“Tell your friend to dance with us,” she murmurs in my ear, her lips lingering along the pulse point of my neck.
“Dance with us, Cam.” I break into a wide, goofy grin and sway my hips slowly in invitation.
She crosses her arms, both brows raised. “You’ve met before tonight, I presume?”
Keira scoffs, trailing her fingers down my arms. Taking my hands in hers. Interlacing our fingers.
“To know me is to love me.” She raises our joined hands overhead, moving with the music and ignoring Cam’s question.
Cam leans closer, gaze narrowed on my face.
I close my eyes so she can’t see the truth.
That doesn’t stop her from calling me out. “Are you high?”
“Oh mygod,” Keira bemoans. “It’s a party,Mom. Loosen up or get off the fucking dance floor.”
Ignoring her, Cam places one hand on my arm, rubbing from my elbow to my shoulder until I open my eyes and look at her.
“This isn’t exactly what we talked about,” she says, her lips pursed like she doesn’t know what to do. It’s a different look for Cam. She’s always in control. She always has the right answers.
Bryant joins us, slinging one arm around her shoulders. “All good?” he asks, glancing between us.
Cam stays quiet.
I swallow past the lump in my throat, trying to choke back the shame creeping over me. She’s right. This isn’t what I said I wanted.
But maybe it doesn’t matter what I want.
Maybe this is all I deserve.
“I’m fine.” I give them a flippant smile, hoping like hell I’m fooling my friends from Holt better than I’m fooling myself.
When neither moves, I repeat Keira’s words. “Loosen up or get off the dance floor.”
Without waiting for a response, I spin in Keira’s hold, link my arms over her neck again, and let my mind go blank and my body move to the pulsating bass of the music.
Chapter twenty-one
Sawyer
I’m so thirsty. So sweaty. So hot and so needy.
But nothing could get me off this dance floor.
As long as I keep moving, my mind won’t wander. If I keep dancing, I get to revel in the numbness of forgetting.
Keira and I have worked the crowd together, dancing in big groups, then adding one or two people to our rhythm. No matter how far we stray, we keep gravitating toward each other.
She’s holding my hips again when she circles around to face me, pressing her sweat-soaked forehead into mine and giggling. “I have a secret,” she whispers, her lips so close I swear I feel them slick against mine for a second.
“Do you want to know it?”
I don’t. Not really. But I want her to keep distracting me.
Languidly, I nod.
“What will you give me in return?” she teases.
