Russ looked at her, nodding his head with the music. He gave her another squeeze and leaned over so she could hear him. “I forgot how great you are at concerts. I missed you, Cherry.”
“I missed you, too,” Cherry said softly.
She hadn’tactivelymissed Russ. She hadn’t really thought about him in ten years. But now that he was right beside her, she missed him like crazy. Every good and bad memory was rushing back at her.Concerts. Lunches. Studying in her dorm room. Driving to Broken Bow to visit Stacia’s family at Easter.Cherry had spent a whole year stealingglances at Russ and then squirreling her feelings away somewhere that Stacia—and Russ himself—would hopefully never see them.
And now Russ was here, and Stacia wasn’t. (Stacia was married! To another chiropractor! She had three kids!)
The song ended. Russ’s hand dropped below Cherry’s bra strap. “How’s your back?” he asked, like he’d heard her think the word “chiropractor.”
“Fine. It won’t hurt till tomorrow.”
“Oh, good,” he said, “I’ll be long gone by then.”
Cherry laughed and elbowed his stomach. His arm tightened around her waist. She stood up straighter, instinctively, like she could straighten herself skinny. It had been so long since a man had touched her for the first time... (She didn’t have to straighten for Tom. He knew what Cherry was hiding under her clothes.)
Cherry’s favorite song ended. Another favorite song began. Russ kept his arm around her. His fingers were cupped around her side, right in the crease of her belly. She was standing so tall, her eye line had jumped from his chin to his cheeks.
He glanced over at her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “I’m good.”
He squeezed her again. “This okay?”
“It’s good.”
He pulled her even closer. Fully against him. If Cherry turned her head, it would be in his neck. She was close enough to hear him singing along. She sang with him.
Now when Russ swayed to and fro, Cherry really did sway with him. They were dancing together. Properly.
He kept glancing at her, singing to her. It wasn’t awkward. Because he didn’tmakeit awkward. (Russ never got embarrassed, so he was never embarrassing.)
There was only one hit song on Goldenrod’s first album, and it had become a hit years after the fact, when it was featured onGrey’s Anatomy. The song was practically a cappella—more or less spoken word.Everyone in the crowd knew it. Cherry knew it. It was about being in love with the wrong person.
The lead singer stopped singing during the chorus and let the audience recite the lyrics, pointing the microphone out at them.
Russ and Cherry looked right into each other’s eyes and said/sang the words. He put his other arm around her, across her stomach. Cherry stretched another sixteenth of an inch taller. She turned toward him, inside his arms, and touched the placket of his button-down shirt. (Russ was the only one here wearing a button-down shirt.) He noticed her touching him, and his smile quirked up on one side, happy about it. Cherry rolled her eyes, like she thought he was being dumb. She didn’t think that. She thought he was beingunbearablyattractive. She thought hewasunbearably attractive. She’d always thought so—she’d never been able to bear it, especially when he was aiming all of that floppy-haired, blue-eyedRussness her way.
He was aiming it now. Cherry felt very...targeted.
She flattened her hand against his chest. He was warm. Hard. Russ was still thin and boyish—at how old, thirty-seven? Thirty-eight? Still sharp-jawed and loose through the shoulders. He didn’t hold himself up like someone who was divorced. His posture was light. It was difficult to picture him with a kid.
Cherry stroked his chest and Russ stroked her hip. He’d stopped singing. So had she. The song had changed. It was the final song on the record, Cherry realized—the song she knew the least. She’d usually fallen asleep or gotten out of the car before she got to this one.
Russ tilted his head down toward hers, and they swayed, slow-dancing.
When the song ended, so did the album.
Cherry let go of Russ and turned back to the stage, holding her hands above her head to applaud. Russ didn’t let go, just shifted a little bit to stand behind her. The crowd was going wild. Truly. Russ’s mouth was by Cherry’s ear, but she could still barely hear him over all the cheering—“We should go.”
She looked back at him. She was still clapping. “Is the concert over now?”
He looked right in her eyes. He wasclose—their chins and noses would touch if Cherry said something too emphatically.
“No.” He shook his head. “They’re going to play more from their other albums.”
“Oh.” Cherry was confused.
“But if we left now, the album would be perfectly discrete. A complete experience with a beginning and an end.”
