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It was in case you needed a do-over.
Kayley caught Lucy’s eye across the room and gave her a sympathetic wave over Mike Chevron’s beefy shoulder.
Lucy faked a smile and waved back. I’m fine.
A shadow appeared to her right, and she glanced up, fully braced for Craig to demand Luke’s whereabouts so he could beat the crap out of Lucy’s missing date.
It wasn’t her brother.
“Hi!” Lucy said in surprise.
Reece jerked his chin in greeting, using the foot of his rented dress shoes to pull out the flimsy folding chair beside her.
Lucy fixed him with a look the second he sat down. “Did my brother send you?”
Instead of answering, he studied her, his sharp eyes no doubt taking in the red nose and mussed eye makeup. “Where’s Dickson?”
Lucy sighed. Luke Dickson was one of the most popular boys in the junior class. Starting pitcher for the baseball team, ASB treasurer…
And entirely incapable of handling the tequila his idiot friend DJ had snuck into the limo on the way over.
“Puking his guts out in the dumpster, probably,” Lucy said. “Mrs. Gomez caught him and called his parents to come pick him up.”
“What about you?”
Lucy resumed her fiddling with her clutch. “I’ll call Mom or Dad in a few.”
Reece was silent for a moment more. Then he nodded and, apparently satisfied with her answer, stood just as the DJ announced the last song of the evening.
But instead of walking away as she expected, Reece held out his hand. Lucy blinked at the hand, then up at him.
He lifted an eyebrow. “This is the part where you say, ‘Yes, Reece, I will dance with you.’?”
Lucy’s heart fluttered as she registered the heat of his hand against hers when he pulled her to her feet. “What about Abby? The DJ said this is the last dance of the evening.”
Reece shrugged. “I checked with her. She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t like to dance much. And she knows you’re practically my sister.”
Just like that, the happy butterflies making Lucy’s heart beat too fast had their wings ripped off.
Still, she swallowed her disappointment. Dancing with someone dismissing her as a sister was still better than not dancing with him at all.
Reece led her onto the dance floor as a sappy ballad trickled through the sound system, and as she stepped toward him to put her hands on his shoulders, she could have sworn she saw something a bit like panic flit across his face.
Lucy licked her lips nervously as his hands reluctantly found her waist. “You look nice.”
His big shoulders shrugged beneath her arms. “You can blame your mom. She dragged me and Craig to the rental store this afternoon.”
There was a moment of awkward silence, and his fingers tightened just the slightest bit on her waist before he cleared his throat. “You look nice too. Pretty.”
Lucy smiled against the rough fabric of his suit jacket, even though he couldn’t see her. She felt pretty. Her dress was light pink, with a fitted, beaded bodice, and a poofy skirt, which she hoped distracted from her small chest size.
They fell silent, and Lucy let herself register the pure joy of being in Reece Sullivan’s big arms.
Yes, she knew he was dating Abby Mancuso, and up until tonight, Lucy really had liked Luke Dickson.
But all that didn’t change the fact that nothing had ever felt quite so right as this moment.
Without thinking, Lucy rested her head on his shoulder, letting her eyes close. Letting herself pretend that this wasn’t just one dance with a guy who thought of her as a sister. Pretending that someday soon he’d show up on her doorstep and tell her that he couldn’t date Abby anymore because he was in love with his best friend’s little sister…
