I wish I could say I weigh my options, but the pressure of his palm against mine again is too tempting. I lace my fingers through his, and he leads me outside to where the guy is now covering a blink-182 song but with a folksy,acoustic bent that doesn’t altogether work.
We wind our way onto the dance floor. I take a long drink of beer to steady myself and extend the bottle toward Ren. He takes a sip and hands it back like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and I remind myself that some things can just be here and now, normal, not heavy with meaning. Not everything has to be so wrapped up in history.
Bob Dylan Lite transitions into Big Star’s “Thirteen.” Everyone around us moves together, arms looping around necks and faces pressing against chests. Ren is still holding my hand, and a small laugh spills out of me as he spins me, once, before pulling me into him, our bodies fitting together in one easy line. I rest my wrist against his shoulder, bottle dangling behind him.
“I love this song.”
“I know you do,” Ren says.
I swallow, suddenly aware of all the places our bodies are touching. I bring the bottle back around and offer it to him, watch as he takes a drink, his eyes not leaving mine. I drain the rest, cast around for a place to set it. Ren lifts it from my hand and stretches over to a high top.
“Tell me about your new place,” I say because I have to say something. I’m afraid that if we don’t, I’ll inch even closer into him with no point of return.
Ren hesitates.
“What?” I say.
“It’s—” He breaks off. “It’s the house with the crescent moon window in the front door.”
I slow, still swaying, but now the world is swaying around me too.
Ren and I used to walk by that house all the time. A bungalow off Mississippi—near Sublimity—that we both loved for its quirkiness. There was a sunroom on one side where we would sometimes see a dog napping, a front porch that reminded us of the vacation house,the crescent-moon-shaped window in the front door. When we were in our early twenties, it was one of our favorite games to pretend which houses we’d buy if we could afford them.
“Did you—” I say, the reality of the discrepancies between my life and Ren’s dawning on me. “Do you—”
“I bought it,” Ren says. “A couple months ago.”
“In this economy?” I murmur, like we’re talking about something secret, like someone might overhear us.
Ren laughs softly, the lines at the corners of his mouth showing up and making my heart swell. “There’s actually a lot of work that needs to be done. The outside is better than the inside.”
“But still,” I say, gazing over his shoulder as images of Ren doing things like sanding, standing over a table saw, ripping out floorboards, whatever it is you do when you renovate an old house, flood through me. “You’re a homeowner.”
“I guess so.”
“So grown-up,” I say.
Ren rolls his eyes. “Please.”
“Please what?” I say, drawing my head back. “You have your dream job, in your dream city, living in your dream—”
Ren’s grip on me tightens. “I don’t have everything,” he says, and something in the way he’s looking at me has my head going dizzy again.
There’s a squeal from the stage, and a familiar voice rings out. “This next song,” Stevie says, not entirely upright, the microphone clutched in her hand. “Is for—” She hiccups, loudly, the sound echoing into the microphone and around the yard. Leo whoops. “Okay,” she says. “This next song is for my family, who’s here tonight.” She waves a hand in the general vicinity of the dance floor, as if everyone at this bar is her family for the night, before turning back to Bob Dylan. “Take us away, Bernie!”
“Bernie,” Ren says, just as Thad appears over his shoulder. We step apart, and let him in between us.
“Name’s not Bernie,” Thad says, extending one of the pink shots toward each of us. “It’s Hank or Bob or something like that.”
“Please let it be Bob,” I say, eyes flashing to Ren’s.
He’s smiling, but it’s a little weak at the sight of the dreaded shot glasses suspended between us.
“I really hate these shots,” I say.
“To Stevie?” he asks.
I let out a small groan of protest, but tap mine against his anyway. “To Stevie.”
