Sway

by Melanie Stanford

  With the last whispered notes, I inhaled the lingering echo and opened my eyes. Eric stood in the open doorway, as though the music had summoned him.

  I looked over the line of his navy blue suit, roaming over the skinny black tie that was practically an Eric Wentworth trademark. He looked like he belonged in those clothes. Like another member of the Rat Pack, just like he always wanted. Gage had worn a similar suit, but somehow Eric made Gage look like a boy playing dress-up.

  “You made it,” I said.

  “I came with Adam and Britt.”

  “Oh.” I fiddled with the necklace at my throat. “I’m glad you came.” I slid from the piano bench.

  “Your sister is freaking me out a bit.”

  “Who, Beth?” He nodded and I grimaced. “What’s she doing?”

  “Talking to me.”

  We eyed each other a second before we both burst into laughter.

  “That is weird,” I agreed.

  “So different from high school.”

  My laughter died away. “Yeah.”

  The distance between us seemed to disappear. Eric reached a hand out and his fingers curled around a loose strand of hair that had escaped from my tight chignon.

  “You’re beautiful.” He cleared his throat. “Your playing was beautiful.”

  He tucked the strand of hair behind my ear, and then his hand dropped to my shoulder, sliding down my arm until he grasped my hand in his. He pressed his fingers into my back, drawing me even closer. I snaked one arm around his neck while he rested our clasped hands against his chest. Our bodies moved together, resuming a dance that had broken off so long ago.

  “Great theme,” Eric said, his voice husky.

  “Beth’s idea. You fit right in.”

  His lips quirked. “It’s my time.”

  We swayed, oblivious to everything, as if we’d really gone back to the time of diamonds and cigarettes and music that tugged at the soul. My fingers brushed the skin above his suit collar, toyed with the hair at the back of his neck. Our legs pressed into each other’s as we danced ever closer.

  “Being near you is like a forest fire,” Eric said. “Completely out of control.” I stared at him wide-eyed. “It’s from the movie. Brad says it to Jan.”

  “Oh.” I deflated a little. “Good line.”

  He studied my face. He opened his mouth to say something, then stopped, his eyes trained over my shoulder into the hallway behind. We stopped moving. The music continued but our dance was over.

  Aunt Rose appeared in the den. “Hello, Eric,” she said.

  His only acknowledgment of her was the barest of nods.

  “Congratulations,” she said. “On all your success.” The words sounded hollow but maybe that’s just what I was expecting from her.

  “Thank you.” Eric’s words were definitely hollow.

  “If you’ll excuse us. I need to talk to my niece.” Aunt Rose motioned to me. Annoyed that she’d broken our moment, and not wanting Eric to disappear, I stepped into the hall but no further. Eric stayed rooted to his spot, his eyes following us.

  Aunt Rose looked like she’d come straight from work in the fifties. Her pencil skirt was almost to her calves, and a pillbox hat rested atop her head. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gage.”

  Suddenly, I felt very tired. Sick of everything Gage. “I guess I should have told you, but we broke up. A while ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Could you just leave it alone, please?” I didn’t want to talk about Gage. I wanted to talk about Eric, be with Eric.

  Her eyes drooped. She looked defeated and old and I felt guilty.

  “I don’t love him,” I said, fully aware of Eric standing close enough to hear every word.

  “Why not?” Aunt Rose’s eyes flickered to Eric then back to me. “Please don’t tell me it’s because—”

  I cut her off before she could embarrass me. “He’s not who you think he is.”

  Her stiletto tapped loudly on the wood floor. “Can we talk somewhere else?”

  Aunt Rose wanted to hear about my feelings, and my doings, and what was going on in my life, but I just couldn’t. As much as I wanted it to, I couldn’t go back to the way things used to be. “I don’t want to talk about Gage. Just trust me on this, okay?”

  Her face softened. “I do trust you.”

  “Then let me make my own decisions.” She had nothing to say to that. I glanced once at Eric, still standing in the doorway of the den, watching me. Aunt Rose blocked my path back to him, as she always had. With a sigh, I turned away.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I escaped outside. The crowds were just as thick but the fresh air made it bearable. Stumbling down the stairs and almost tripping over a couple on the steps, I made it down to the beach. Lights twinkled from every window, along the paths, and down the stair railings. A bonfire roared on the beach but I avoided the crowd around it, heading instead to the edge of the water.

  I took a few deep breaths and felt my heartbeat slow. It wasn’t until then that I realized how fast my heart had been pumping. Eric still had that effect on me. I closed my eyes, breathed in the salty air and tried to tune out the noise of the party.

  “Ava?” A man walked toward me. At first I thought it was Eric, but I realized in seconds my mistake. He had on shorts and a button-down shirt, and was about a head shorter than Eric. Adam Harville.

  “Hi, Adam,” I said when he reached me. “Where’s Britt?”

  “She’s inside.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Great party. Love the fifties theme.”

  I tried not to laugh. He hadn’t dressed in fifties clothes, and he looked the exact opposite of someone who was having a good time. “Thanks. It was my sister Beth’s idea.”

