“Trav invited me.” I don’t say anything else. I tug the hem of my dress, willing the fabric to cover more than it possibly can.
Ran nods and swivels his head to look around the room. “Make yourselves at home, you two. I think someone said we’re heading out in fifteen.”
“Sounds good to me,” Trav says, pulling me out of Ran’s line of sight and back toward the makeshift bar. “You okay being the DD tonight, Maggie? I could really go for a drink.”
I bob my head up and down in a daze. “Yeah, no problem.” Though Ran’s not near us, I still trail him with my eyes as he works his way around the room, exchanging laughter and smiles with the rest of his guests. The way he looks at each of them—the way he interacts with them like he knows them—breaks something in me, and I thought I didn’t have anything left to break. I thought all the damage had been done, but the longing for that same look of recognition is almost enough to make me combust and shatter into pieces. I dig my nails into the palm of my hand to try to find some sort of release.
“You okay, Maggie?” Trav rubs the space between my shoulder blades affectionately. “Is this too much?”
“Yes and yes.” I’m still following all of Ran’s movements, and when he unexpectedly swivels on his heel and catches me spying, the look of utter confusion etched on his face twists my gut.
Trav pats my back and takes a swig from his cup. “You’re doing great. Believe me, I saw Ran sneak a peek at those tantalizing legs of yours, and he definitely liked what he saw.”
I shake off his comment.
I’m about to ask Trav if it would be okay if I call Cora to come get me when I feel something brush across the back of my leg. I spin around to see two brown eyes staring up at me. Nikon wags his tail with such force that his hind legs hardly meet the ground.
“Hey boy,” I murmur, slipping down to his level. His tail picks up speed and he lunges toward me with all his weight. I tumble back slightly and regain my balance as I scratch and ruff up the fur on his head. “I’ve missed you,” I whisper. Nikon leans his whole body into me and I drag my fingers through his thick coat of fur. I stay low at his level for as long as I can, glad to avoid the meaningless interactions that are taking place up above me.
“He seems to like you.” I hadn’t noticed him slip down, and Ran’s unexpected, gravelly voice knocks me off balance more than Nikon did. “Nikon’s not usually so affectionate with new people.”
I smile weakly and pull at my skirt, realizing I’m in the worst possible position for it right now. I continue running my fingers through the dog’s fur.
“Maggie,” Ran says quietly. “It was nice of you to come tonight.” His blue eyes are open, honest. “Trav hasn’t stopped talking about you for at least a month.”
Of course he hasn’t. He’s made it his personal mission to get you to fall in love with me again. I don’t say it, but I can’t help but think it.
Ran tilts his body up toward Trav who’s dancing with some blonde wearing leopard print heels and a purple, clingy dress, their bodies pressed close together almost like they’re one unit. His drink sloshes over the rim of his cup, but Trav doesn’t seem to notice.
“You’re okay with him doing that?” Ran points a finger to the red cup in Trav’s unsteady grasp.
“Yeah,” I answer, shrugging my shoulders. “I told him I’d be his designated driver.”
“I’m not talking about the drinking. I’m talking about the dancing with other girls part.” Ran is still hunkered down, stroking Nikon’s neck. Our fingers are so close as they graze past each other, his running head to tail and mine traveling in the reverse direction.
“I don’t care who he dances with.” I muster my courage and look Ran in the eye. Immediately, I wish I hadn’t, because the pain it causes takes the form of water burning the back of mine.
“You don’t strike me as the type of girl that would be okay with her boyfriend dancing with other girls, am I right?”
My eyes pop out of my skull. “You don’t think Trav and I are—?” I shake the stunned stare from my face.
“You’re not?” Ran’s hand stops just above Nikon’s hackles, brushing my fingers that were scratching him there. Shivers run through me like a current. “I just assumed, you know, because he talks about you so much.”
“No,” I assure. “Trav and I are just friends.” I swallow the laugh that comes with the thought of me being interested in someone like Trav. He’s mildly attractive with his auburn ringlets and endearing dimples, but he’s definitely not my type. Not that I have a type anymore, unless you can call Ran a type. “And you’re right. I’m not the kind of girl that is okay with my boyfriend dancing with someone else. But in this case, Trav can dance with whomever he pleases. The more the merrier.”
A small smile sweeps over Ran’s mouth. “Are you going to Sliver with us tonight?”
I nod. I know heading to the club is next on the agenda. Up until this point, I had been working on a plan to get out of the clubbing portion of the evening, but having Ran ask me changes all of that. For as much as I know I need to steer clear of him, everything else in me craves any second I can get in his presence.
“Good. I have to do some more mingling, but maybe we can catch up there.” Ran pushes off his knees. “And seriously, Nikon is never this friendly with strangers. Must be something about you, Maggie.”
