Like heknewwhat we were like before. Like he knew exactly how we’d changed.
Between trying to listen to conversations of the people around us and tryingnotto notice how March’s body felt against my own, and how easy and naturalit was to dance with him (like we’d most definitely done this before), my fear of where I was disappeared completely. It didn’t matter how high up we were or what went on in the world below us.
For those moments, I was as close as I had ever gotten to being free.
33
We heard nothing, and eventually, the others gave up on dancing and sat down.
March reluctantly admitted that we were better off talking to people when they came to our table, not shouted words while they danced around us. I could have sworn that, before we stopped, he pulled me to him tightly one more time. I could have sworn that when he did, I felt his hardness against my stomach clearly, and it didnothelp with my own situation between my legs.
He was dangerous, March. I only really noticed when we stopped dancing and sat down, but it was so easy to lose myself when he was close. So easy to just let him take the lead and steer me wherever he wanted, for however long he pleased. The way he held me, the way he looked at me, the way his fingertips slowly caressed my back every now and again, like he thought maybe I wouldn’t notice, but heneededto be touching me.
Dangerous.
The guests kept on coming, each drunker than the last. Wine was being served left and right, and more food hadcome out from under the table—appetizers, snacks, pastry. We’d all sat down by then, and the sun was climbing higher and higher in the sky, and the music was louder, too, but we were alert. All of us without needing to say a single word knew exactly what to do—listen and ask questions.
After all, the guests were drunk, careless with what they shared. That’s how we found out thattheywere the reason why the Backward Banquet had happened in the first place.
“So, I said-I said, Your Excellency!” A Diamond man stood by the edge of our table with two others at his sides, wearing hats and jackets and silver napkins in their pockets. He slammed his fist to the table when he said this, and it sounded more like ‘Eshe-llency’than anything else, but nobody commented. “But we must—we simply must meet the Hands. Such brave girls and boys—never before had it happened, nor will it in our lifetime for Hands to unwin—oh, but we must-we must meet them!”
Yes, the man was very drunk, and he kept waving his glass around and slamming his fist to the edge of the table on occasion. Mimi and Russ continuously tried to ask him questions, but that’s all he said. That’s all he revealed.
Before they turned to leave, they looked at us one more time, touched these pins attached to their jackets and winked.
“Look—look what we have here!”
They whispered the words like they were suddenly afraid someone would hear, then they laughed. Waited for our reaction, like they expected us to know exactly what they meant. We didn’t, though.
The pins they were showing us were small, shaped like hammers I thought at first, but no. They looked more like axes, tiny things made of metal, all three identical, pinned on the same spot on their jackets.
“Ah, never mind,” said the guy on the right, waving us offlike he was disappointed. Like he’d really hoped we would get whatever those pins were supposed to mean.
We kept staring after them confused, until they finally left.
Then came a group of four women with feathers in their hair, all red, all Hearts.
Then came two couples, Diamond and Spade—but it wasn’t until a single man happened to stumble close to our table that we finally found something out.
It was Helen who stood up when the man, belly bigger than all the rest of him, nearly fell right in front of us because he was too drunk to see where he was going. She stood up and offered the man her chair, and then she produced another, possibly from a table nearby—everybody was up and dancing and going about at that point.
Helen sat to his left, while Levana was on his right, and the man thanked them about a hundred times, but it never once sounded likethanks.More like10-Q, 10-Q, dee-rust Hanz.
“Tell us, sir. Where do you come from? Are you a Diamond?” Levana asked him, and he was all too eager to tell her about how his company manufactured key parts of the Sparetime harvesting process that was ongoing year-round for about three straight minutes.
“Tell us, sir. Have you watched the trials, then? Have you seen us play?” Helen asked, and the man was giddy from the attention.
“Why, yes! Yes, I have, since the very, very beginning!” he exclaimed, and when Seth poured more wine in his glass, he happily drank it in one gulp.
The girls looked at all of us for a second while he laughed to himself, and lastly they stopped on March.
There was no need for words. We all understood exactly what they were saying.
“Do it,” Russ said from across the table.
“Do it,” Mimi said from my other side.
“Do it,” said March with a nod.
