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“Of course.” I nod, licking away the paint-tinged tears tickling my lips. I need to hurry inside and fix my makeup with only moments to spare. “Do you have a ticket? Will you be in the audience?”
He shakes his head ruefully. “This was sort of last-minute. I got Celeste’s aunt’s number and she said you guys were performing tonight. I was just waiting out here until you were done.” Brant dips his head with a light chuckle. “Celeste caught me.”
“Well, I’ll meet you out here after the show,” I say as a smile pulls on my awful zebra lips. I’m certain I look like a buffoon, and any attraction Brant still held for me has exploded into dust. “You’ll wait for me?”
Brant’s eyes squint toward me like my question is absurd. “You know I will.”
“You mean it?” My smile blooms. I can’t help myself.
“Of course I mean it.” He steps forward, clasping my neck with both palms and pressing his forehead to mine. He inhales sharply, as if he’s drinking me in. “I told you I’d wait forever.”
With a kiss to my hairline, Brant pulls back and lets me go, leaving me with a smile and the remnants of his promise.
It almost feels like a first date as we stroll through the doors of the Rum House, a swanky bar located in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan, and take a seat at the bar.
I suppose I don’t really know what a first date feels like.
Aside from a few awkward kisses and house parties with classmates, the only man I’ve ever been with is Brant—and our relationship has been backwards from day one.
But if I could picture a first date, it would be something like this. Piano music, candlelight, classic cocktails, romantic ambience, and the man I love unable to keep his eyes off me.
He sips his scotch on the rocks like a red-blooded male, while I suck down a Cherry Upside-Down Cake Martini like a juvenile girl who’s only been able to legally drink for two months and has limited knowledge of alcoholic beverages.
I send him a shy smile over my glass.
Brant returns it, spinning his glass between his fingers and letting the ice cubes clink. When he sets the glass down on the counter, he sighs, swiveling on his barstool to fully face me. “It’s crazy to see you in a bar,” he says, his gaze scanning my face, dipping briefly to my mouth. I nibble on my bottom lip. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“I haven’t changed, really,” I confess, tucking my drab brown hair behind my ear. “I’m still terribly boring and as plain as can be.” Chuckling with a bit of self-deprecation, I glance down at the change of clothes I’d brought to the stage performance. I hadn’t expected a surprise visit from the love of my life, so I’m only wearing a pair of blue jeans and a loose-fitting Wicked T-shirt that I’ve tied at my hip with a scrunchie. My face is red and blotchy from removing my costume makeup, and my hair is still caked in hair spray, riddled with dents and bumps from being pulled back beneath a zebra head.
My appearance is appalling, and I’m shocked I was even allowed into such an upscale place. I’ll bet Brant’s swoony smile and Thomas Beaudoin eyes gave us the golden ticket in.
But as I take another drink of my frilly cocktail, I watch as that smile slips and those eyes dull.
Brant frowns, reaching for his scotch and fingering the glass. “You’re not plain, Junebug,” he tells me, looking away and taking a small sip. “There’s nothing plain about a masterpiece.”
A lump swells in my throat, clogging my response.
He says it so casually, so effortlessly, like he didn’t just move me to tears.
“I’m really proud of you, you know,” he says after a quiet, poignant moment stretches. “Whatever happens between us…I hope you know that.”
That lump grows bigger. I try to swallow it down.
I pick apart his words, wondering why he says them like he’s uncertain of our future. “Why did you come here?”
He’s silent for a beat before he looks back over to me. “Pauly offered me a job in Manhattan. An executive chef position at his restaurant.”
My instinctive reaction is pure joy. Pride. I lean in and throw my arms around his neck, squeezing him to me. “Oh my gosh, Brant. I’m so happy for you.” But as I hold him, my fingertips grazing the soft curls at the nape of his neck, feeling his breath against my ear, his answer fully registers. I close my eyes and squeak out into the crook of his neck, “You didn’t come for me?”
I still hold on to him, unable to look him in the eyes as I ask my question.
Too afraid to see the truth glimmering back at me.
Brant’s hands lift to clasp my hips, holding me in a loose but intimate grip. The breath he releases near my ear is shaky, and I wonder if our lingering proximity is having the same effect on him as it is me. “I didn’t want to assume anything, June,” he admits softly, canting his head so his lips brush the lobe of my ear. “It’s been years. You have a whole new life.”
“You’re my whole life.” I say it as if I’ve been waiting years to say it.
Another shuddery breath hits my ear. He finally inches back, his hands still glued to my denim-clad hips. His eyes lift to my face. “Just because I said I’d wait for you doesn’t mean I expected you to wait for me. There’s no pressure. I wanted to discuss the transfer with you before I took it.”
