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“Alright.” He downs the beer and clinks it loudly on the bar top. “Fuck it. Let’s dance.”
“Excuse me?” I laugh in his face. “You cannot be serious. You never want to dance with me. You’re always worried I’m going to trip and hurt myself.”
“Or hurt me.” He gives me a look. “Pretty sure you almost broke my toe last time. But that doesn’t matter. I’ll just learn to move a bit more quickly out of the way. Dance with me.”
This is the charm. The way Gray can turn it on so quickly is unsettling sometimes. He knows just how to look at you to make your stomach flutter and your panties melt. At least, if I wasn’t just his best friend, that would happen. I’ll admit in my weaker moments, I’vemaybeentertained the idea. But this friendship we have is too important to me.
“Fine. But only if you stop puttin’ on the charm so goddamn heavy.”
“What charm?” His smile is small and ornery.
“One dance,” I tell him, giving him a warning look.
“Just one,” he says, holding two fingers up. “Scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t even in the Scouts.”
“I was in the FFA. That’s gotta count for something.”
I laugh and smack his chest before hopping down from the barstool. I have my heeled ankle boots on tonight, but I’m still short as hell. And when he stands to his full height, he towers a whole foot above me.
“No swing dancing, though!” I shout over the noise of the music as he tugs me to the dance floor.
“You don’t want to be thrown around a little?” He looks back over his shoulder and winks.
Two can play that game, you little shit.
“Only in bed.”
His smile drops, and red blooms across his cheeks. And then the best thing ever happens. He trips and falls flat on his face. I narrowly avoid going down with him by pulling my hand from his and stepping to the side. I collide with another guy, who holds me up. But I’m laughing so hard at Gray that I can barely breathe, let alone thank this man for catching my flailing self.
“No more tequila for you,” I tell Gray as I pull away from the other guy and stoop down to help him up.
He mumbles something, but I can’t quite hear him over how loud the music and all the people around us are.
“What?”
“I said I don’t need to know what you like in bed!”
I swear it’s like a record scratch in a movie. He’s laughing, clearly messing with me, but he shouts it loud enough for everyone around us to hear. And I can feel my face turn bright red as I pull him up off the floor.
“Thanks for that.”
“Didn’t realize you were so shy.”
“Didn’t realize you were soloud.”
He laughs.
“Come on, Georgia Grace. Let’s dance.”
TWO
GRAY
After a few more beers and a lot of horrendous dancing, we’re heading out. Georgia’s momma will be dropping her daughter off pretty early in the morning, and no one wants to watch that little hellion with a hangoverandno sleep. She lives about a twenty-minute walk away from the bar, so I just decide to walk her home. The fresh air will do me some good sobering up the rest of the way so I can drive.
I’ve got my arm around her shoulders, and she’s laughing at something stupid I said while her fingers play with the top button of my shirt. We’ve been in this position so many times before, me walking her home and our bodies pressed together in a friendly embrace. So I don’t know why tonight feels different. My stomach is doing this weird thing where it’s tangled up in knots as I look down at her smiling face.
