And now there was this female in front of me, who had deliberately blocked my path so she could have all of Vann’s attention and I was contemplating murder in the first degree. Basically, it was time for another drink and a scavenger hunt for my sanity.
“Excuse me,” I managed to bite out politely. Okay, politely-ish.
She barely turned her head to acknowledge my presence and just kept talking to Vann with enthusiastic hand gestures. I tried to step around her when one of her flailing arms nearly clotheslined me.
I took a step back and glanced at Vann. The damnable man was trying to bite back a smile. Those gray eyes shifted to mine, full of humor.
He was enjoying this.
“Excuse me,” I said louder.
The woman turned to finally give me her attention, an ugly sneer twisting her otherwise pretty face. “What?”
Okay, that was it. I tried to be nice. At least polite. And I could even admit, at least to myself, that I was playing a game with Vann, but she didn’t know that. Now she was just on my nerves.
Leaning around her, I grabbed Vann’s hand and tugged him toward me. “I just need him,” I told the snotty woman. “For a sec,” I promised.
Vann let me pull him onto the dance floor, ignoring the evil woman and her demonic glaring from behind him.
“She is awful,” I told him as we naturally started to move with the upbeat music.
He finally let go of his smile. “She barely said anything to you.”
I growled, thankful he couldn’t hear me over the bass. “She didn’t need to,” I told him. “It was her attitude.”
His eyes lit with pretend understanding. “Ah. I get it now.”
“Thank you.”
He leaned in, brushing a stray hair over my shoulder. “Told you.”
My eyes naturally narrowed. “Told me what?”
“You’re not a nice girl.”
I continued to stare at him, wondering what this meant. He sounded like he was gloating, like he’d uncovered some great secret about me. But I didn’t get it.
I was nice. Most of the time. To the people I loved anyway.
And I had always been nice to him.
Nice-ish.
“I’m super nice,” I argued. “That biotch had it coming.” I realized something awful way too late. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, she wasn’t your wedding date or anything was she?”
His eyes bugged in a satisfying way. “Her? No. No. No.”
Three no’s was good confirmation he wasn’t into her. That shouldn’t have made me as happy as it did.
“If you’d rather dance with her…”
He rolled his eyes and wrapped his arm around my waist, tugging me against him. “I’m dancing with the girl I want to be dancing with.”
He was always so straightforward with everything, so completely direct and unflinching. It was strange. Or at least different than the other guys I had spent time with. Even my brother had a tendency to dance around sensitive issues with me. Ezra was always afraid the truth would break me. Like I was this delicate flower that was at risk of losing her petals.
To be honest, Vann’s way was jarring. Like actual punches to my gut. But it was growing on me. I found I didn’t like to be treated as though I were fragile. Vann’s way seemed to convey more… respect for me. He trusted me to be a grown-up woman with her own mind.
And that was validating in a way I didn’t expect.
