No onereallydid.
But aside from those issues, I was having fun. I was covered in a sheen of sweat, my hair and my bridesmaid dress clinging to me, my toes starting to throb in my shoes, but I didn’t care. I was ready to dance all fucking night if it would save me from throwing a self-pityparty.
Sure, Brody had grabbed me last night and yanked me up against him and held me, his fingers digging into me—sending all kinds of wicked signals between my legs. And he’d done it to save me from plummeting off a walkway into the dark, but that was a reflex; he probably would’ve done it foranyone.
Since then, he’d kept his hands the hell away from me. Like as far as he could get them without leavingtheroom.
“Crank the music!” Roni called out, jiggling up and down next to me, as eager as I was to keep dancing. But something was holding things up. I stumbled in my high heels as more ladies squeezed onto the dance floor; some of the guys were herding us together into a needlesslytightpack.
“Yeah!” I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth so Becca could hear me over the crowd. “I want todance!”
Then Katie walked onstage, twirling her bouquet in front of the cluster of women… as No Doubt’s “Just A Girl” started pumping through the room—and it dawned on me what washappening.
Ah, Jesus. Thebouquettoss.
All around me women shrieked in excitement, and Roni was one of them. Not that Roni cared to get married; she’d just take her fifteen minutes of fame any way she couldgetthem.
“No one trample Grandma Dolly, okay?” Becca called out, as Dolly was led to the edge of the throng, all smiles. “That’s a standing order. Jude and his guys are on hand if you bitch—I meanladiesgetouttaline.”
A few ladies shouted some unladylike things—letting Jude and his guys know they could go ahead and bring on their hands. Me, I used the general whirlwind of hormones and excitement to snake my way out of the herd, locking eyes with Elle as I went, and together, we made a beeline for the doors. We’d almost made it there when we were impeded by a big-ass wall of shoulder-to-shoulder Jude and Piper… and corralled back intothefray.
I gave Jude my bestI really, really hate youglare, the one he’d never seemed fazed by, just as he didn’t now. Then I glanced at his big brother, Piper. Piper had shown up to my brother’s wedding wearing his patched leather vest, the one that advertised his membership in the notoriously criminal West Coast Kings motorcycle club—which meant he was essentially wearing gang colors and didn’t give one fuck what anyone thought about it. So the odds he’d give a fuck that I wanted out of this bouquet toss situation werenotgood.
He crossed his arms over his chest, both brothers smiling down at me with their identical evildimples.
“Fine,” I grumbled, giving in and heading back to the dancefloor.
Stupid, sexy,badassmen.
“That guy keeps taking pictures of you,” Roni informed me as I edged up beside her in the crowd. I looked around in vain for Elle’s platinum-blonde hair and wondered if she’d managed to escape. Luckybitch.
“Huh?Whatguy?”
“Photographer with the sweaty little beard.” Roni indicated one of the wedding photographers, who was currently angling to photograph the swarm of drunken single ladies jockeying for position to catch Katie’s bouquet. “I’m telling you. Every time I see him. The bride’s over there, you’re over here, and he’s shooting you. I’m pretty sure he’s taken more pictures of youthanher.”
“Ignore him,” I told her, distracted, as Amanda bounced into the crowd nearby. “I’ll mention it to Maggie.” I had more important things to worry about than some horny dude with a camera—for example, that this entire event was almost over and Brody still wasn’t acknowledging the fact that I was alive, much lesspresent.
At least I hadn’t had to watch him dance with Amanda allnight.
Well, Brody didn’t dance. At least, he never had, back then. Though taking a woman in his arms and making her feel like the only woman in the world as he held her close and swayed to the rhythm of a song… that, he could do. He’d done it with me, once, on a night I’d never forget, for reasons both goodandbad.
Strangely enough, he didn’t do it with Amanda. While I’d spent every slow song tonight in the arms of the nearest available man, determined not to end up a sad wallflower, Brody didn’t dance once, withanyone.
Maybe he wasn’t inthemood.
Every time I caught a glimpse of him while I was dancing, he did look kind of…surly.
I didn’t see him now, but then again, I wasn’t looking. A bunch of the guys were crowded around, laughing and probably taking bets on who was about to get a black eye or a bloody nose, but I was too busy keeping an eye on Katie and herbouquet.
“Better get ready to jump, Maggs,” Zane called out as Maggie was shoved in next to me, looking pretty surlyherself.
I put an arm around my petite friend and told her, “We’ll duck together.” Because in my experience, there were two groups of single women at a wedding. Group A, who wanted to catch the bouquet, and group B, who totallydidn’t.
I just hoped we could get the hell out of the wayintime.
Then Katie let fly—and the ladies of group A surged forth with the collective focus of a bunch of drunk and therefore slightly off-balance women in high heels, bent on a common goal. I tried to drop back, but instead got tossed forward in the wave, losing hold of Maggie. Then my feet went out from under me. I startedtofall.
And I took Amanda—of all people—downwithme.
