45. Brooke
Brooke
Beck leads me into Billy’s, where a large man in a black T-shirt accepts a crisp twenty from Beck’s wallet.
“You taking these tourists in?” the man asks in a gruff voice.
“Yep,” Beck says, and while he’s not unkind, there’s an edge to his tone.
“You know the rules?”
“Yep.”
“Any trouble and—”
“I’m aware,” Beck cuts in, the irritation in his voice biting.
“Fine,” the man in black says, but as we pass into the dim bar, his eyes linger a little too long on me, Matt, and Melanie.
To my surprise, Beck doesn’t stop in the bar. He takes us across the floor and to a back door with a huge “EMERGENCY EXIT” sign. The door is beat up and partially propped open by a rock. When we shimmy through the crack in the door, my breath is taken away.
Edison lights are strung between poles overhead. A wood plank dance floor shines under them. There’s a band of folk artists playing to the side of the dance floor, and the dance floor is packed with men and women of all ages dancing.
Long tables with giant bowls of punch are set against the back of the building, and buckets of ice with bottles and cans of drinks are on tall tables.
People mill about everywhere. The men are all wearing various shades of plaid and blue jeans, while the women wear everything from jeans to tiny shorts with heeled cowboy boots and dresses.
“Ok,” Beck says to Matt. “You guys go have fun and dance, but don’t cause any trouble. And Matt, if someone wants to dance with Melanie, you let them have one line dance.”
That seems weird.
Matt frowns, but Beck fixes him with a stern glare.
“If they try anything more, you can cut them off, but it’s a community dance, and everyone’s dancing with everyone.
You already stick out as a tourist. Melanie, you can say no if someone asks you to dance, but it would be better to say yes if someone asks you to line dance.
And if it’s square dancing, it doesn’t matter anyway. ”
“Oh, does this mean I have to dance with anyone who asks me?” I ask as Matt and Melanie wind their way to an empty spot on the dance floor. Truthfully, anxiety is flaring, and I’m trying to shove it down. I can control it. I am in control.
“Absolutely not.” Beck frowns. “You will only be dancing with me.”
“Seems hypocritical,” I retort.
“Ah, but you and I are both locals.” Beck tips his chin. “Local people have privileges at these things.”
“Fair enough.” I smile and let Beck lead me through the crush of people and take our places in the line.
The dances aren’t hard, but line dancing doesn’t come naturally to me. Beck seems to know these like the back of his hand, and we’re laughing and having a great time. After an hour of line dancing, the band switches to square dancing.
Suddenly the people who were line dancing file off the floor, and a whole new group of people file on.
“Want to try it?” Beck asks.
“Could I watch a few rounds first?” I ask, because truthfully I am tired from an hour of activity, and also, I have never seen square dancing in person.
“Of course,” Beck says. “Oh look, there’s Ben and Logan.”
Logan scowls at Ben’s back as Ben heads onto the dance floor with Lynette.
“Well, that’s interesting,” I whisper to Beck, but he doesn’t hear me.
Matt and Melanie stand to the side of the dance floor, under one of the Edison bulbs, and I can see Melanie’s foot tapping while Matt looks on at the swirling, whirling dancers with trepidation. If line dancing isn’t my thing, it’s clear that square dancing isn’t Matt’s.
Beck and I arrive next to Logan.
“Why do you look like that?” Beck asks, slapping Logan on the shoulder.
He juts his head over to where Lynette and Ben are part of a square. “Lynette asked Ben to dance.”
“That’s better than her asking the other guys to dance here, right?”
“Yeah.” Logan runs his hands through his spiky hair before smirking at Beck. “Hey, Brooke, want to dance?”
Beck scowls, but doesn’t answer and looks at me.
“Ha, sorry, no, Logan,” I say.
Logan laughs. “Had to try.”
The square dance music ends, and the caller announces, “We’re going to take a break, and when we come back, it will be time for some canoodling music. That’s right, ladies and gents, we’ll move on to the love songs after this break.”
Ben and Lynette return from the dance floor, holding bottles of beer from the ice bucket. They offer them all around, but I politely decline. “I’m going to head to the bathroom.”
Beck nods in understanding. Lynette passes her beer to Ben and says, “I’ll come too.”
We duck back into the building, and it would appear that every woman had the same idea we did.
While we’re waiting in line, the band starts playing soft, romantic songs that make me want to somehow both run into Beck’s arms and also run away because there is too much anticipation coursing through my body for my brain to have any logical response.
Lynette talks my ear off the entire time we wait, but I don’t mind.
This is the first year she’s been able to come to the dance, and although she doesn’t say anything directly, I get the sense she’s hoping that Ben will ask her to dance.
I don’t know how Logan will feel about it, but it’s not my business.
When we’re finally done and return to the outside, we find the men just as we left them, except Logan’s gesticulating wildly, and I catch Ben’s words of “too soon.” He cuts off abruptly when he sees me.
The band is playing a soft melody that I can’t totally place. Beck frowns at Ben and Logan, and before the anxiety runs away, I unleash my take-charge attitude.
“Let’s dance!” I say, shoving Lynette lightly toward Ben. She stumbles a little, but Ben catches her, steadying her with his hands on her arms.
Logan stalks off just as Beck extends his hand to me.
“Dance with me?” he asks, which seems redundant because I just said I wanted to dance, but I appreciate it just the same.
I grasp his hand and let him lead me to the floor. For once, it’s nice to let someone else lead. The moment his hands set themselves on my waist, any nerves I had about this moment fly away.
Beck is gentle, and kind, and good, and I love the man. I can’t help the anxiety about new situations that I routinely shove down and power through, but I can give Beck the gift of trusting him, and I do. I lean into him just as he bends slightly to whisper something in my ear.
My heart swoops low when he quietly sings the lyrics to the song. It’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”
I am undone. All I want is to kiss the man, to marry the man, to have a family with the man who’s holding me gently in his arms and singing his love for me.
Just as I’m about to tell him this, an extremely unwelcome voice cuts in as someone elbows me out of the way. “That’s him. He’s the one who brought those tourists.”
Addie.
“You said you knew the rules,” the bouncer growls. “They’re out of here, and so are you.”
“Bye, Beckett,” Addie says as she tosses her hair over her shoulder.
The man in black grabs Beck’s arm and twists it behind his back before he pushes him through Billy’s and into the parking lot.