“Avery told me his parents almost broke up a few years into their marriage,” Anna says. “Seeing them right now, you’d hardly believe it.”
I freeze, my water glass suspended en route to my mouth. “No,” I say, more to deny it than to disagree.
“No, full-on, they were ready for dee-vorce. But Mr. Vaughn told Avery they started talking it through, made a commitment to work on it together, take it day by day. Said love is a trust fall you take, each and every day. And here they are, how many years later?”
She sighs, a contemplative look on her face. “But… It shouldn’t betoohard, right? Like, sometimes pulling the plug is the right thing to do. Even if it wasn’t for the Vaughns?”
La says something that makes Margie, Jack, and Anna laugh, but I don’t hear anything beyond the rushing in my ears. The Vaughn relationship has been…almost tainted in some way, at least to me. Like breaking a porcelain figurine and gluing it back together. I’ll always know the cracks were there in their relationship. It’s childish, I know. But if the two best and most loving people in the world had a hard time being in a relationship with one another—if the most stable and loving relationship I’ve ever seen is a daily trust fall—what does that leave for me?
I wolf down my food, though I ate at the dinner that made me late for this one. But second dinner helps me concentrate on something other than the depressing understanding that I’ll always be alone. This lady in red is feeling very blah. I feel eyes on me and pause to give Jack a dirty look for watching me eat like a starved kitten. He raises his eyebrows innocently.
Lucas stands suddenly and reaches out a hand to me. “Want to dance?”
My shock is enough to shake me out of my melancholy. I allow him to pull me up, refusing to even glance in Jack’s direction as Lucas leads me out onto the dance floor. It’s another slow dance. “Lover” by Taylor Swift. With his hand on my waist, we sway, and then Lucas twirls me, surprising a laugh out of me before he pulls me close again.
“Everyone’s staring at us,” I say.
“You get used to it.”
“Like fish in an aquarium?”
He smiles. “Speaking of, while you were eating your salmon, all I could think about was this time I had to eatsomany bites for this show we were filming. Take after take. And afterward I was unbelievably sick and my agent was terrified I had mercury poisoning.”
“So I reminded you of a time you got sick. That tracks.”
He tosses his head back and laughs out loud. I grin. And it becomes clear that Lucas isn’t only good looks, charisma, and acting ability. He’s also kind. The conversation shifts to his membership of the board of a charity that feeds hungry children.
I’m about to ask him something when a deep voice behind me asks, “Can I cut in?”
Oh for fuck’s sake. Lucas stops moving and releases his hold on me, stepping back with a slight nod at Jack. My heart hammers.
“Sure,” I say. “I don’t want to hog Lucas if you want a turn with him.” Jack ignores me, and I reluctantly accept his outstretched hand with a sigh. The slide of his palm against the thin material of my dress at my waist burns.
Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”starts to play. We move together, a slow sway, neither of us saying anything for a long while.
“What are you plotting?” I finally ask, staring up at him. His grip on my hand tightens, and the one at my waist pulls me in closer.
“You don’t want to know.”
My pulse leaps. “You have a speck of glitter near your left eye.”
He snorts. “Pretty sure I’ve got some on my taint, too. You’re diabolical.”
“Got the idea from some teenagers in a rideshare. They’re evil.”
“Teenagers? Surprised it was only glitter, then.”
“They came up with worse. I didn’t want to maim you. So why’d you cut in?”
“Hard to think of England with you way out here.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously? Okay. I—”
A lively song comes on, and the cheer from the crowd cuts off whatever he was about to say. I fight my disappointment as more people crowd the dance floor and Jack leads me back to our table. The atmosphere is becoming more and more festive.
La, to my surprise, tries to pull Margie and myself onto the floor, is rebuffed, and proceeds to go it alone, busting out moves I’ve not seen since the one-month period, senior year of college, when Margie and I convinced ourselves we were into clubbing.
