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I move back and frown at her. “You think I’d be dancing with you if I wasn’t?”
“I dunno. Some guys might.”
“Not me. How about you? Are you dating anyone?”
“No.”
We study each other for a moment.
“All right.” I pull her a bit closer again.
A few songs later, I say, “I think your friends are leaving.”
She turns to look, and we watch as one of them puts her jacket on a barstool at the edge of the dance floor. They wave, and she lifts a hand in response, and then they make their way out of the bar.
I look back at her, puzzled that they didn’t come over and give her a hug goodbye if this is her leaving do.
“They’re not really my friends,” she explains with another shrug. “I worked in the same office for a few months. Tonight was an excuse for them to go out, that’s all.”
I don’t say anything. I just pull her back into my arms, and we continue to dance.
About five minutes later, I see Huxley standing at the edge of the floor. He taps his watch. Behind her back, I lift a hand, so he puts my coat on top of her jacket. He smiles, Mack waves, and Elizabeth blows me a kiss, and then they head for the door.
The song changes again to Leon Bridges’Beyond. I move my hand up to the middle of Catie’s back, holding her close to me, and cradling her hand by our chests. She rests her cheek on my shoulder, and we move slowly to the music.
I rest my lips on Catie’s hair. When Leon tells us he wants to take it slow, but it’s so hard, she shivers in my arms. I sing with him, echoing his words that he’s scared to think their love is real, and that the shoe might fit.
Catie sighs, her hand flexing in mine, and we move slowly to the beat, making music of our own.
Chapter Two
Catie
It’s getting late. I know I should say to Saxon that it’s time I went home, but that’s the last thing I want to do. I don’t want the evening to end.
But he stirs as the song changes to one with a faster beat, and moves back. “Would you like another drink?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you.”
“All right,” he says. “Wanna head out?”
I nod, and he leads me off the dance floor. Reluctantly, I put my jacket on, and he tugs on his long brown coat, looking even more like Doctor Who now. I hadn’t realized that his friends had left, too. He takes my hand again, and I follow him out through the double doors into the cold, rainy July night.
He looks around, pulling up the collar of his coat, then leads me a few feet down to where an overhang shields the pavement from the rain.
I stuff my hands in my pockets, hunch my shoulders against the cold, and lean back against the wall. To our right, a young couple is huddled up in the shadows, kissing. Saxon glances at them and his lips curve up as he looks back at me, but he doesn’t say anything.
From the moment he walked into the bar, I couldn’t stop looking at him. He’s around six foot, maybe six one, not as big as the two guys he was with, but he’s lithe and muscular, from what I saw when he undid his shirt buttons. His dark-brown hair is, I’m sure, carefully styled to make it look as if he can’t be bothered to carefully style it, and he has a short dark beard and mustache. I love his look—the long coat and Chucks with the smart, expensive navy suit. But it was something else that caught my gaze, something indefinable; he walks as if he expects everyone in the room to be looking at him. How does anyone develop that much self-confidence? It’s unfair and, goddammit, irresistible.
He has dark-brown eyes, so dark that, standing in the shadows, they look black. They study me now, amused, interested. A group of people walks behind him, so he moves closer to me to avoid them. When they’ve passed, he doesn’t move back. He’s close enough to kiss me now. But he doesn’t.
“Can I see you again?” he murmurs.
It’s so not what I expected him to say that I’m completely taken aback. My jaw drops. Guys like him aren’t interested in me. They go for the Angies of the world—blonde and curvy, with expertly applied makeup, designer clothes, and the flirty look and pouty lips that promise expert oral pleasure on the first date. I’m ordinary, though, and I attract ordinary guys.
Pleasure flares inside me, then slowly fades, to be replaced by resentment and frustration. Why couldn’t I have met him a year ago? Why did it have to be tonight, of all nights?
“I’m moving away tomorrow,” I tell him reluctantly. “Sorry.”
