I shake my head. “I’m going to go take a leak.”
“I’m going to get some air,” is all Callum says, and we all take off in different directions, leaving the rest of the boys at the bar, where they’re content to stay and get plastered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
boston
I runa hand over my face, taking in a deep breath that doesn’t seem to completely fill my lungs.
This was a bad idea. Of course, she’s acting like my date. I should have seen it coming. Asking to get a drink with me, waving me onto the dance floor, it’s alldatebehaviour. Ariana Forkerro loves the game of cat and mouse that she’s started. She was going to make me sweat in one way or another and it’s fucking working.
I yank on my tie, trying to focus on anything but the way her mouth looked. I can’t think about her ass in that dress while she danced, or of that thick, blonde hair, either. I can’t think about the mischief that dances in those eyes, no matter what she’s talking about.
I can’t think about her, butallI can think about is her.
To the point where I need to physically put myself into a time-out in the bathroom.
At Lowesy’s wedding.
Because of my best friend’s sister.
What a fucking nightmare.
The bathroom door flies open and in storms the devil. Her eyes lock onto me and I throw up a hand, ready to tell her to go right back out where the public can see her, to get as far away from me as humanly possible, but of course, I don’t get the chance.
She doesn’t let me.
She shuts the door and locks it, whirling on me instead.
“You’re my date, Boston Black. You owe me a dance.”
I can hearIrisplaying down the hall.
“You need to cut this shit out, Ari,” I say quietly, my voice sounding like a plea. I’mbeggingher.
“Don’t feel like it,” she says with a little shrug, waltzing up to me in that baby blue dress that goes with her eyes. She stops right in front of me, craning her neck to meet my stare. She holds out her hand. “Dance with me, Boston Black.”
“Ari,” I grumble.
Don’t take her hand. Don’t take her hand. Don’t take her hand.
She smiles sweetly. “Please? Nobody has asked me to dance all night and I’m starting to feel like the ugly step-sister.”
It’s the way she pouts, if you wanted to know. It’s the way she pushes out that bottom lip that makes me reach for her hand, like the idea of her feeling inadequate for even the briefest of seconds is something that will haunt me for years afterward.
She smiles in triumph as my palm wraps around her own, and she comes to me in the way she always does. She bridges the distance, slowly walking into my body, sliding her hand along my shoulder.
And we’re dancing. In a men’s public bathroom. At a wedding. ToIrisby The Goo Goo Dolls.
I swallow as she tucks herself in close. My hand glides up her back on instinct, inhaling the scent of flowers from her hair. We turn slowly, and it should feel fucking stupid, doing this in abathroom, but all I can think about is how right she feels in my arms and how wild it is that it’s taken this long for her to be in them.
After a moment, with nothing but just our heartbeats and The Goo Goo Dolls breaking through the silence, she glides her hand up my shoulder until she can wrap it around my neck instead. She pulls herself closer, pressing herself against my body, moving with me in a way that only lovers do.
Well, fuck.
Her hand leaves mine shortly after that. Both arms are now around my neck. I hesitate for only a moment, like moving from one type of dance to another would be crossing whatever bullshit line I’ve drawn in the sand, but then I’m sliding my other arm around her body anyway, and the reasons I shouldn’t start to fade into reasons I have to.
This is a bad idea. I know it’s a dance, but it’s intimate. It feels like we’re sinning, even in secret. I know with utter certainty that whatever we’re doing here would bother Forker.
