Gramps told Blake he had nothing else to say to him. Blake said several things I couldn’t quite understand, probably because smarm required a lower tone of voice.
When Lucius snapped his fingers, I sat up straighter. Men in black polos and black slacks filtered through the crowd.
Security.
“Tell you what, grandson. You answer all their questions, then you and I can chat,” Lucius said before resuming his trek across the dance floor, straight to ... my nana.
“You ready to blow this Popsicle stand?”
I whirled around to see Malone, his tie already loosened.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
When we passed the valet stand, I looked up at Malone. “Where are we going?”
“I thought long and hard—and I do mean hard—about how we can’t seem to enjoy ourselves uninterrupted. I decided to book a hotel room.”
“Oh.”
He stopped. “You don’t like that idea?”
“No, that was a good ‘oh.’”
He grinned and then grabbed my hand. “Glad you approve.”
“Let me just text Addie to see if she can take care of the kitten.”
That accomplished, we stepped into the elevator, and he was about to kiss me when another couple joined us. They, too, wore tux and evening gown. They, too, had booked a room for the night, which, based on how the woman was teetering, was probably a good idea.
The woman appeared to be my mother’s age, maybe mid-fifties. Her husband—I could see their wedding bands—about the same age. He steadied her elbow as she swayed, then his hand slid to rest on her lower back. She grinned at him over her shoulder, and his small smile twitched.
Despite all my talk of sex and nothing but, some inner part of me twisted, wanting the same long-term bond this couple had. I had no way of knowing empirically that they had been married to each other for a long time, but I’d watched a lot of couples in my time. I’d seen new love, old love, clandestine love, and plain ol’ lust. I would’ve bet the fifty I’d just won that this couple was one of the lucky ones, the kind of couple who got together and stayed together, the kind of couple who understood what they had found in each other, and appreciation of that rare bond kept them together through the ups and downs of marriage vows.
If anyone could ever give me a guarantee that I’d have that kind of love with another person, I would’ve taken it, but I’d seen too many marriages splintered. At this point staying togetherwithouta piece of paper seemed daring enough, and I hadn’t managed that.
Well, I had. My partner had not.
The man whispered something in the woman’s ear, and she laughed out loud. The brash sound echoed off the elevator walls, but she didn’t seem to care in the least that she had an audience. No one other than him mattered, and it was clear to see that nothing but her mattered to him.
My eyes met Malone’s; his were once again fire and ice.
They got off the elevator on the floor before ours.
Before the door closed completely, Malone pulled me in for a long, searching kiss.
The elevator lurched to a stop, but he took his lips from mine only when the doors opened. Down the hall we went, my hand in his, but I had to take two steps for every one of his, so I was glad for the sneakers. Once we reached the door to a suite at the end of the hall, he held the key to the sensor, and we were in.
I reached for him, but he said, “Hold up.”
Something akin to dread threatened to bring my meal back up. Surely, he wasn’t going to call it all off now.
“Where’s your phone?” he asked with all the sternness of a nineteenth-century schoolmaster.
“My phone?”
“Yep.”
He brandished his and then made a production of holding the buttons to power it down before swiping with a flourish to turn it off.
