Chapter 38
Zoe
All last year, I tried not to think about you. But to be honest, I failed utterly.
—Zoe
Jase is drunk. At first I wasn’t sure because he had himself completely under control, but he is. I can tell by the way his eyes are gleaming. He’s still angry, still hurt, still filled with pain. Feelings like that don’t disappear from one day to the next. Not even because of sex.
That’s the reason we’re on this dance floor, all by ourselves. Because of his feelings. Because he doesn’t have them under control. Not yesterday, and not now.
“Are you ready?” he whispers. His gaze burns into mine, and even though I know he doesn’t want to be here, a little smile sneaks across my face.
“Always.”
He returns my smile for a split second, and then he starts moving with me in his arms. Despite the alcohol, Jase’s steps are sure and smooth.
He can dance. Of course he can, but this is something different.
Most ballet dancers can manage a waltz, but we struggle with the other ballroom dances, especially the Latin ones.
It’s totally different from ballet. A different tempo, a different kind of control, different steps. I have no idea exactly what kind of dance we’re doing here, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Jase leads, and I let him, with every step, every turn, and every arch of my back.
“Where did you learn this?” I whisper as he pulls me up out of a bend, so close that our chests touch for a moment.
“My dad showed us,” he replies curtly.
I don’t press him for more information. He doesn’t give me the impression that he would want to answer any of the questions running through my mind.
“Right now, he’s probably wishing he hadn’t.”
I have his father directly in my line of sight, and he doesn’t look happy. His features are schooled into an expressionless mask. He’s staring at us along with everyone else. I’m trying not to think about it. Jase whirls me around, my dress flares around my legs, and I lose sight of Rufus Winslow.
“I guess he’s wishing he hadn’t asked me to come.”
“Why did you come if you really didn’t want to?
” I tip my head back and look up at him.
He lowers his eyes, and at that moment, we’re completely alone.
The pain in his gaze hits me straight in the heart.
But there’s something else there. Smoldering anger and even hatred.
“My brother died exactly five years ago today. And my parents are having a fucking party.”
The world stops and goes silent as everything finally makes sense. Every single note he ever wrote to me.
Sam was his brother. And he died.
I want to get him off the dance floor, talk to him, say something that will fix what happened. But there’s nothing I can do. There are no words that will help. Jase doesn’t stop for a second. He keeps dancing, and I follow him because it’s the only thing I can do for him right now.
“Jase—”
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t say anything. Please.” He looks at me imploringly. “I can’t talk about it now. If I start, then . . .” He shakes his head, and I understand.
“Okay,” I whisper, letting him guide me into the next spin, spotting my parents before he pulls me toward him with a flourish. Even though they aren’t particularly close with Jase’s parents, the guest list was apparently big enough for them to score an invite.
“Thank you for being here.” His voice is soft and a little choked up. My heart aches for him.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
His eyes flicker. He opens his mouth, then closes it again, and I’d love to know what he wants to tell me, but whatever it is, he doesn’t say it. Silence overtakes us, and suddenly the quiet conversations around us are very loud, and I become even more aware of how everyone is staring at us.
The guests. Jase’s parents. They don’t want their son to dance. They’ve stopped paying his tuition fees. And here he is, doing it anyway. He’s dancing. He’s not hiding it. He’s not hiding, and his brother is dead, and everything about this evening is terrible.
It breaks my heart.
“Do you trust me?” he murmurs, his face suddenly so close to mine that I would only have to stretch a little to be able to kiss him.
I swallow hard, every inch of my body responding to the husky sound of his voice. “Yes.”
His fingers glide lightly over my bare back. He spins me around, grabs my waist with both hands, and lifts me up. I react instinctively, tense every muscle, and stretch my arms wide upward. At that moment, I can fly, and Jase’s hands are my wings.
It’s over too quickly, and he lowers me back down to the floor, turns me to face him, and brushes a strand of hair that’s come loose from my updo off my forehead.
“Thanks for the dance.” His lips touch mine, and before I can reply, he takes my hand and guides me off the dance floor. We cross the room and step outside onto a wide terrace with a breathtaking view of Boston. No one’s here but us. Everyone else is in the ballroom.
