have barely left me all night.
And that’s a very big problem.
It takes me a while to figure it out. To figure out the buzz beneath my skin and the restlessness plaguing my limbs and the dull ache in my lower stomach.
I think it might be inebriation at first and then I wonder if I’m sick, and then I start considering if this is just what being happy feels like.
If Heath dancing with me, and only me, makes me happy.
If his sole purpose for the evening seemingly being to coax laugh after laugh out of me makes me happy.
If his big hands and their proprietary grip on my hips, if his fingers being so long that they almost meet at the middle of my back, just make me happy.
I’m tucked in the darkest corner of the living room that belongs to someone who’s name I don’t even know, my back pressed tightly to the front of someone I definitely do know, when I finally manage to put a name to the feeling I barely know.
I’m horny. Unmistakably, irreversibly horny.
I could blame the thick air in here, tainted with hormones.
I could blame the girls too, the cat-calling, the loaded comments and the kissing noises and the insistence that I am sooooo gonna get some tonight.
I could blame proximity, friction, so much friction.
Except I’d be lying. Because it is all of that, and it’s not.
It’s all of that, and it’s the arm banded across my waist, holding me securely, keeping me safe.
It’s the pinky still locked around my own.
It’s the hot breath that brushes my cheeks, my forehead, the curve of my neck and contours of my mouth.