Without putting his flowers down, he joins me on the dance floor among the lingering couples who aren’t done partying just yet.
It takes a second for us to decide who’s leading, but once I fall into his rhythm and steady foot pattern, we’re out-dancing everyone. Even Mom and Dad, who once took swing dance lessons together, can’t match our marvelous moves.
“Thank you for being my date,” I say during a break in the lyrics,swaying and utterly swept up. In the magic. In the moonlight. In Drew’s dreamy eyes.
He smiles a toothy smile. “Happy to.”
“I think,” I begin, trying to remain coy when really, I’m vibrating with emotion, “I’d like you to be my date for all future weddings.” I spin him out and then back in with pizzazz.
“Are you planning on attending many more weddings in the near future?”
“Sure. And birthday parties and holiday gatherings and galas and fundraisers and carnivals.”
“Since when do you go to carnivals? I thought you said you don’t trust rides that can be moved.”
“I stand by that. Okay, not carnivals, but at least circuses and fairs and communions and concerts and the occasional funeral.”
He stops dancing. Goes unmovable, even as I attempt to take the lead. “This took a dark turn.”
“Life can take a dark turn.” I think about Dad’s Alzheimer’s. About fleeting time and shifting priorities and bookstores and the dark side of fame. I step closer, feeling brave. “Let me make it a little brighter by saying this. I’d like you to be my date to all functions in perpetuity, because…I love you, Drew. I’ve loved you for a while now, in a romantic way, but I’ve been too chickenshit to tell you because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to live up to the lofty heights of the heroes in your romance novels and that I’d somehow mess it all up because I wasn’t worthy, wasn’t this hotshot successful comedian, but I realized that the only way I could mess this up was by not being honest. So, here it is, honesty…”
Drew’s stunned silence draws out through the end of the song and into the next. Another wedding classic I recognize but can’t think up the name of.
Growing worried that this timeline has been skewed and Drewdoesn’t return my feelings after all, I notice the flowers Drew’s still clutching, so I pluck a pretty, dangling petal to busy my free hand. “He loves me,” I say, wistful. And then pluck another. “He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not…”
Right before I run out of petals, Drew stops my hand from dismembering the flower completely and instead does it himself. “He loves you,” he says sweetly, kissing the last petal before letting it float to the floor alongside my worries. “Ilove you, Nolan.”
Drew leans down and kisses me as we start to sway to the music again, finding our way back into each other’s arms, falling into a natural rhythm. The rhythm of our life together. The beautiful music we can make by embracing our unique love story.
That’s when I recall the song title, and I’m so goddamn tickled by it that I pull away right as the chorus comes in with just enough time to sing: “It had to beDreeeeew.” I’m flat, but I don’t care, and an incredible smile spreads across Drew’s face; red rushes across his cheeks. Utterly adorable enough that nothing else matters. “WonderfulDreeeeew.”
He laughs the only laugh I’ll ever long to earn.
The laugh I want to grow old listening to.
“It had to beDrewwwwwww.”
As the song comes to a close and the floor starts to clear, I kiss Drew’s beautiful face once more. Everything seems settled.
Well, almost everything.
My mind whisks back to the empty closet, the missing crystals, and whether or not the future I lived inside was nothing more than a product of my imagination.
Then I remember two things from that dreamlike timeline: an omniscient voice and a promise.
They both echo loud and clear inside my head, and they spur me to act.
“Are you up for an adventure?” I ask Drew with an air of mischief, still holding tight to his hand.
“With you?” he asks, smiling. “Always.”
We race out of the venue to grab a cab, and a short time later we find ourselves in a waiting room awash with dark reds and the smell of incense. “Hello?” I call into the room beyond a beaded curtain.
“Where are we?” Drew whisper-asks, sounding concerned but still excited.
“You’ll see,” I say, nudging him forward.
It’s late, but I knew she’d still be open.