It’s dark and quite cold.
“Let me get my coat,” I say. I want to pull back my hand so I can wrap my arms around myself, but Jase holds me tight and guides me farther until we’re swallowed by darkness.
Then he lets me go and takes off his tux jacket.
Silently, he lays it on my shoulders, and a tingle goes through my body as I feel his warmth and his familiar scent envelops me.
“Aren’t you cold?”
“No,” he says. Then he takes my face between his hands—and hesitates. We’re so close that his nose is touching mine, and his warm breath caresses my skin. His gaze lands on my lips, and he looks tormented. “I hate this whole thing.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to be here.”
“We can go.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t. Sam . . . Sam . . .” He stops, and a sad smile crosses his face. Then he kisses me.
I return his kiss, even though a distant voice in my head is telling me it’s wrong. We’re in public. Someone could come at any moment. It’s his mother’s birthday party. The anniversary of his brother’s death.
But maybe it’s not wrong at all. Maybe it’s completely right. Because this isn’t about me; it’s about him.
My lips part, and I welcome his tongue. I can taste the whiskey that he drank, bitter and smoky at the same time.
And I taste Jase. All of him. His hands move to the back of my head, plucking one hairpin after another out of my hair before sliding under the jacket and onto my waist. They glide over the bare skin of my back, and suddenly I’m not cold at all.
I reach up and twine my fingers in his hair, and as I turn his smooth locks into a tousled mess, he smiles against my lips.
I can’t help it—I back away a little because I want to see his smile. His smile, the smile that started everything last year, is so beautiful it hurts.
“Why does being with you make everything a little more bearable?” he whispers, so quietly I can barely hear him. I’m not sure if the words are even meant for me to hear.
I answer him anyway. “Because you make everything a little more bearable too.”
His eyes widen, but he doesn’t answer. Either he has nothing to say or too much. Instead, he pulls me close again, and I feel his breath against my skin, and then his mouth meets mine.
“Jase!” The deep voice makes us jump apart in surprise.
Shit.
Jase turns around and steps in front of me as if to protect me, while I wrap his jacket more tightly around myself.
“Haven’t you ever heard of privacy, Dad?” Jase asks so calmly that I flinch.
I peer past him and see Rufus Winslow just a few yards away from us. His eyes are full of barely suppressed anger as he confronts his son. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
Jase shrugs and moves a little more in front of me. It’s like someone flipped a switch inside him. He talks differently than he did a moment ago. He moves differently. He is different. Harder. Colder. Not himself. “I think it’s pretty obvious,” he says.
“Why can’t you behave, just for once?”
I can’t see the expression on his father’s face, but I see Jase’s shoulders tense.
“I asked you to come so your mother wouldn’t be disappointed. But—”
“Spit it out, Dad. Say it already,” Jase says sharply.
“Go ahead and say that I’m one big disappointment anyway.
Say it. You wish I had died instead of Sam.
Then your golden child would still be alive, and you wouldn’t have to put up with me.
” He moves nearer to his father, until they’re so close they’re almost touching.
“Say it already,” he demands. “Then both of us will probably feel better.”
“I don’t want to discuss it with you right now, Jase,” his father says, coolly and controlled. I flinch, and my heart falters. Did he really just say that?
“Fuck you!” Jase’s voice rings with undeniable pain. And burning hatred.
His father doesn’t deny the accusation. He just refuses to address it. Something shatters inside me. It might be my heart—again.
“You should go now. And if you ever speak to me that way again—”
Jase pushes back his hair, and a laugh escapes him—so broken it brings tears to my eyes. “Then what? Will I be dead to you?”
He doesn’t wait for his father to answer before storming back into the ballroom.
I’m frozen in my tracks, though everything inside me demands that I follow him.
Instead, I wrap his jacket more tightly around me and look his father straight in the eye.
“Maybe you should think about who’s disappointing who here,” I say, then follow the boy whose heart he just ripped out so easily. His son.