Suddenly, a hand appeared outstretched in front of me. I looked up to the owner and realized that Grey had stood and was holding out his hand.
“Ethan,” he said. “Would you dance with me?”
Chapter 16
The Dance
Iwas drunk and caught off guard. Cursing myself for being so careless, I raised a trembling hand to grab Grey’s steady one. I moved without thinking, guided by the magnetic pull that had ensnared me from the moment I’d met Grey. The corner of Grey’s mouth twitched upward for a moment, then he led me to the dance floor.
Now, it was my turn to have questions buzzing in my head.What is he doing, leading me out onto the floor during a slow song? What is he thinking?That wasn’t something friends did. And it certainly wasn’t something someone did if they were in a happy, committed relationship.
His fingertips brushed my waist—a warning before his hand found its resting place at my hip. He grabbed my left hand with his right, and my arm fell instinctively onto his shoulder. We fit together almost too perfectly. Neither of us had held the other like this before, but we knew what to do without thinking about it. I would have been in heaven if it hadn’t been for the injustice of it all.
Grey leveled his deep eyes at me, and my breath hitched in my throat. Static filled my drunk brain. The air seemed to freeze around us, locking me in place.
Then Grey and I started to dance, stepping back and forth to the music. The movement cleared my head just enough for me to remember that other people were in the room. The moment I remembered that, I was certain all eyes were on me dancing with Grey.
“What’s wrong?” Grey muttered into my ear. “You look worried.”
“It feels like everyone is staring at us.”
“No one is paying us any attention,” Grey said. “But even if they were, let them stare. Who cares?”
I was about to point out that I very much cared until I realized… maybe I didn’t. I was so used to hiding any sort of feelings toward Grey that my nerves around the idea of people spotting it had become reflex. Hell, I’d even done a pretty decent job convincing myself that my feelings had faded over the past few weeks.Looks like that’s out the window now.
“Now will you tell me what was wrong earlier?” Grey asked. “Or are you going to keep pretending badly that you’re fine?”
My ears burned. “I don’t think I’mthatbad of an actor.”
“Please, I’ve seen better acting in porn.”
Thinking about what dirty things Grey watched in his personal time wasn’t a can of worms I was ready to open. But it was too late. I couldn’t shake the image of him lying in bed, his hand going into his pants as he pulled up a video on his laptop.
Nope. Stop it.Attempting to drive the thoughts away, I clenched my jaw so tightly that my teeth squeaked under the pressure.
Grey narrowed his eyes at me, clearly waiting for an answer. So, face flushed with embarrassment at the thoughts that had leaped into my head, I decided to tell him the truth.
“I was thinking about your wedding,” I said.
Grey blinked. Clearly, that was the last thing he’d expected to come from my mouth. “It’s a bit premature to be thinking about my wedding, considering I have no idea who I’ll marry.”
My cheeks heat in response. “It was stupid. I imagined you getting married to Carina and how happy you’d look, and I just got…” I shrugged. I couldn’t finish admitting that I’d gotten so worked up by a fictional scenario that it had made me tear up—that I’d been so emotional because, in that scenario, I had been nowhere to be seen.
Grey fought to keep a straight face and failed. His mouth broke into a smile, then he started laughing.
“See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” I said. “It was dumb. I’m sorry I burdened you with that.”
“It’s not dumb,” Grey said. “I think it’s sweet. But I don’t think you have to worry about me marrying Carina anytime soon.”
The heat in my face spread down my neck to my chest. I wanted nothing more than to kiss Grey in that moment. I inched my face forward, emboldened by the alcohol in my system before I realized what I was doing and forced myself to stop.
“You don’t think things are serious enough with Carina to marry her one day?” I asked, hoping that I sounded casual and not at all like Grey had just thrown me a lifeline—and also praying to God that he hadn’t noticed my almost kiss.
Grey smirked. “I didn’t say that.” In the pregnant pause that followed, he seemed to choose his next words very carefully. “However, there are a lot of things I want to do before I get married toanyone.”
I nodded, pretending that hisanyonehadn’t stung. It wasn’t like we would rush off to Vegas to get married tomorrow, even if we did magically end up deciding we wanted to be together. But like I kept reminding myself, we were just friends. Nothing more. Especially not while Carina was still in the picture.
“What about you?” Grey asked.
