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I feel more wobbly than when I was walking as he slips the strap back through the little silver piece and buckles my heeled sandal.
“Thank you,” I murmur, though my gratitude doesn’t sound sincere even to my own ears.
I’m sure he did that more to annoy Milo and unsettle me than to be nice, anyway. It’s Jonathan.
Once my shoe is secure, he stands and offers his hand. I take it and he pulls me off his father’s lap, then leads me out onto the dance floor.
The DJ must have been watching for us because like Jonathan said it would, the music starts when we’re ready for it. The beginning of the song sounds a bit like an erratic heartbeat. Familiar, but I don’t place it until I hear Taylor Swift’s voice.
Jonathan settles his arms around my waist. I keep my hands on his shoulders in an attempt at propriety, but I can’t bite back a smile. “Had to be a Swifty song, didn’t it?”
He smirks. “You know it. I heard this one day while I was…” He pauses, then just to aggravate me, says with exaggerated care, “spending entirely platonic time with a member of the opposite sex.”
I roll my eyes. “Sure you were.”
His eyes twinkle with mischief. “I tried to word that as carefully as possible. Didn’t want you to have another jealous meltdown.”
My jaw drops. “I didnothave—”
He doesn’t let me finish my denial. “But I heard this song playing. I always think of you when I hear Taylor Swift now, and a few of the lyrics caught my attention. Reminded me of you.”
His words take me off guard. A good portion of the time he’s trying to crawl under my skin and aggravate me, but then there are the moments when he’s open and unguarded by his playful barriers.
This feels like one of those rarer moments.
It does something to my stomach. I don’t know what it is. The dynamics in this family are like an emotional rollercoaster designed just for me. I’ve all but given up on always identifying what I’m feeling—or why I’m feeling it—when I’m being messed with.
It feels like an intimate thing to tell someone a song reminds them of you.
More so as I listen to the words of the song I’ve heard dozens of times before but never really listened to.
Sometimes my relationship with Jonathan feels settled, but more often than not it feels indefinable and maybe a little broken.
Most of the time, things are good, but occasionally one of us will get scraped by a jagged edge.
I know that whatever relationship we might have had if my introduction to him would have been as his father’s girlfriend is nothing like the one we have now. There would have been boundaries in place to protect all our places and none of the crap that’s come up would have even been an issue.
But we didn’t have a normal introduction, or a traditionally established relationship. Nothing can change that, and most days I don’t feel the need to. Most days, our relationship works for us.
But some days, I’m not so sure.
Like today.
My wedding day.
As I started drinking and occasionally found myself stewing in anger at him for leaving our reception, it occurred to me exactly when he left.
We had all agreed to the dinner. The only thing that changed was I went out on the dance floor with his father and we had a romantic first dance.
It feels vain to think Jonathan would care. Maybe he doesn’t. It could have just been a coincidence that the girls approached him at the table while we were dancing.
All I know is that sometime in the two and a half minutes Milo and I spent on that dance floor, Jonathan decided to bail on the whole evening.
Now, we’re dancing to a song he requested, a song he says reminds him of me.
A song about lovers who weren’t built to last, but the plea is there: don’t forget me.
I feel really stupid when my eyes well up with a few tears. It’s probably the alcohol and the emotional day I’ve had, but there’s other stuff, too.
