A beat of stunned silence. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a thing people do when there’s music.” She sways her hips to the peppy beat, and my gaze drops to catch the movement. “You know you want to,” she says, tugging me up.
Shewants to dance withme. One hundred percent, we can blame this on the alcohol. She’s unfiltered and unconcerned. But it’s dancing and she’s asking.
Hell yes, I want to.
As I stand, I meet Mia’s eyes across the table, and her expression is smug, like she’s somehow the mastermind here. “Have fun,” she singsongs. Fable leads me away, and I distantly hear my sister whisper something about soft pretzels.
Fable’s fingers are folded around mine until we get to an open spot on the dance floor, and she spins my way. “How do I look?” she asks, hands perched on her hips.
I grin, taking her in. Her honey-blond hair is in a messy knot at the back of her head after she was laughing so hard an hour ago that she got marinara on the tips. A low-cut dark-green dress with tiny, delicate flowers hugs the curves of her breasts, then flairs at the waist and fans out above her knees. That freckle I love is there, along with the tattoo peeking out at her shoulder and wrist. Bare legs and black Converses and small gold hoops in her ears.
She looks like a dream I’d never want to wake up from.
“You always look beautiful, Fabes.”
I get an eye roll. Somehow that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for. “But do I look like Theo’s girlfriend?”
My heart pauses for a beat. What doesTheo’sgirlfriendeven look like? I’ve never really let myself picture it. But that gaping, achythinginside my chest—the one that keeps drawing me closer to the woman before me—whispers faintly that if it was anyone, it would be her. Lazy mornings and bare skin. Sharing fries and sharing secrets.
Fable doesn’t give me a chance to answer as she lifts one hand to my shoulder and links her other with mine. “Because I’m contractually obligated to put on a show here.” She looks toward the edge of the dance floor where Arthur and his wife are seated at a table. “I signed on the dotted line.”
Oh.That reality check burns on its way down, blanking my mind for a moment.
“Put your arm around me,” she instructs.
Despite the pinch in my chest, I follow her lead, my hand covering the velvety fabric at her waist. The material is so thin it’s almost nonexistent.
I breathe in her flowery scent. It’s not a factory-made flower smell, poured into a bottle and slapped with a label. No, it’s straight-from-the-garden—like she planted them, watered them, picked them, and set them in her kitchen window. It’s intoxicating and real.
Fable steps into me and her breasts brush my chest. Longing coils around my spine. Ilove the way she feels against me. In my hands and in my lungs. But it’s taking all my concentration to remember she’s pretending right now. I’m tipping over the edge of...something, losing my stomach in the process, and she’s still on sturdy ground.
I force myself to move us around the dance floor, and she falls into rhythm with me. Our toes bump a few times, and she snickers under her breath.
She looks up at me through golden lashes. “Are you okay? You look like you’re in pain.”
“I am.”
“To which part?”
My hand flexes against her waist. “Both?”
Her head tilts. “Why are you in pain?”
I almost don’t reply. My brain says to keep the status quo, make it through this dance, go home and have a cold shower. Or two.
But my heart says fuck it. She’s half drunk on alcohol, I’m half drunk on her. She’s putting on a show, I’m very much not. How can the truth make this any more complicated?
“I’m in pain because a stunning woman is in my arms, and I can’t remember how to dance properly. Or even function, really.” I trip over her toes on our next step, proving my point.
Color flashes over her cheeks. “Want me to teach you how?”
“To dance or to function this close to you?”
“Whichever one is more important.”
“I’d say the functioning.”
