Chapter 32 #2
“Have you always been a terrible dancer?” he chided loudly over the band.
“Have you always been an arrogant asshole?” I said sarcastically, as I punched him in the upper arm. He smiled widely as if I had just paid him a compliment. This playful insult only seemed to make him more confident.
“Just move with me,” he whispered firmly in my ear as he let his hand slip below what would be my panty line, if I were wearing any.
His confidence caught me off guard, and his sinful smile told me he knew I was bare below my tight black dress.
He looked at me in a way that told me exactly what was on his mind.
I quickly scanned the room to find my mother paying zero attention to me, but Amy spotted me and gave me another angry look, then disappeared out onto the balcony.
What was her problem now? Mid-song, and without a moment’s warning, James pulled away from me and headed for the balcony, too.
“Where are you going?” I asked as I followed closely behind him.
“I need to talk to Amy for a minute,” he said without looking back. He sounded stressed and agitated, but I couldn’t understand why.
Out on the balcony, I found Will smoking another cigarette.
A habit he continued to tell me that he had quit.
He and James were talking to Amy, and it was clear that she was upset.
When she saw me walking towards them, she quickly wrapped up her conversation, looked at James, and then headed back inside.
“Give me one of those, man,” James said, as he grabbed the crumpled pack out of Will’s hand and signaled for a lighter.
“Sure,” Will replied, as he fumbled to get the lighter from his chest pocket and tossed it to him. James put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. The smoke made me cough.
“You smoke?” I asked James incredulously. “Only sometimes at parties,” he said with a shrug.
I reached out, grabbed the half-smoked cigarette out of Will’s mouth, snapped it in half, and tossed it out over the balcony into the road, where it flickered for a moment, then died. Both their heads snapped to meet my unapologetic gaze.
“The fuck did you do that for? That wasn’t cool, Allie,” Will said with surprise, knowing perfectly well why I did it. “Do that again and I’m throwing you in the hotel fountain,” he said with anger, but James smirked at the thought.
“Smoking is nasty and horrible for you. How many times have you quit now?” I asked, reminding him of his failure. Then I looked at James and shook my head at him, too.
“I know, but it goes so well with drinking; it just tastes so good. I’ll just have one. Promise,” Will said, as he pulled the last one from the pack and flipped it into his mouth. James tossed the lighter back to him, high enough in the air that I couldn’t intercept it.
“Fine, but you two are stupid for smoking. I’m going back inside, I want another Jack and Coke,” I said, then I walked back across the balcony, but right as I reached out to open the door, I stopped as I heard Will say something to James.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man?” Will said in a heated tone. “You know Amy is freaking out.”
“Stay out of it,” James hissed.
“It’s your funeral, dude,” Will replied.
What were they talking about, and why did every ounce of drama revolve around Amy?
I was so over all of her bullshit. I turned back towards the door to open it, but somehow, James had made it across the balcony and was right behind me.
When I turned back around, he was staring at me with eyes that said ‘stay.’
“Where are you going? I hoped you’d stay out here to keep us company.” He said, as he took another drag of the cigarette and blew the smoke over his shoulder, then he reached up to brush the sweaty bangs from his eyes. The beautiful sight of him made me choke on my reply.
“I’m not going to stand out here and watch you two give yourselves lung cancer,” I said, as I turned to leave. Then I decided to be brave and spun back around. “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” he said, with a roll of his eyes, but before I could reply, he extinguished his barely smoked cigarette on the brick wall, grabbed my hand, gave Will some look, and led me back inside.
As he opened the doors, the band began a faster salsa-style song.
“Finally something I can dance to,” he said as he turned around to face me, and he moved his hips to the beat.
His eyes widened as I came in close and did my best to move against him.
“You can Salsa?” he said, as he took my hip in one hand and laced his fingers through mine.
“Nope.”
Just as the alcohol took me to a place of feeling warm and fuzzy, searing pain coursed through my foot.
Another guest had stepped back onto the top of me in her stiletto heel.
Thankfully, I was too drunk to realize just how bad it was, but James saw that I was beginning to limp, and he slid his arms under mine to hold me up.
“This isn’t how I want to spend my time with you. Let’s leave. I’ll take you back to your house,” he said, as he walked to the valet and asked them to call us a cab since his car was still back at the church.
Once we got in, he reached across to help me buckle my seat belt. ”I can do it!” I told him impatiently. I was drunk enough that simple tasks were difficult, but not so drunk that I’d lost my edge.
The cab let us out at my house, but once I realized that I was locked out, we walked around to the back and gazed up at the roof with defeat.
“How am I going to climb up the trellis in heels?”
“Take your heels off, dummy.”
Once we were up on the roof, I leaned my head back onto the shingles and closed my eyes. My brain was spinning from the alcohol.
“Allie?” James said as I felt his fingertips touch my cheek.
“Yeah?” I said as I snapped my eyes open at his touch. He quickly slid his fingers around the back of my neck and pulled me closer.
Quietly, he says, “I can’t stand the thought of you naked under that skin-tight dress; it’s been torturing me all night.”
Unapologetically, I replied, “Sorry.” It was all I could muster with his eyes locked on mine.
Then he pulled me in close enough to see the longing in his blue eyes just before his lips met mine.
His lips were full and soft, just like I had imagined, and they moved in a way that showed experience, but as he reached up to run his fingers through my hair, my mind drifted to Chris, and I pulled away.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do this. I think you should go.”