Easton and Sawyer are gone in a blink, right in the middle of the dance floor with all the other kids. Tamara dances with Josie, and the room around me starts to blur. All I see are spinning shoes and stomping feet.
And I realize,God help me,I don’t think I could pick out my own wife’s feet in that mess.
I rub at my face as beads of sweat build on my temples, with a sudden need to find her. I stand, the chair behind me toppling over, and scan the crowd, going dizzy when I can’t find her.
Could I pick her out in a crowd at all?
Just as the room begins to close in on me, an arm hooks mine and pulls me toward the wall.
“What is going on with you?” Emma whispers.
“I don’t know,” I grit out, swaying on my feet.
She looks around, checking if anyone is watching, but no one is. They’re all focused on the party, enjoying themselves, living in the moment. Something I am clearly incapable of doing. She realizes she’s gripping my arm too hard and drops it, frustration simmering in her eyes before she smothers it. Why won’t she just fight with me? I’m not breakable.
“Why were you just standing there like a powered-down robot?”
I scoff. “What are you talking about?”
She scoffs back, incredulous. “Steven. You’re just standing out there like a statue. Like you for—”
She slaps a hand over her mouth, horrified, her emerald eyes instantly glistening with tears.
“Like I what?” I bite out. “Forgot?”
“I didn’t mean…” She covers her face with her hands. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did.”
“Steven, no.” She looks at me with such a pained look it punches me right in the chest. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” she rasps.
I rub a hand over my face, my button-down shirt stretching against my arms and back. She’s close enough to touch, close enough to want, and my mind feels blank. It doesn’t know what to do. But her eyes are begging me to know, to figure it out, to do something.
The ability to breathe starts to slip away the longer she looks at me.
“I need air,” I say, bolting for the back door.
The alley is cold and dark, with one streetlamp buzzing overhead. The stupid, gaping holes in my mind scream like air passing through a wind tunnel. My head pulses as I pace back and forth.
The door I came out of squeaks open as Emma steps out, washed in the yellow light of the streetlamp like a halo, like a neon sign that sayslook at what you’re running from, you idiot.Her green silk dress glows softly, hugging her curves in places I dream of, places meant for my hands. My fingers twitch at the longing that moves through me, filling my mind with new things. Desire, heat, adoration.
“Steven, what is happening?” She steps toward me but halts. Again, like I’m a bomb or a deer she might scare off.
“Stop doing that!” The shout blasts out of me before I can stop it, and she flinches.
“What am I doing?” she murmurs through chattering teeth, hugging herself. The air slaps us, and she shivers as goosebumps scatter across her arms and chest.
I strip off my jacket and wrap it around her shoulders.
“What am I doing wrong?” she whispers.
My anger is quickly replaced with regret, the heat dissipating and replaced with a stale, sticky cold that clings to my neck.
“It’s not you.”
She snorts, mimicking a deep, dramatic voice. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
I smile, sliding my hands up her arms, tugging the jacket to cover the bare skin of her chest and neck. Her breaths hitch and fall unevenly, goosebumps rippling as I tug her closer. My lips brush the hollow of her neck and the wisps of hair that dangle near her jaw. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” I murmur against her skin.
