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To be honest, Sunny could be dancing with Louis C.K. and I doubted even he would be funny enough to account for all the laughter coming from their two-person dance circle.
I didn’t actually want him to fuck with their mojo, and I doubted he really would. I just needed an excuse to move closer and to talk to him.
My sister—whether by chance or by random twin magic—looked over and busted me staring at her. She beamed widely, her white teeth almost glowing under the blue club lights, and made a beeline for Cade and me, waving with such exaggeration I had no doubt she was feeling the liquor.
“Talluuuuuulah,” she gushed, pulling up next to the table with Leo in tow. “Come dance with us. You too, mister.” She poked Cade’s shoulder.
“No, you guys go.” I had scooted a little farther from Cade’s side. I didn’t think either of them would be an issue, but I was paranoid that my flushed cheeks and goose bumps would be a dead giveaway that Cade and I had been up to something.
“Dance,” Sunny demanded.
“Here I thought you were the bossy twin,” Cade replied, sipping his drink. His gaze was still all for me, vaguely hungry and hot enough to make my breath hitch.
He shouldn’t be allowed to lob seductive looks at me after telling me we had to keep our hands to ourselves. This wasn’t fair play. If he told me we just had to wait until we were on the road, I could do that. But if he was going to give me a look designed to vaporize my panties, he was partaking in some serious unsportsmanlike conduct.
I was slowly coming to realize that this was how Cade flirted. It wasn’t overt, with cheesy lines. It wasn’t direct. Instead he said it all much the way he did everything else—with loaded silences and meaningful stares.
How many of those innuendo-filled glances had I missed because I was too stupid to watch for them? How long had he been trying to tell me things without words, only to find I wasn’t listening?
Gods, I was such a fool.
“Ugh, stop staring at each other and come dance.” Sunny grabbed Cade’s arm and hauled him up with surprising strength. He appeared so bewildered by her power that he got to his feet without argument. She looked at me with an expression that clearly said You’re next.
“I can’t,” I repeated. “Someone needs to stay with Sawyer.” Yes, I was shamelessly using my temporary ward as an excuse to get out of dancing. Sue me.
“I can do it,” someone interjected. I glanced over and saw Ana had taken a seat at the booth near Sawyer and was dabbing her sweaty brow with a cocktail napkin. “I need to sit down anyway.”
I wanted to argue, wanted to find any excuse not to go, but Sunny wasn’t having it. A new Justin Timberlake song was playing, and that was the only excuse she needed. She took hold of my arm and dragged me out of the booth, herding me and the boys out onto the floor.
My hesitation was short-lived. I wasn’t sure if it was Sunny’s enthusiasm, the beat of the song, or the other gyrating bodies around us, but within seconds I found myself dancing. I let go of everything. The worry, the tension, the fear, and the obligations. It all dropped away, and soon I was bouncing along to the beat, laughing just as loudly and pointlessly as Sunny had been earlier.
I got it now, I understood. It wasn’t about jokes or even about the people. I laughed because for the first time in weeks, maybe even in years, I felt light and relaxed. I was just a twenty-something girl dancing with my friends.
The song ended, and the tempo shifted dramatically into a slow, steady rhythm. Sunny and Leo fell into step, swaying side to side like middle school kids. His smile was big enough to light up the whole room. Maybe he was feeling that easiness the same way I was.
This was all pretend, we would leave here and still have our big, scary lives waiting for us outside, but for now, for a song or two, we could fake our way through normalcy without anyone getting hurt.
I turned to go back to the table and walked right into Cade, who had been dancing behind me.
His hands were on my waist, steadying me, and he seemed unsure of how to proceed. My pulse was so loud in my ears I couldn’t hear the music anymore.
The way he was looking at me asked a question, and I gave the slightest nod. Here, with all the others like us, this one moment was safe. We could have this.
He pulled me closer, and I shivered, wrapping my arms around his neck. At this distance his smell was sensational. I wanted to press my nose to his skin and snort him like a drug.
Cade kept one hand on my waist, his other sliding slowly up my back to where the end of my ponytail hung. The faint tug on my hair told me he had wrapped the tresses around his fingers.
I explored the loose curls at the back of his neck and swallowed hard.
Surely someone would come up to us and tear us apart. They’d scream, We see you, and put an end to it. This was too perfect to last. The other shoe had to drop soon.
His cheek brushed mine, and he cupped the back of my neck with one wide palm.
Could we get away with it? Could I let him steal one kiss here and not fall blindly into his open mouth like a trapdoor, desperate to get everything I needed in one brush of the lips?
One kiss would never be enough.
It would take years to read the pages of his body, to decode the language of his glances, to drink him dry and fill him up again, over and over and over.
