“We don’t have to fight about everything,” I sigh, half-teasing.
Her mouth curves, just barely. “So, we’re just two people dancing.”
Rose and I could do this all night, this back and forth. But then it occurs to me—we have two more days after the wedding before we’re back in New York. Four more days in total. A finite window to burn through whatever this is. Whatever’s beenbrewing between us for days, years if I’m honest. The idea sparks like wildfire.
“Rose,” I start.
“Hmm?” She tilts her face up to mine. Her dark eyes shine, lips flushed. Her hair falls loose around her face, and something urgent moves through me—possessive, almost violent. It’s like she’s erasing everyone who came before her, and all I see is her. She swallows. Her eyes drop to my mouth.
“We could be two people dancing.” I hold her gaze. “Or we could go back to the room.”
I watch her take it in. Pink floods her cheeks, and she blinks a few times, slow, dark lashes fanning. But her hands go slack at my shoulders, and she steps back, just slightly, just enough. “Let’s stay for one more drink.”
Disappointment moves through me. Maybe I’m alone in this. A petty part of me wants to call her on it, like an old reflex, like I would have before. Before I got to know her, before we built this small amount of trust.
Instead, I nod and let go of her, and the absence is immediate. We drift back to the table. I collect the glasses. “Would it be alright if I bought you the next round?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Thank you for asking. That would be lovely.”
I snort and head to the front. The walk through the dingy bar helps cool me off, get my head on straight. I notice a clock on the wall and see that it’s barely seven. I order two more drinks and, on impulse, a couple of burgers and a basket of fried pickles. I’ve never had them, but something tells me Rose will like them.
Back at the table, drinks in hand, I find Rose with her chin propped on her fist, eyes on the dance floor, a small smile on her face. The music has shifted, a twangy country song about trucks or freedom, or both maybe, I can’t really tell, but it riles the crowd up and the dance floor beside our table begins to fill.
I set her cider down and drop the numbered flag beside it. “I ordered food. They’ll bring it over,” I have to almost yell over the noise.
She looks relieved. And I feel like an ass. Just because I want to fuck this woman into oblivion doesn’t mean I can ignore all her needs.
I scroll through my phone while we wait for the food. A few messages from my parents—my dad letting me know Henry made it back to New York, no hesitation getting back on a plane, which is a relief given he’s a pilot. There’s a longer message about compensating the farmers and an ongoing investigation into the plane itself, though the early read is a mechanical fluke. I fire back a quick reply and set my phone on the table.
“I’m gonna run to the bathroom. Be back in a minute.”
I glance around the room, and Rose says, “I saw it over there, past the pool tables.” She points, and I nod in thanks and walk off.
The bathroom is single-occupancy. I take a leak, then wash my hands, careful not to touch more than is necessary. When I return, the food has arrived. Rose is munching on a fried pickle, which makes me grin, but it’s her expression that gives me pause—something shuttered behind her eyes. Like she’s pulled a door closed.
“Everything alright?” I ask, sliding back into my seat.
“Mmhmm,” she hums, not looking up. Her shoulders have gone tight, her whole body angled just slightly away, like she’s building her walls back up. I run through the last few minutes in my head and come up empty.
I try to make more small talk, but she brushes me off, won’t make eye contact.
And it pisses me off because this is the Rose I always thought I knew. The cold shoulder, the manipulation, mind games. Maybe I was wrong tonight. Wrong about her.
As we eat, the silence between us thickens. She finishes her cider, then gets up without a word and returns a few minutes later with two more ciders and a bourbon. Sets them down without looking at me. Takes a long pull of one of them and stares out at the dance floor like I’m not even here.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
She shakes her head, just barely.
A band takes the stage and the lights flare brightly, strobing up toward the ceiling, as the crowd doubles in size beside our little table. Rose drains her second cider, then strides out onto the dance floor. Neon red and electric blue from the beer signs slice across her white t-shirt, outlining every movement as she loses herself to the music. She’s radiant—careless—and it infuriates me.
She’s manipulating me. That’s what this is. Eyes shut, hips swaying, fingertips tracing her waist then ribs as the fiddle tears through the room and the drum pounds the floor beneath her feet. She dances like she’s completely forgotten I’m here. Like she’s all alone.
Every man in the room has noticed her. I notice them. Agitation crawls beneath my skin. One cowboy in scuffed jeans and a dusty hat notices her from across the floor. He pounds his beer, says something to his buddy, slapping his chest with the back of his hand like they’re sharing a joke, then drifts over with a cocky swagger, eyes locked on Rose.
Rose stays lost in the music. When his hands settle on her waist, a furnace ignites in my chest and blood drums in my ears. I storm forward, seeing fucking red.
I get between them and shove him off her.
