“Look at me, Daddy!” Miles calls. He is utterly unfazed by the sight of his dad and a woman he hardly knows with their arms around each other, leaving no room for the holy spirit between them.
“You’ve got great moves!” Alex tells him.
“I’m dancing better than even you!”
Alex laughs, says under his breath, “Doesn’t take much.” Then louder: “You having fun?”
“Yeah!”
As Kristin and Miles whirl away, we edge closer to the wide-open barn doors, moonlight slanting through. One song flows into another, another, and I know when I climb into bed tonight that my feet will be killing me, but right now I could be swaying on a cloud. A few aunts have been castinglooksat us, at Trevor and Teyonna, plainly wondering when this development occurred. A drunken, dreamy magic threads its way into the fabric of time, slackening its stitches; the longer he holds me, the less real reality becomes.
“Yo, everybody! Listen to me, I gotta get something off my chest!”
We all whirl to see Trevor in the deejay booth.
“Oh, no,” I groan.
“I love Romina Tempest!”
I wave.
“But just as a friend!” He extends an arm and points directly at me, forehead damp and glistening. “Girl, you’re my number one bro!”
I cup my hands around my mouth. “I love you, too, Trevor Yoon!”
“Teyonna Johnson!” he shouts at the top of his voice. I pan the crowd for Teyonna’s face, finding her frozen in shock under the flower arbor. “I fucking love you!Notin a bro way! I wanna be with you all the time! I’m sorry to everybody I lied to about dating Romina, she and I are just pals. Allison, you suck so hard but I love you, too. I love everyone in the world, except formurderers and people like that, obviously. But everybody else!” He spreads his arms. “Circle of love! I’ve gotta be real!” He jumps into the audience, absently passing off the microphone to Alex, who doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Trevor high-fives me, then grabs Teyonna and kisses her. Screams of delight spark the air. Most folks are extremely drunk by now.
“Well, uh.” Alex taps the mic, laughing awkwardly. “If Romina is unattached, I think I might go ahead and try to capture her for myself.” He returns the microphone to the booth. Smiles shyly at me on his walk back. My heart flips on a balance beam. Misses the landing.
“Your mom’s going to be upset.” I fiddle with the hem of my skirt.
“Nah.” He doesn’t say it likeNo, she won’t, but rather likeI don’t care.
ButNo, she won’tturns out to be accurate. Kristin dances with Alex, possessed by happy-go-lucky wedding spirits who forgive all transgressions. Trevor steals me for a fast song. Then Miles and Trevor dance until Trevor tires him out and Miles curls up beside Patricia on a bench to fall asleep. Somehow, I end up dancing with Daniel. Kristin guides me over to him, insisting that we “must, as family.” Trevor is busy rocking Teyonna in his arms, staring at her with a goofy, lovestruck grin.
“No hard feelings,” Daniel says to his son. “Love makes you do strange things.” Not that he has anything against me, but I think Daniel’s always preferred Teyonna for his son above anyone else.
Kristin’s veil is ripped. She’s red-cheeked, glasses askew, curls on their last hurrah. Frosting’s melting off the cupcakes, which were positioned too close to a speaker that’s been hooked upsince this morning and has overheated. Both of her hands are in the air. Daniel’s hair is a mess from dancing with his brothers.
“Kristin, I’m sorry,” I confess. “I didn’t mean to trick you... it was a little white lie that got out of control.”
“I know that, sweetie, I overheard Trevor explain it all to Teyonna days ago. He doesn’t have an indoor voice.” She twirls a hand. “Life is short! Have fun.”
I’m still dumbstruck when Alex finds me again—it’s an automaticsnap, our bodies locking into their proper positions. His hands gohere, and mine gothere, and it was always meant to be that way. How does one possibly fight fate?
But how does one trust it, when fate has burned them before?
“I dreamed this up,” he tells me, pulling back just enough to admire my face.
“Get your own dream. This one’s mine.” I stretch on tiptoes, so close to kissing him—I think he waits for it, eyelids lowering. But I hold back, because this doesn’t feel like it did during our last kiss, when I was only aware of what wasbetweenus. This time, I’m distracted by all that’s around us.
He’s framed by filaments of hot gold shooting from sparklers that guests are passing around. Trevor flies by with two in each hand, high overhead. Someone wreaths glow-in-the-dark hoops over our heads like necklaces, mine red, Alex’s blue. My senses buzz with the fire and laughter, the impossibility of those hands skating all over my skin, burning me through my dress. He thieves one of my diamond flower earrings, adding it to his collection.
“Mmm, don’t think so,” Alex tells me. “From this angle, I can see down the top of your dress. This dream’s all mine, gorgeous.” His sinful dimple, which appears only when his guard is down, was surely designed by a female higher power.
“That may be so, butthis...” I drag a fingernail down his tie. “Ismyfantasy, thank you very much. I want to strip you and tie up your hands with this.”
Alex stiffens, and down low I feel him instantly harden against me. His hands stroke languidly up and down my spine, the curve of my hip. “You can’t talk like that,” he murmurs, eyes glittering black. “I’m in dress pants. We’re in public.”