  “Right, Beth. Yeah, we met her.” He made a face. “I saw Mari here too. Do you have any other siblings?”

  “Nope, just them.”

  “How’d you all end up so different?”

  I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about our looks. “No idea.”

  “Are you close?”

  “Not really.” My skirt billowed around my legs in a sudden gust of wind and I pressed my hands to my thighs to keep from having a Marilyn Monroe moment. “Beth and I have never been close.” But things had gotten better lately. I liked that. “My relationship with Mari has always been more…” I trailed off, not knowing how to explain it.

  “You take care of her?”

  I nodded. “She was really young when my mom died. We all were I guess. But Mari…” Beth had Dad, I had Aunt Rose, Mari had no one. “It’s never really changed between us. Even now, sometimes I feel more like a mother to her than a sister.” Not that I could ever replace my mother. No one could.

  Adam turned his head away from me and stared out at the black ocean. “Farrah and I were really close.”

  I slipped my heels off and dug my toes into the sand while I waited for him to continue.

  “We were only a year apart. When she died…” His voice caught. He looked down at the sand between our feet. “Sorry. Not exactly party chitchat.” His laugh was humorless.

  “I’m not much for party chitchat anyway.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I miss her.”

  I nodded.

  “Now, it’s like I can’t anymore.” His chest rose and fell with a long breath. “I mean, Sam’s moved on. Shouldn’t I?”

  I put my hand on his arm. “She was your sister. You’ll always miss her. And Sam will too.” Dropping my hand, I looked away. “Grief isn’t something you can put rules on, or boundaries, or even a timeline. It’s individual. I don’t think anyone should ever feel bad for missing someone.”

  “You’re right.” His shoulders hitched. “I guess I shouldn’t judge Sam then, for m
oving on so fast.”

  That wasn’t what I meant but I didn’t say that. “It was pretty fast,” I agreed. “But then…”

  “What?”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “You were going to say it’s because he’s a guy, weren’t you?”

  A laugh escaped me even though I didn’t want it to. “You said it, not me.”

  “I’ve known plenty of girls who are way worse than guys in that department.”

  “I know. It isn’t just guys who are the heart-breakers, and it isn’t just girls who pine away eating ice cream and watching sad movies.” My shoes teetered on two fingers and I swung them a bit. “But I bet if you took a survey, you’d find that guys move on faster than girls do. In general.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t look convinced. “I can’t imagine ever getting over Britt, if something happened to her.”

  “Maybe you’re an exception. But I hold up Sam as an example for my side.”

  “In his defense, he was barely coherent for months after. And it’s been more than a year. It’s just the engagement that seems so sudden, not the moving on.”

  My toe made a circle in the sand while I tried to think how to explain my point. “A man would hold out hope if he thought there was still a chance. I’ll give you that much. But when there’s no chance left, that’s when men give up faster.”

  I stared at the black waves lapping on the sand and thought of Eric. “Women hold on, even when they shouldn’t. They don’t give up, even when all hope is gone.”

  “We’re not talking about grief anymore, are we?”

  No, we weren’t. A big wave hit the shore, forcing us back a little. Adam looked up.

  “Eric.”

  I turned. Eric was standing just a few feet away.

  My cheeks heated. How much had he heard? A breeze blew the chiffon of my dress around my legs and I shivered. Britt trailed down the sand behind him, waving when she caught sight of Adam.

  “Hey,” Britt said, snuggling up beside her husband. “Eric and I were looking for you.”

  Adam put his arm around Britt and hugged her close. “We were talking about Farrah,” he said.

  She raised herself up and planted a kiss on Adam’s mouth. I looked away. Eric shifted from foot to foot, he ran a hand through his hair, then shoved his hands in his suit pockets. He seemed more nervous and fidgety than I was, or maybe it was the sudden chill that had come in off the ocean.

  “I came to say goodbye,” Eric said. Adam and Britt exchanged a glance.

  “Oh.” I took a deep breath and the cold air clogged my throat. “Well, thanks for coming. I mean, I’m glad you came.” There was so much more I wanted to say, but I didn’t know how. Not here.

  “Eric’s our ride, so I guess we’re going too.” Adam unwrapped his arm from Britt’s and took her hand instead.

  “I’ll walk you to the door.” I led them across the sand to the house, my heels dangling from one hand. We wended through the crowds and the sudden reality of the party and the memory of what happened earlier struck me. The dance with Eric felt like a whole other night.

  As we made our way to the front door, angry screaming echoed from somewhere upstairs.

  “That sounds like Beth.” I didn’t wait to see if Eric, Adam, or Britt followed. I hurried through the guests gathering at the foot of the stairs, their faces all pointed upward.

  At the top of the stairs and down the hall a ways stood Beth, visible to everyone below. She was staring at something no one else could see, her gloved hands clenching into fists.

  “How could you do this to me?” she screamed. I hurried up the stairs. “After everything I did for you!”

  “You don’t understand,” an unseen voice said.

  “What, that you’ve been going behind my back for months?”

  I reached the top step in time to see Shelby, her robe askew, cowering back from Beth’s rage. “I wanted to tell you.” Shelby’s face twisted. “He wouldn’t let me.”

