“Okay, okay, I’ll show you how to follow, and then you can try to lead. That way you’re covered either way. Come on, we’ve got about twenty minutes until the car arrives.”
I take his hand again and listen to the music as my little brother takes me through the steps of a waltz. It’s not as hard as I thought it would be to pick up the moves, and by the end of the second song, I’m anticipating his movements and no longer stepping on his toes. Learning to lead takes longer. Trying to think about what my feet are doing while trying to also send him signals with my hand at his lower back is far harder.
“Why did I leave my phone downstairs?” David whines from the doorway.
“He needed to learn how to dance. Were you going to teach him?” Benji asks.
“I’m more a heavy metal head-banging kind of dancer,” he replies, and Benji and I trade glances. Then we both reach for David, pullinghim into our circle and stepping to the music to force him into a three-way waltz.
These are the moments that will live in my heart forever—laughing with these two boneheads, treading on each other’s toes, dancing together until the song ends and they fall back on my bed in hysterics. Now to go make some memories with the man I love.
***
I’m sitting in the fourth row behind a group of young guys. I recognize a couple as teammates of Cosmo’s and Luka’s from college. We’re in an enormous function room where wooden seats laid out in perfect rows sit thirty or more deep, and the aisle that’s roped off up the end has a dark blue carpet running the length. Large white bows are tied to each aisle chair, with yellow roses tucked into the knots. The celebrant taps a mic up the front of the room.
“Please remain seated and put your devices away. The wedding party will be making their entrance. The couple promises that you’ll have plenty of opportunities later to get photos.”
The row of guys in front of me shifts in their seats all at once to look up toward the entry doors, then the music starts. I twist in my seat too, and spot Luka right away. His hair is styled perfectly, bright blue eyes gleaming under the warm glow of the thousands of sparkling lights strung overhead.
He’s walking down with Cosmo’s sister, and she couldn’t look prouder to be on his arm. I guess Cosmo managed to talk her out of walking him down the aisle after all. A few of the guests gaze up at them adoringly, and I’m sure I see one mouth “Lovely couple.” A pang of jealousy hits, and my gut churns as I try to swallow down the feeling, but then Luka’s eyes find mine and his face lights up in the way it only ever does for me, and like a switch is flicked, I’m full of warmth and excitement again. I don’t need to be jealous. Luka is all mine, and nothing has ever felt this good.
All through the ceremony, his gaze drifts to me, and I know I should be watching Cosmo and Eli, but I can’t stop staring at my gorgeous man. And then before I know it, everyone’s clapping, and the newlyweds jog down the aisle.
“Come on, Raines, time for a drink,” I hear someone say, and I turn to find an extremely tall man wearing a gold damask corset under his deep blue suit looking down at me.
“Sorry, have we met?”
“I’m Ash, Cosmo’s brother-in-law, sort of.”
I cock an eyebrow.
“We’re not married yet, but we will be in like a year.”
“Why a year?”
“I have to propose first.”
“Yeah, that part’s kind of important,” I laugh. “So where are these drinks?”
***
Turns out Benji was right. I’m sitting with Ash, as well as Eli’s brother John’s girlfriend, Sasha, and the partners of the rest of the wedding party. I’m even having a pretty good time, but I’m also desperately waiting to see Luka again. They went off for photos over an hour ago and I’m chomping at the bit to see him looking all handsome in his cream linen suit with a matching vest and spotted bow tie. All the guys are dressed the same, and all the girls are wearing similar pants, but with corset tops instead of suit vests, and jackets with the same spotted satin fabric looped through their belt loops and tied in large bows at their backs. The whole wedding is stunning.
“Are you ready to raise your glasses for the wedding party?” the MC calls over the speakers, and I shove my seat back and clap with the rest of the room. Two towers of fireworks go off at the doorway, and then the wedding party dance their way inside. All of them are wearing the same sunglasses Cosmo gave Luka in his best man box and are jumping and celebrating their way to form a semicircle on the dance floor. Then the towers of fireworks go off again, and in run Cosmo and Eli. They dance down the aisle, and when they reach the middle of the dance floor, the wedding party closes the circle around them, and they move immediately into their first dance together.
The wedding party stays in a circle around them, stepping side to side in time with the music. The crowd stays standing too, and whenthe song ends and the MC invites the rest of us out onto the floor, I see Luka head to the side, so I make a beeline for him.
“Hey, where are you going?” I ask, and he stops and takes a second to look me up and down with a hungry stare.
“Anywhere you like, handsome,” he replies, stepping closer.
“How about the dance floor?”
“You want to dance?”
“If you want to. I mean, I did go to all the trouble of learning how.”
“You learned how to dance for me?” he asks, sliding his warm hands along my sides to my back as he peers up at me.
