“Go,” I tell him. “I’ll be in.”
I drop my head back and face the sky, alone, and close my eyes. Not even a minute later, he’s next to me again.
“That was fast,” I say with a laugh.
Only it’s not him next to me, it’s Nash. Fighting a smile.
Twenty-Nine
The fact Nash sits next to me with his arm draped around the back of the bench but says nothing for two full songs lets me know he thinks this is funny as hell.
Out of the corner of my eye, he slips his phone out of his pocket, clicks around the screen, and puts it up to his ear at the same time mine starts ringing.
“This why you got a phone?” I answer, looking at him. “So you can talk to people sitting right next to you?”
“Partly,” he says to me and into the phone. “And so my crazy wife can explain exactly what just happened and why she’s sitting alone stewing.”
“I thought you were sleeping with Sunny.” That’s humiliating. “Happy now?”
He laughs, loud, so loud it penetrates my chest and rattles my ear.
“I’m not sleeping with her,” he says. “We are close though. I met her while I was leading a tour. She was yelling at some kids who were trying to steal a sweetgrass basket at the market. Rattled off the history of the Gullah community better than any historian I’ve ever met. I introduced myself. She told me she was between jobs as a janitor. Yelled it, really.”
I can picture this.
He continues. “I hired her. Single mom with three kids—all boys.” His eyebrows raise at how wild that must be. “She does tours part-time. Does this once a week.” He points a thumb over his shoulder to the building. “And works two nights with an after-hours cleaning service.”
I have lost all self-control, because I ask, “Why were you with her last night?”
“Why does it matter?”
At my irritated look, he laughs.
“I’m not sleeping with her, Rue.”
That doesn’t answer my question, but I believe him.
“Fine.” I end the call and fold my arms over my chest. “She’s still insane.”
Pocketing his phone, he stands and extends an open-palmed hand.
I make a defiant sound. “No.”
He doesn’t have to tell me what he’s doing; I know. Know exactly what he’ll do and what it’ll feel like when he does. The way I want to tells me I cannot. I’ve made a promise to another man; dancing with this one is off-limits.
“Why not? You scared?” He gestures with his hand. “C’mon. Just one dance with you not fighting me.”
“I’m not scared.”
Not a lie, I’m terrified. Terrified that Jonathan’s wrong and what I’m feeling right now isn’t pre-wedding jitters, but a rightness I’ll never be able to replicate with anyone else—even Jonathan, the man who’s everything I’ve always wanted.
The dulled music from the community center surrounds us. I chew my lip, knee bouncing as my eyes go from Nash’s palm to his face.
When he says, “Please, Rue,” it’s different—a plea—and I’m softened. To him.
As much as I should say no, I want to say yes. I want to dance with him right in this parking lot. And, maybe, if I can make it through a dance with him, I’ll feel nothing and prove Jonathan right. Maybe thisisjitters and stress. My life is falling apart, of course I’m crazy and confused. I’ll dance and this will pass and then we can find the gold and get divorced. Also, it checks the box of bravery that Bennie insists I need.
And I’ve apparently crossed over to the level of lying where I’m not even honest with myself.
