Chapter 5 #2
“What are you doing?” Derrick asks, wobbling a bit in his shoes. The stench of alcohol can’t be missed. “Get out of here, Adler.”
I pull her beside me. “Your dance is over, Gaines.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
Gaines watches me with unbridled anger, with his hands balled at his sides. I doubt he’ll actually throw a punch—he’s all bluster and no balls—but, if he decides to get froggy, I’ll leap.
Mira puts a hand on her hip. “You got a little grabby there, Derrick.”
“Adler’s always there to be the hero.” He looks at the two of us in disgust. “Fucking prick.”
“You should take lessons,” she says. “Women don’t like men who just grab their asses, fuckhead.”
“You got a mouth on you—”
“And if you want to go home with all of your teeth in yours, I’d get the hell out of here before that changes,” I say, moving Mira to the side at the small chance that this asshole swings at me.
He gives us a final glare before muddying his way through the crowd like a temperamental toddler.
“So …” Mira says, waiting until I face her to continue. “Now what?”
Her eyes sparkle beneath the string lights above our heads. The playful grin on her lips is a bit softer, as if it’s just for me. And my ribs throb from trying to keep my heart contained behind them.
I’ve just fucked myself.
“Are you going to dance with me or what?” she asks. “You can’t cut in and then leave me hanging in front of everyone.”
Taking a deep breath, I grin. “Come here.”
Her chest rises as she reaches me, her arms stretching over my shoulders. I breathe her in as I wrap my arms around her waist and draw her nearer.
I can barely hear myself think over the blood rushing through my eardrums. Mira hasn’t been in my arms for years, and I don’t know why I thought it was a good decision to let it happen tonight.
Despite knowing that it’ll be a mindfuck for the ages, I can’t help but notice how perfectly we fit together.
Might as well enjoy it.
“How’s Pigasso?” she asks.
I laugh. “You wanna talk about the pig now?”
“No. But I figured it could break the ice.”
“There’s no ice between us, Mira.”
“It doesn’t always feel that way.” She smiles. “It felt pretty icy when I pulled up, and Pigasso was rooting around in Cathy’s garden.”
I laugh again, committing the feel of her against me to memory.
“What?” she asks, laughing, too. She pulls her face back to search my face. “What are you laughing at?”
“I needed another ten beers for this.”
She rolls her eyes, then rests her head against my chest. “It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve danced together.”
That’s not what I meant. I take a deep breath. “No. The first time was in Betsy Barn to a Bryan Adams song.”
I feel her smile against me. “That’s right. Unless you count square-dancing in gym class in the sixth grade, which was clearly a good use of our time. I’ve used that skill so many times over the years.”
Our bodies sway slowly to the music. An internal war rages inside me, with one half of my brain trying to build a wall around this experience so it doesn’t affect the rest of my life. The other half screams at me to catalog every feel, scent, and sound so it can replay it a million times.
“Can I say something without it being weird?” she asks.
“Half of the things you say are weird.”
She chuckles. “Fair.”
“What do you want to say?”
“First, I want to preface this by saying that I did a couple of shots of tequila at Markie’s before coming here.” She slows her movement until it’s nearly at a stop. Then she pulls away and stares into my eyes. “I’ve missed you, Hart. That’s not fair for me to say, and I know that. But it’s true.”
A lump settles in my throat as I peer down at her. Her beautiful, heart-shaped face and button nose. Freckles that splay across her cheeks like stars in the sky. The mole just above her lip that she hated as a child, but somehow makes her perfection a bit more believable.
“You’re right,” I say, as she fiddles with the hair at the back of my neck. “That’s not fair of you to say.”
“And it was fair for you to come out here in front of half the town and make Derrick leave?”
My jaw tenses. She traces the edge with a fingertip, moving back and forth slowly in my arms. It’d be heaven if it wasn’t its own version of hell.
I try to slow the beating of my heart and clear my brain of the fog clouding my thoughts.
Because she’s not ultimately wrong. I had no place, whether I could justify it or not, to interrupt her evening.
And the fact that I did, without so much as a thought, defeats any argument about missing me that I could make.
“I’ve missed you, too, Mira.” I try to force a small smile but can’t quite make it happen. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
Her smile fades slowly. Painfully.
I try to hide the bitterness of my words and make it seem like simple banter—to take the sting out of them for her benefit. Sure, they kill me. But the hole in my chest has somehow become ordinary. It’s a factual part of my life. This is a factual part of both of our lives.
She’ll always be the girl who can’t sit still, and I’ll always be the guy who can’t leave. And the pain from that reality never ceases to hit hard because nothing can change that. It’s in our DNA. It’s who we are.
Our dancing slows as the weight of my question settles between us.
It’s a rock wedging more than our bodies apart—a question that severs any closeness we might have been creating.
Her eyes search mine with a quiet desperation, like if she looks hard enough, maybe she can find something to hold on to.
Her hand tightens against my shoulder, and my palm presses against the dip of her back. The air is hot, as if the room has taken a breath and is waiting to see if we’re going to push or pull against each other.
I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, wishing like hell that things were different. But I’ve made that wish countless times, and it never comes true. There’s no sense in wishing for it anymore.
Fighting a lump in my throat, I swallow as a burn erupts in my chest.
“See you around, Mira,” I say softly.
Her lips part as if she wants to speak, like she almost wants to fight me on this. I step back, out of her orbit, until I can no longer sense her heartbeat or smell her perfume. Then I turn, balling my hands at my sides until they’re wrapped around the steering wheel of my truck.
Leaving may look like I’m giving up, but staying? That feels too much like surrender.