“Tell Amelia this is hers if she plays us a song on the violin.”
“Rightnow?” the guy asks.
Niko removes a second hundred-dollar bill. “And I’ll give you this one if you ask her, and make it happen.”
The musician shrugs, but he’s interested in the offer.
He reaches down, grabbing the money.
I can feel heat creeping up to my cheeks. My heart feels a little too big for my chest, realizing what Niko’s trying to do.
“You don’t have to do this for me,” I say to him under my breath.
“I want to.”
“Amelia,” the musician calls over to a girl breakingdown a microphone stand on the corner of the stage. “Want a hundred bucks?”
As she’s walking over, one of the slowly rotating blue lights filling the ballroom cuts out. The tear-down crew is slowly starting to turn off the overhead party lights, one by one.
“I’ll play a song for a Benjamin. Any requests?” the girl asks.
“Something beautiful,” Niko says.
He pulls me over to the edge of the stage, near one of the tall trees.
Niko’s arms are already around me as she starts to play. The sound of the violin fills the space around us, and Niko starts to slow dance with me, resting his head on the side of mine.
He leans into me, his body heavy, like he needs somewhere to rest.
My pulse quickens.
I can’t get used to this.
I don’t know how it’s possible for him to still smell so good. I breathe in the scent of his hair along with the fresh pine tree beside us.
For the first moment all night, I feel myself relax.
Relax in a way I couldn’t when I was worried about the drug in his blood.
Any chance of that was stolen from us when Callum showed up, tossing everything into disarray. And I still have more questions than ever, and I know nothing is fixed.
Butrightnow, we can have this.
We can rest on each other.
The warm front of his body pressed up against mine.
My heart squeezes in my chest like it’s too full. It wasn’timmediately obvious to me that I’m giving something to Niko, too.
Heneeds this. He pulled me back to the ballroom to give me this last slow dance, but he also needs this moment, probably more than me.
Everything you’ve been through.
The trauma of living with that horrible man, all coming up and spilling out onto the people around you.
And whatever broken parts of yourself you’re afraid to show me.
But all you want is peace.
