Page 119 of Gave Proof Through the Night

Chapter playlist:

Arrival at National Archives — Trevor Rabin

She's Always a Woman — Billy Joel

She came down the hallway and something in my chest quit working right. The moment I first laid my eyes on her, I forgot every word I knew. In both languages. I’d been dreaming about seeing her in that dress for days, and once the moment arrived, it was better than I could have imagined.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.” Genius. Absolute genius, Jeremiah. Four years of college and that’s what I had.

She did a small turn, one hand on her hip, waiting for me to say something that wasn’t “hey.” I had nothing. My brain had left the building. It was black, it had stars on it, and I couldn’t put together a single sentence that didn’t sound like gibberish.

“You look…” I stopped. Started over. “I had a whole thing planned. I lost it.”

“Lost it where?”

“No idea.”

I did, though. That bare shoulder. She was stunning in that dress, her hair in soft waves, smoky eyeshadow, her complexion glowing, her lips a glossy berry.

But the hot-blooded Neanderthal in me had to go and fixate on that one spot. Exposed skin, soft and inviting. It took every ounce of willpower not to clamp my mouth around her shoulder and devour her all the way up to the column of her neck.

“You gonna offer me your arm, or just stand there?” she said.

I offered her my arm. I didn’t trust myself to speak again for at least thirty seconds.

The next hour went by in a blur. I remember the red carpet, and the sheer weight of having a woman like her on my arm. I remember Hobbs, watching us from across the room the entire night, and Erica refusing to let it bother her. She ate like she didn’t have a care in the world. She bid on some ridiculous item at the auction. She danced with me like the room had emptied out around us. For a while it felt like the eye of a storm. Then she slipped away from me, and I should have gone after.

Now I’m rushing down the hallway, frantically searching for her.

She’s been gone too long. This hotel has too many hallways, and every one of them looks the same.

A cart cuts across in front of me and I have to do a double take. It’s Zoe, Erica’s friend. She winks, grins a little, and keeps going like none of this is strange.

My brain snags on that for half a second. What is Zoe doing back here with a cart? I don’t stop to work it out. I file it and keep moving. Only one face fills my head, over and over: Erica.

I’m almost ready to give up and try the other direction when someone slams into my shoulder. He stops, just for a second, long enough to recognize me, then keeps running. It’s Hobbs. He’s come from somewhere in a hurry, and my stomach drops thinking about what that somewhere might have been. His face is pale, ghost-pale, panic written all over it. I want to turn around and put him through a wall. But I can’t. I have to find Erica.

If she’s hurt… No. I’m not letting my brain go there. I just have to get to her.

I shove through the courtyard door at the end of the hall and the noise of the gala falls away behind it. String lights loop overhead, small and white, making everything look soft.

And there she is.

She’s sitting on a stone bench with her hands folded in her lap. She’s hunched over, tapping the toes of those dang combat boots together for entertainment.

Then she looks up when she hears the door close behind me.

My voice comes out gruff. Like sandpaper. “Did that man touch you?”

She just laughs. “He wouldn’t dare. I told him my big strong boyfriend would use his head for a hockey puck.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

I fly to her, crossing the distance in two steps and crash my mouth against hers. Boyfriend. She called me her boyfriend. And I pour every ounce of myself into the kiss.