  “Shut up!” a man hissed. Gage emerged from Beth’s room, buttoning his shirt over his chest. He glared bloody murder at Shelby, who shrank even further into herself.

  Beth pointed a slim finger at Gage. “You. Don’t speak.”

  He shifted his glare to Beth and then his face froze when he saw me standing behind her.

  “Ava.” He came toward me. I held up a hand, stopping him. “This isn’t what you think,” he said.

  Beth burst into derisive laughter. “It’s exactly what you think.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I caught them. Together. In my bed.”

  A collective gasp echoed from the crowd below.

  “Now I need to burn the sheets,” she added in a half mutter.

  “Ava, no.” Gage shook his head. “She doesn’t mean anything to me. I swear. I love you.”

  I wanted to laugh at him, or vomit on him. Either one would do.

  Beth spoke up for me. “Whatever. You and Shelby have been seeing each other all summer.”

  “Did Shelby tell you that?” Gage yelled. “Because she’s lying.”

  “Come on. How stupid do you think I am?” Beth turned to Shelby who whimpered. “You think I wouldn’t notice you sneaking around?”

  Gage ignored them, his focus all on me. “Shelby’s been trying to seduce me. This whole time I’ve never given in to her because I love you. But tonight…” He dropped his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I’d been frozen, unable to say a single thing during this whole spectacle. When Gage reached his hand out to touch my face, I stepped back, suddenly finding my voice.

  “Don’t touch me.”

  “Ava, please, just listen.”

  “Don’t bother.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t even matter.”

  Shelby’s gasp cut through the silence.

  “We broke up. Nothing’s changed. So this—” I waved my hand toward Shelby, “—this doesn’t matter.”

  “But let me explain…” I turned away but he reached out and grabbed my hand. “I know you’ll understand if you just let me explain.” He pressed my palm over his heart.

  “How about I explain something to you?” I wrenched my hand from his grasp. My face heated with rising anger. “I don’t love you. I don’t even like you. Especially now that I know about Lexi.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Were you so stupid to think that my best friend wouldn’t tell me who you really are? Or were you so egotistical, you thought that even if I found out, I would love you anyway?” I wanted to laugh at him but I was far too angry for that. “Or maybe you were counting on the fact that even if Lexi did mention your name, I wouldn’t realize it was you. Because Lexi doesn’t know Gage Johnson, does she? Only Leonard.”

  “Ew,” Beth said.

  Gage backed away from me. He looked like the cornered, dirty, rat that he was.

  “If you honestly think I would be with you after knowing what you’re really like, you are severely demented.” I turned to Shelby. “A word of advice? Run. Far away from this guy. He’s not good enough—not even for you.”

  I stopped, my chest heaving, my cheeks flushed with anger. Below me, one of the party guests started to clap. The crowd gradually joined in. I was too embarrassed to look down.

  Beth pointed to Gage. “Out. Now.” She turned to Shelby. “You too. Pack up and go.” She linked her arm through mine and we started down the stairs.

  The clapping died out as we neared the crowd of party guests. All eyes were on us, the silence was uncomfortable. Beth stopped midway down. She leaned in to me. “Follow my lead,” she whispered.

  “Do you remember that time you had the mumps?” she said, her voice pitched loud enough for everyone to hear. She raised an eyebrow and waited.

  I had no clue what she was talkin
g about. I’d never had the mumps. Beth looked at me and hissed, “Pillow Talk.”

  I finally understood. My mind searched for the line, but I couldn’t recall. I widened my eyes at her.

  Beth rescued me. “It wasn’t very pleasant, but you got over it.”

  My mind clicked. “I look at Gage Johnson like any other disease. I’ve had him, it’s over, and now I’m immune to him.”

  The few who knew that our words came from Pillow Talk began to clap and whistle in appreciation. The rest of the crowd followed suit. Beth draped the stole below her shoulders and made a small bow to her guests. The crowd hooted and she glowed with a self-indulgent aura. I laughed.

  My laughter died as a man parted the crowd, a head of blond hair walking away, two others following behind.

  Eric was leaving and I’d lost the chance to talk to him. Again.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  When the party wrapped up, Aunt Rose found me in my room in the company of a good book. My dress lay limp across the bed, looking like dead hopes and wasted dreams.

  “Can I talk to you?” Aunt Rose asked. Without waiting for an answer, she took a seat on the edge of my bed. She toyed with the hem of the dress.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and she looked it. Her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of her thoughts.

  “You heard the whole thing, then?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I set my book aside with a sigh. “I didn’t know how, or if it was even necessary. I’d already broken up with him. I was hoping he’d leave us all alone. And I didn’t exactly want to bring it up at a party.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “Not long. Lexi told me after Eric’s concert. She saw Gage there with me.” My lips tightened. “I had no idea about Shelby though.”

  “Obviously not. None of us did.” She put one hand on top of mine. “We were all taken in. Only you saw him for what he really was.”

  Not really. I’d broken up with him because my feelings for Eric trumped anything between Gage and me. If it hadn’t been for that… I shuddered. “The truth is, I got lucky.”

  Aunt Rose shot me a questioning look.