“Is that your Harley outside?” Another man comes up to Specs, and they get into a conversation about bikes.
Dad huffs away, and I order another drink. Specs was meant to shock, but he fits into my world easier than expected, except with my parents.
5
PAUL
It’s surprising how many bike enthusiasts are at this party and how they’re flocking to me for advice because I’m wearing a leather jacket.
“She purrs like a kitten,” a man in a dark blue suit jacket and a striped tie tells me. He waves his wine glass around. “I had the engine refitted and drove from Hope all the way to the Santa Rosa in California.”
He launches into a story from his road trip, and I nod politely. My gaze shifts from the man, and as he tells me about the long desert roads, I scan the crowd for Cassie.
I miss her by my side. I’ve been aware of her all night. In her slinky dress that clings to her full figure, who wouldn’t? She slipped away about twenty minutes ago to use the restroom, and I haven’t seen her since.
I can’t see her in the crowd near the bar, which is where we’ve stayed for the past hour.
“Excuse me.” I cut the man off mid-sentence. “I have to find my date.”
I leave him complaining about the state of the roads in California to the other guests who came to check me out, the curiosity at their swanky party.
I walk back to the entryway which is on higher ground and scan the crowd for Cassie. I can’t see her among the guests. I catch her dad near the band. He has his arm around the waist of a thin woman with the same dark hair as Cassie who must be her mother.
Cassie isn’t with them.
She’s probably found a quiet corner somewhere to read. Although that dress doesn’t have anywhere to stash a book. I should know; my gaze has roved over every inch of it.
I look past the crowd and to the garden. There’s a lone figure strolling along an empty path in the rose garden. Cassie.
I head back through the crowd and past the bar. There’s a cobblestone path that leads into the garden, and I take it. Fairy lights are strewn over the metal railings that line the path, with creeping roses growing up around them.
The noise of the party fades the further into the garden I go. I find Cassie by a water feature peering at the inscription on the stone fountain.
She startles when she sees me.
Her finger runs over the inscription. “It’s a Shakespearean sonnet. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day...”
“For thou art more lovely and more temperate,” I finish with her.
Her eyes widen in surprise. “You know it?”
“I have a thing for classic literature. I was always getting told off at school for having my head in a book.”
Cassie smiles. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not when you’re in science class. I’d rather read poetry than learn the periodic table.”
She wanders over toward me, her fingers trailing on the stone of the water feature.
“I needed some quiet. Being around people gets to be too much after a while.”
I understand what she means. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
She shakes her head. “Walk with me.”
Four paths lead away from the water feature in different directions. Cassie chooses the one that leads away from the party, and I walk with her. The rose bushes turn to thick pivot bushes and there are no fairy lights this far from the party. Only the occasional gas light burns in an iron holder.
“If you like books so much, how did you get into accounting?” she asks.
