"It's good to meet you, Maya." Lucinda's eyes are warm, direct, and carry the specific understanding of a woman who knows exactly what she's looking at because she lives a version of it. "We should head back. Gabriel's holding our table and Beau is threatening to sign us all up for duets."
She says the names easily.Gabriel and Beau.Two more husbands at a table in the same bar, in the same small town, on the same Friday night. She lets the information land without emphasis. Then she looks at Maya, and the look is brief and clear and says:you're not alone on this.
Maya's shoulders drop a quarter inch.
They leave. Maya watches them go.
"So," Jace says, leaning toward Maya, "about that dance. I've been told I'm an excellent dancer. Mostly by myself, but the point stands."
He's already standing, hand extended, performing the full Jace charm offense. Maya looks at his hand. Starts to reach for it.
I stand up.
"My dance," I say.
The moment holds for one beat, two, and then Jace grins and sits back down and raises his beer in a salute that is equal parts concession and amusement.
"By all means, old man. Age before beauty."
I extend my hand to Maya. She takes it. Her fingers are cool from the wine glass and they tighten around mine as I lead her through the crowd to the small clearing near the band where a few couples are swaying in the amber light.
The band is playing something slow. Country, old school, the kind of song that doesn't need to be good to serve its purpose. I pull her in. My hand finds her waist, the curve of it through the soft red sweater. Her other hand comes up to my shoulder and her fingers curl into the fabric there and she steps close enough that I feel her breath against my throat.
We move. Not much. The slow, gravitational sway of two bodies that have already learned each other's rhythms in private and are now, for the first time, letting the public see.
Her forehead tips against my jaw. The music vibrates through the floorboards and up through my boots and into my bones. And I feel her shiver.
"This okay?" I ask. Low. Against her hair.
"This is okay," she says. And then, quieter: "This is really okay."
I hold her.
And I want to believe that this is enough. That what we're building has a foundation that goes deeper than these good weeks.
The song ends. I don't let go.
Not yet.
25
MAYA
Reid's hand is warm at my waist. Steady. The kind of pressure that doesn't grip or pull but simply holds. His other hand envelops mine completely, my fingers disappearing inside his, and we sway in the amber light near the band and I let myself feel it.
Safe.
Not the safety of locked doors and anonymity and wanting less. The real kind. The kind that lives in someone else's body and is offered without terms.
His chest rises and falls against mine, slow, and the music vibrates through my body. And I think about the three of them. How different they are.
I press my forehead against Reid's jaw and let the music move us and I think about when he asked if I wanted to go out. The old panic arrived on schedule, quick and chemical, flooding my system before I could reason with it. Social situations. Public spaces. The constant background calculation. Has anyone hereseen the photos? Does anyone recognize me? The feeling of shame runs automatically whether I want it to or not.
But Reid's eyes were on me. Steady, patient in the way that has nothing to do with waiting and everything to do with certainty. And the panic receded. Not gone. Just quieter. Moved to a back room where I could close the door on it for one evening.
And now here I am. In a bar. In a small Montana town. Dancing with one of three men who are not remotely shy about touching me, looking at me, making it legible to anyone paying attention that I am theirs and they are mine. Jace's arm on the back of my chair for the entire bar to see. Owen's hand on my knee under the table, visible to anyone who cared to look. Reid's hand on my waist right now, his mouth near my hair, his body the boundary between me and the rest of the room.
It doesn't register as scandalous. It registers as true.
