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"I'm going to grab some air," I say to Matthias. And he casts a worried glance at me, and then nods, giving me a pat on my back.
Slinking around the corner of the building, I rest my head on the wall, dragging precious air into my lungs.
I thought she would come.
I really did.
I thought, after everything, she would come.
That she would know how important it was to me that she would be here.
How nothing else would matter.
But maybe she thought she knew me better than I know myself.
And maybe she does.
I bang the back of my head gently against the wall just once, shaking the last of my hope out of my mind, letting it fall out of the tears in my heart to the ground, in tatters, in shreds.
And say goodbye to Luna Pham.
The ballroom is filled wall to wall when I finally step inside.
Millions of dollars dripping from earlobes and necklines, who knows how many thousands of feet of satin and taffeta, and cashmere suits and pressed white silk shirts and polished leather shoes.
It all blends into one.
Faces smiling at me, hands patting me on the back, coming in for another round of handshakes, the clinking of ice in glasses and trays of bite-sized food carried on silver trays pushing past me.
My name being called in all directions, flash bulbs going off, the music from the band filling in all the empty pockets of sound.
It's all so much.
I push through the crowd to the bar.
"Club soda on ice, please," I tell the bartender.
"Of course, sir."
When he slides the glass across the polished wood to me, I hold the glass to the back of my neck, ignoring the splash of ice down my collar cooling me down.
I take a long sip, downing almost half the glass in one gulp.
When I drop the glass back down onto the bar, it splashes over my hand. I dig around in my pocket, searching for my blue napkin, only remembering at the last moment that I hadn't gotten it back from Marcus yet.
"Shit!" I shout, the frustration boiling over.
But then I look down, and a small hand holding a blue napkin dabs at my wrist, and an accompanying voice says, "Language."
Fifty-One
Kingsley
I freeze.
I imagine that voice, I know I did.
But then the voice says, "Mr. Baxter, I do believe you owe me a first dance."
