“Uh-huh,” he said, with a skeptical look on his face. “Alright, enough of this bullshit. Let’s get out of here.”
Once we arrived at the Jefferson Hotel, Will handed his keys to the valet, and we grabbed signature cocktails on the way through the door.
“What is this?” I asked as I took a sip and spat it back into the glass. James and Will both laughed.
“It’s a Long Island Iced Tea,” Will said.
I headed straight to the bar with both of them trailing behind me. “Can I get a Jack and Coke?” I said to the bartender who had just finished setting up for the evening.
“I like a girl who drinks whiskey,” James said with a wink before turning to the bartender to order a Gin and Tonic for himself. Will got a beer and then made his way out to the balcony.
“God, this hotel is so fancy,” Will said, as he lit his cigarette and then blew out a puff of smoke and waved it away from us. “Sorry,” he said, as some of it blew back into my face.
“I don’t know how you smoke those,” I said, then I chugged my drink and headed back in to get another. Before I stepped through the doors, I looked back over my shoulder and called to the boys. “Come on, let’s go find our tables.”
“Here comes the boring part,” Will said as he blew past me through the doors. Just then, I felt James’s thumb and forefinger on my lower back, gently guiding me through the crowd towards the seating chart. The way he touched me sent goosebumps down my arms.
All through dinner, Mom bored me with stories of all the weddings she’d been to this year. Annoyed, I got up for a second drink before she could tell me not to. As I walked to the bar, I scanned the room for Will, who caught my gaze and glared back at me like an angry parent. What was his problem? When I returned from the bar with a Jack and Ginger, they had cleared our plates and were serving the remains of the cake that hadn’t been smashed all over my cousin, Kirstin’s face.
With each bite, I tuned my mother out and drifted to the image of the blue eyes that had been locked on mine in the church, even though he was sitting right next to me now. I tried to limit my glances at him since Amy was sitting right across from me and seemed to be upset. All I could think about was James’s fingers on my lower back, guiding me through the crowd to our table, and about how we had only just recently reconnected, and he already felt confident enough to touch me. His touch was electric.
As I took one last bite, he moved in close and whispered warm breath into my ear. “Come dance with me,” he said.
As if I were powerless, I rose from my seat, chugged my drink, and followed him onto the dance floor. I didn’t actually know how to dance, so I was thankful that this wedding was an open bar and everyone was feeling the music.
The dance floor was crowded with groomsmen dancing like sprinklers and Amy teaching our middle aged relatives how to push pretend shopping carts around the room. I found it funny that she was able to mask who she really was to others, pretending to be sweet and likable. I was hoping that her taking center stage meant everyone was watching Amy instead of me. Suddenly, I felt James’s palm meet my lower back and pull me in close to move against him.
“Have you always been a terrible dancer?” he chided loudly over the band.
“Have you always been an arrogant asshole?” I said sarcastically, as I punched him in the upper arm. He smiled widely as if I had just paid him a compliment. This playful insult only seemed to make him more confident.
“Just move with me,” he whispered firmly in my ear as he let his hand slip below what would be my panty line, if I were wearing any. His confidence caught me off guard, and his sinful smile told me he knew I was bare below my tight black dress. He looked at me in a way that told me exactly what was on his mind. I quickly scanned the room to find my mother paying zero attention to me, but Amy spotted me and gave me another angry look, then disappeared out onto the balcony. What was her problem now? Mid-song, and without a moment’s warning, James pulled away from me and headed for the balcony, too.
“Where are you going?” I asked as I followed closely behind him.
“I need to talk to Amy for a minute,” he said without looking back. He sounded stressed and agitated, but I couldn’t understand why.
Out on the balcony, I found Will smoking another cigarette. A habit he continued to tell me that he had quit. He and James were talking to Amy, and it was clear that she was upset. When she saw me walking towards them, she quickly wrapped up her conversation, looked at James, and then headed back inside.
“Give me one of those, man,” James said, as he grabbed the crumpled pack out of Will’s hand and signaled for a lighter.
“Sure,” Will replied, as he fumbled to get the lighter from his chest pocket and tossed it to him. James put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. The smoke made me cough.
“You smoke?” I asked James incredulously. “Only sometimes at parties,” he said with a shrug.
I reached out, grabbed the half-smoked cigarette out of Will’s mouth, snapped it in half, and tossed it out over the balcony into the road, where it flickered for a moment, then died. Both their heads snapped to meet my unapologetic gaze.
“The fuck did you do that for? That wasn’t cool, Allie,” Will said with surprise, knowing perfectly well why I did it. “Do that again and I’m throwing you in the hotel fountain,” he said with anger, but James smirked at the thought.
“Smoking is nasty and horrible for you. How many times have you quit now?” I asked, reminding him of his failure. Then I looked at James and shook my head at him, too.
“I know, but it goes so well with drinking; it just tastes so good. I’ll just have one. Promise,” Will said, as he pulled the last one from the pack and flipped it into his mouth. James tossed the lighter back to him, high enough in the air that I couldn’t intercept it.
“Fine, but you two are stupid for smoking. I’m going back inside, I want another Jack and Coke,” I said, then I walked back across the balcony, but right as I reached out to open the door, I stopped as I heard Will say something to James.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man?” Will said in a heated tone. “You know Amy is freaking out.”
“Stay out of it,” James hissed.
