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And that’s why it was so easy to feel at home with them. At home next to Nathan, and now, as someone who his family totally accepted. My conversation with Bruce morphed into a dozen different conversations with others at the table. As the night really got started, and everyone started getting a nice buzz going, we mingled all around the bar, getting up and floating around instead of just sitting at the table.
For long stretches of time, I was able to forget I was famous.
At one point, someone put on Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” and I watched as Jolene started swaying to the beat.
“Oh, they’ve done it, now,” Jolene said, shimmying out of her seat toward the dance floor, which was currently only occupied by two young couples.
A huge smile spread over my face as I watched Jolene start to dance like nobody was watching.
“If you’d told me your mom was such a Shakira fan, I never would have believed you.”
“You should have seen her when this song first came out,” Nathan said.
“Yes! Let’s go!” Lindsay called out, getting up from the end of the longer table and joining her mom out on the dance floor.
“I’ve got to do it,” I told Nathan, giving him a look. “You know I’ve got to.”
Nathan bit back a smile, and I could already see a slight blush on his face. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Nathan led the way and I followed, and before I knew it, the whole Wood family was out dancing, shaking their hips to Shakira. Charlie bounced his way over soon after, dragging his crowd of admirers with him.
We all shook our hips like nobody’s business, and for once, I didn’t even think to record it on my phone to post online later.
“Hey,” I said to Nathan over the music a minute later. “Look behind the bar.”
Nathan looked over, his eyebrows waggling. “Oh, Isee,” he said.
Jax was looking over at the dance floor, eyes completely glued to Charlie as he shook his ass.
“I mean, Jax is straight, so who knows. Right?” I teased Nathan.
“Very funny,” Nathan said, turning to me and putting his hands on my hips. “I thought I was straight, too, you know.”
“I know, sweetie,” I told him. We danced for a little bit longer. “Hey. Aren’t you going to protest me calling you that?”
Nathan was just looking in my eyes with a level of affection that heated me from the inside. “I think you can call me any damn thing you want, now.”
He leaned in and pressed a slow kiss to my lips. Right here, in the middle of a dance floor in public, surrounded by family and friends.
Nathan reallyhadcome a long way.
The whole family tore it up on the dance floor for another couple of songs before we all scattered and dispersed again. For most of the night I stood by Nathan’s side, in my happy place, but even the times when we broke off from each other were perfectly comfortable.
I felt like I belonged.
And, as the night wore on, I realized that tonight I was forging something that I’d been deeply missing from my life. A family connection. Not my blood family. But, just maybe, a family that I could be a part of, one day. A family that I already felt I was a part of, more than my own who had cast me away. A family that liked therealKace Tomlin.
After everyone had danced, drank, and talked their asses off all night, Nathan and I wound up in the same place we’d started the night: together in my car.
There were words at the tip of my tongue that I knew it was far too early to say. But the way Nathan looked at me—full-hearted, with an affection I’d only dreamed about until now—I knew that those words were swimming in his mind, too.
Lovewas the only way to describe what I’d been full of all night. What I’d finally had access to in all of my moments with Nathan.
And that was what I was going to fill my life with, going forward.
Whatwewere going to fill our lives with, I hoped.
“Thank you for bringing me into your world, Nathan,” I said simply, bringing my lower lip into my mouth.
