‘Then you’re welcome. Truthfully, I don’t give a flying fuck or a rolling doughnut what time y’all come home, just so long as you wake up in your own beds in the morning.’
She waved us through the parlour door, out of the cool air conditioning of Bell House and into the sweltering evening heat.
‘Now, y’all have fun tonight,’ she called as I tiptoed carefully down the steps in my low heels. ‘And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
‘How much does that leave us with?’ he asked me out the side of his mouth.
I grimaced as Ashley traded her wave for a flash of her middle finger as soon as he looked away.
‘Unless we get arrested for scaling the Pulaski monument completely naked and under the influence, we should be fine.’
‘What if we’re naked but not under the influence?’
An unfamiliar sensation rushed over me as I climbed into his car, laughing. A swell of anticipation, the good kind. Something I hadn’t experienced in a while.
‘Ready to have some fun?’ Jackson asked, slipping into the driver’s seat and closing the door.
I nodded and smiled.
‘So ready.’
And as he gunned the engine, much to my surprise, I realized it was true.
By the time I’d fastened my seatbelt without flashing my bra and worked out how to hold my bag over my skirt in a way that would not reveal my underwear, we were already pulling into a parking bay. A man dressed in a dark blue polo shirt waited impatiently to open my door as Jackson hopped out, the car engine still turning over.
‘That wasn’t even two minutes,’ I said, looking back the way we came. ‘It would’ve been quicker to walk.’
He accepted a parking receipt from the valet with a manly nod.
‘My grandmother would disinherit me if I invited a lady to a dance then expected her to walk in this heat,’ he replied.
‘But your grandmother would never know.’
‘That’s what you think. My grandmother has spies everywhere.’ He lowered his voice, eyes darting around. ‘Seriously, nothing in this town happens without Virginia Powell knowing about it. Come to think of it, are you sure she isn’t a witch?’
‘Sure as I can be,’ I said, an edge of nerves cutting into my choked laugh.
All around us, people were pouring out of their cars, hugging one another and admiring each other’s outfits. As usual, Ashley had been right. My dress was not the least bit out of place. In defiance of the heat, everyone was gussied up in either classic black tuxedos, patterned dinner jackets, or shiny, colourful, strappy dresses. Jackson and I fit right in.
‘Is this your first time?’ Jackson asked.
I stared at him in surprise and he tilted his head towards the hotel in front of us.
‘At the DeSoto?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said, squeezing my purse until I felt the beads bite into the flesh of my palm. ‘I mean, I’ve walked by it a million times but I’ve never been inside. Have you been here before?’
‘Feels like we were here every weekend last year. Weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras.’ He reeled off occasions as we walked up the steps and into the hotel lobby. ‘So many sweet sixteens.’
‘Think yourself lucky,’ I said, grinning at the look of despair on his face, like they were punishments and not parties. ‘There weren’t many social events in the Welsh countryside. Not unless you wanted to celebrate the sheep anyway.’
‘Trust me, I would trade,’ Jackson said. ‘Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I can still hear Pitbull’s voice in my brain. Chilling with a bunch of sheep would be an upgrade.’
‘You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. I know y’all like to say Savannah is a sleepy town, but we had to drive thirty minutes just to get to the closest grocery store.’
He stopped short in the hotel foyer and grabbed my arm. I halted beside him in a panic, people flowing around us like water flowing around a tree sticking up in the middle of a river.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
