He, of course, is wearing a button-up shirt covered in bright red poppies, his light hair tousled, his face shaved smooth. I’m so taken aback by him, so completely unsteady, that when he says, “I’ll drive,” I forget to argue.
As my dad climbs into the truck, it’s with a double take and grunt of approval at my dress.
I slide to the middle of the bench seat—next to Nash where our legs touch—and remember to ask where we are going.
Nash presses his knee into mine and looks at me sideways. “Dancing.”
And . . .damn him.
Twenty-Eight
In late-summer Fontain, the vineyards gather to celebrate the harvest season with a grape-stomping festival. It’s overindulgence dressed as tradition, and I haven’t been in years.
Nash and I went just days before he got the phone call about the position in DC and I found out I was pregnant. In bare feet, we climbed into an oversized half barrel and grapes squished between our toes. We both laughed; it was completely disgusting.
The air was hot, the sun was low, the music from a bluegrass band blasted through the speakers. Nash pulled me close—one hand firm on my back, the other gentle as it held my palm—and stopped our stomping to start dancing. Right there in the middle of people smashing grapes and with grapes between our own toes, he said,“I hope I get to dance in grapes with you until the day I die, Rue Conway.”
And I, with a deliriously happy smile on my face, said,“Someone once said that dancing has been part of every good moment of history.”
“Sounds smart,”Nash said before kissing me.“Stick with him.”
The only time Jonathan and I danced was at his brother’s wedding over a year ago, and we never made it through a whole song due to his groomsman’s duties and whiskey-induced dental consultations. It wouldn’t matter if we had; no dance could ever compare to that one in a vat of grapes. As sure as Nash’s arm is covered in black lines marking moments of history, that memory is branded right to the timeline of my life, never to be erased or outdone.
To say I’m less than thrilled about dancing would be the biggest understatement of the entire history of man. Based on how anxious I am just hearing the word and the way, briefly, I thought of Nash’s hands on me—the curve of my hips and lines of my back—I can’t put myself in that position.
Nash and Cap, oblivious, lead me into the community center, laughing as they go. Their easy joy amplifies my dread as we step into a large room with a drop ceiling, terrible lighting, and seemingly every senior citizen in the state of South Carolina.
And Sunny.
Who’s wearing a purple spandex jumpsuit and pointing her battery-operated fan toward her face. The gold hoops in her ears bracket a big smile.
“What is this?” I ask in a strained whisper.
“I told you.” Nash grins. “Dancing.”
“Hey, fam,” Sunny belts out, too loud for how close she is to us. She snaps her fingers and dips her hips from side to side. “Cappy, baby, you ready to get your groove on?”
“I love dancing,” Cap says with a chuckle from next to me.
“You can barely walk,” I whisper-snip at him. I don’t want to do this. My life is falling apart, I’m engaged to someone else, and dancing means closeness and touching. My dress is too small and my feelings too big and this is not at all what I came here to do. “How the hell are you going to dance?”
He jabs his cane onto my exposed toes, making me yelp. “Mind your own damn business.”
“Honey child—” Sunny smiles, letting me know she’s pushing my buttons. “You ready to get your groove back?”
“I have my groove, thanks,” I say dryly.
She makes an incredulous sound before giving Nash a pointed look. “Hope you practiced, bossman. Your wife even smiles like she’s beat deaf.”
Nash chuckles. “Now, Sunny, play nice.”
“And I’m not smiling,” I sneer.
“Mhm,” she says with raised brows. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” To Nash she says sweetly, “Thanks again for last night.”
It is none of my business, yet my jaw drops straight to the stained linoleum floor.Nash was with Sunny.
All he says: “It was fun.”
