“In the house, where else?” Law gave her a look like anywhere else in this town was too crazy to contemplate me staying.
“I’m Maggie, Lawson’s cousin.” The tall woman moved in for a hug. She had the same looks as Law, down to the piercing blue eyes, and it felt like home when she moved in. I wasn’t just meeting Law’s friends here, I was meeting the rest of his family.
Law seemed to disappear as Maggie held me hostage to talk about her children and how Law was basically an uncle to them. I met Law’s family friend John too. They had apparently known each other since almost birth.
“Here,” Law whispered into my ear after reappearing by my side and handed me a small cup. I took a sip and wine filled my mouth. I took a long drag as we stood with a few more of Law’s friends who had made their way over. The unease I had felt before was gone and all that filled the space was belonging. These people hardly knew me, but because I was with Law, I was important. This was a thought I’d had when I had been in town all weekend, I’d just never expected it to continue on to his friends.
Leah was right. I had been overthinking things. So we stood around and I learned so many new things about Law. That he broke his first bone at the age of five. His pinky. That he once ate a worm and said it was the best thing he had ever eaten. And thebestthing that anyone had told me was that, until this day, they had never seen Law this happy.
Hours passed, the fire died down, and people started to head home, but we had found some chairs to sit and take in the night.
“Want to go somewhere?” Law whispered in my ear.
I nodded and we slipped from the last of the crowd to his truck. He had stopped drinking after his second beer, so when he got behind the wheel, I wasn’t worried.
“I want to show you somewhere.” Law put the car into drive. “It’s Tony’s little secret on his property and I thought you might love it.”
He drove us down a winding path, farther away from the light of the bonfire and soon the only things allowing us to see were the headlights and the moon that shined above us. Law pulled into a field full of grass that seemed to cover most of it and put the car in park.
“Hop out and stand in front of the truck.” I did as Law said and stood there in the brightness of the headlights, but those soon went away. One second I was blinded and then the next, complete darkness. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the moonlight, but then Law stood beside me and held on to my hands.
We stood there in the darkness, no sound of the engine running any longer. He grabbed for my face and turned it out into the field.
“Look.” My eyes sought out what Law was showing me. Little lights filled the grass, dimly lit, but they were there.
“What are they?”
“Fireflies.” He leaned down and grabbed for some dirt and then threw it out into the open, spraying across the grass, causing the bugs to fly up, their light filling the darkness that was once there. The glow was mesmerizing and when I looked back at Law, he wasn’t looking at the fireflies, but his eyes were solely on me.
He didn’t say a word but lifted me onto the hood of his truck, slowly taking both of my shoes off, and then I was back in his arms, barefoot. I knew where this was going and the swell in my heart couldn’t match the love I saw in Law’s eyes. I looked up at the night sky, a deep, rich blue that matched Law’s eyes.
When I looked back at him, the moon reflected there in his eyes, I knew this was it. This was all I was ever going to need in life. He lowered me onto the tops of his shoes and slowly moved us in circles. He had an arm wrapped around my waist and the other holding my arm out with his and we danced.
We spun in circles for what felt like hours and we didn’t have to say anything. We didn’t need any kind of music, because just like our first pas de deux, this one was led by our heartbeats.
It was led by two souls who knew they had found each other and could never be separated by anything in life.
