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“Be all over you. Got it.”
“Denver.” She shook her head. “Please don’t joke. Not now. I just mean your eyes. Your eyes can’t wander anywhere.”
I met her serious gaze and realized a terrible truth. She didn’t think I had it in me to focus solely on her. Did she not know she was the only person in this place who mattered to me?
“I’m sorry. I get it. We need to be friendly, but also indicate that I’m yours and only yours. I can do that. Come.” I pulled her along behind me. She was the tugboat now.
Chapter 23 – Sadie
I usually danced in my underwear.
As in, privately. In my room, where no one could judge my music choices or my Hanes-Her-Way cotton briefs. Or my moves.
I was pretty sure they wouldn’t translate to a night club, but what did I know? The only living creature who had ever watched me dance was Nitro.
I had maybe five seconds to get it together before Denver would see it. All of it. I’d basically demanded his full attention. What had I been thinking?
Denver’s body started moving like he was made for this before we even hit the floor and he turned towards me with expectant eyes while I gaped back at him with bald fear. I didn’t know if I could do this. Scratch that. I couldn’t do this.
Denver pulled me in and cupped my elbows. “Don’t give up now. Just jump. Jump to the music and move your arms a little.”
Jump. I could jump. The beat was practically pulsing through my feet anyway, so I tried jumping with it, sometimes adding in a twist so it didn’t look like I was doing the world’s most intense and boring cardio workout. Wow, was I lucky that the only black bra I owned happened to be a sports one. I’d barely been able to tuck it out the way of my dress, although the straps were probably peeking out now. I checked them with my hands, tucking one back under my dress and glaring at Denver for watching me do it.
“Stop.” I gulped in a breath. “Staring.” I was contradicting myself again, and it wasn’t fair, but tonight hadn’t been exactly fair to me either.
“Okay, no more jumping for you.” Denver pulled me into him, his body still moving to the beat in a way that seemed effortless. He wasn’t even breaking a sweat. And yet, when I tried to match it, I knew I was absolutely the second half of one of those Pinterest fail memes. I wished my hips lied.
Denver’s blue eyes flashed, boring down on mine. “You’ve got this.”
“You can’t pep-talk me into Jenny from the Block. I know what I look like.”
Denver laughed and ducked his head, and when he gazed at me again, it was with so much genuine affection, I had to look away.
Time for operation meet and greet. I danced us closer to the targets and said hi, hoping Denver could follow up on my one word greeting. There was no faking an outgoing personality, no matter how much it was needed in a situation like this.
“You three are from the GoWithFriends group, right?” Denver asked, putting his arm around me. “We are, too.”
There was a lot of happy squealing and introductions. Denver cracked jokes, and I asked open-ended questions, filing away everything they said into my mental spreadsheets. They were positive and bubbly; protective of one another when any guys around them got too close for their liking, but not mean about it. Any of them would be good for Zane.
After several songs, I had it narrowed down to the two I thought might fit best. Unfortunately, just as I’d feared, one of them only had eyes for Denver, and she looked almost mournful every time Denver staked his claim on me, which was a lot.
His touches were subtle, but effective. It wasn’t just the arm he kept around me. His body always angled towards mine. His eyes were always watching me. And then there was the time he ran his fingers down my neck, brushing away a strand of my hair that had stuck there, before cupping my jaw with his palm. Like my sweat didn’t bother him one bit. Like he’d definitely be kissing me if we were anywhere else. He was way too good at this.
I glanced over and checked on Zane. He was leaning into Avery, deep in conversation. Excellent. It meant we could go. I had at least one backup for him if things didn’t work out later. But if he didn’t need to meet anyone else tonight, it was time to get out of here.
I gave Denver’s hand a tug and pointed out Zane with my chin. “He’s good. Let’s go,” I mouthed.
We said goodbye to our new friends and waved to Zane. He waved us off, giving us permission to leave him.
Kellen caught my eye on the way out and waved, too. I waved back. It was hard to hold onto my anger when he just didn’t get it. And if I was honest with myself, Kellen wasn’t the one I was mad at anyway. He had stood by and watched, but he wasn’t the one who wrecked my senior year of high school. Or my heart.
It didn’t mean I wanted to hang out with him some more, though. Seeing him stirred up old memories I wasn’t anxious to revisit. I hoped Zane would be done needing us after tonight.
There was a vending machine right outside, and Denver stopped and bought two water bottles.
I pressed the one he handed me to my forehead and then gulped it down to nothing before we’d even reached Denver’s Jeep.
He opened my door for me and closed it carefully once I was in. Our eyes met through the window, and I laughed at him and gave him a thumbs up. No more slamming. He rolled his eyes and then jogged around to his side.