I keep my eyes on my fingers that rake monotonously through Nikon’s fur and don’t look up at Ran when he leaves. “Must be something about you, too,” I mumble under my breath, and I pin my lip between my teeth to halt the tremble that accompanies the words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“You gonna sit hur all night or ‘m I gonna have to drag your lazy ass out thur,” Trav slurs, his alcohol-laced breath rushing toward me in a cloud as he slinks down into the booth next to me. Leopard Shoe Girl collapses onto his lap, her ivory arms draped around his neck and her head rolling side to side, swaying drunkenly to the music.
“I’m fine,” I reply as I twist the stem to the cherry from my Shirley Temple between my fingers. “Go have fun. Let me know when you’re ready to head out and I’ll get the truck.”
Trav shoots me an over-exaggerated grin that belongs on the face of a cartoon character and tumbles onto the dance floor again, his hands hooked around the girl’s waist like they’re forming some train. I lose them in the mob of club-goers and return my gaze to my stem knotting instead.
We’ve been here for about an hour and I’ve taken up residence in this dark booth at the back of the club for the entire time. Every once in a while Trav will check back in with me, bearing some sort of non-alcoholic gift as my payment for being his driver, and then he’ll slide back out into the gyrating mass of twenty-somethings for several more tracks.
Cora and I have been texting, which helps pass the time and helps me keep my eyes focused on the screen in my hand rather than on the man of the hour. Everyone seems to want Ran’s attention, especially the girls dressed in the sort of attire that indicates their only motive for wearing it was to get noticed. And I’m fairly sure getting noticed by someone like Ran ranks pretty high, because there’s been a constant line of scantily clad coeds shadowing him all night. There has yet to be a song where Ran hasn’t had one—or two—girls pressed up to him like they’re an article of his clothing rather than a separate human being. It would be nauseating to watch even if it wasn’t Ran they were pushed up against. I’ve been working hard at choking down the bile that’s crept up my throat all night, so the constant flow of drinks from Trav has been a welcome, and necessary, gesture.
My phone buzzes across the tabletop.
Cora: Stop sitting there.
Me: How do you know I’m sitting?
Cora: Because you’re wallowing, and when you wallow, you sit. How many wallowers do you know that dance their ass off?
Me: I’m dancing right now.
Cora: Bull. You can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time. Texting and dancing would be
like solving the rubix cube while climbing Mount Everest for you.
Me: Sorry. Currently dancing, no time to chat.
Cora: You’re a sucky liar. Seriously, get your pretty little ass out there and all up on him. What is the point in wearing that skirt if you don’t?
Me: I was just asking myself the same question—why am I wearing this ridiculous skirt?
Cora: The only thing that is ridiculous is you. Don’t text me until you’ve danced with him. I mean it.
Me: Whatever.
“Hey Maggie.” I lift several inches off my seat, startled by the sound, and drop my phone onto the table. I fumble to pick it up quickly, but it slips between my sweaty fingers. I swallow my heart back into my chest where it belongs. Ran crosses his arms and rests his elbows on the table’s edge. He hovers his upper body forward, leaning toward me. “You gonna come out on the floor or sit here and text your boyfriend all night?”
I give him a puzzled look. “I’m not texting my boyfriend.”
“So you’re texting someone that’s not your boyfriend. Don’t you think he’ll have a problem with that?”
The techno beat that rattles the frames on the walls surrounding the secluded booth morphs into a slower pulse, and everyone in the club shifts their swaying movement to account for it. I look up at Ran and just shake my head, trying to find words, but forming them feels like I’m relearning the entire English language. I can’t make sense of anything when I’m with him. This is such a weird conversation.
Ran rubs his hands over one another. “Alright,” he huffs, sifting his fingers through his dark hair. “If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’ve tried two different ways now to ask if you have a boyfriend, Maggie.”
My eyes shoot up at him. “What—?”
“I’m asking if you have a boyfriend.” He cocks his head slightly and draws closer. “So, do you?” Damn. I can smell that clean scent of his like they are pheromones and it disorients my senses.
“No,” I stammer. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
Ran looks pleased with my answer and nods his head slowly. “Good. Because we already went over the whole you not liking your boyfriends dancing with other girls thing, so I figured it would go the other way too—your boyfriend not liking you dancing with other guys and all. That was, if you had one.”
I drop my eyes back to the cherry stem. I can’t look at him. I can’t listen to him talk about boyfriends, girlfriends…relationships. I can’t do this. I twist the stem ferociously between my fingers, trying to knot it, trying to occupy my brain and my energy elsewhere. Anywhere else.
“Here.” Ran slips his hand across the table and steals the stem out of my grasp. The brief contact of skin-on-skin jolts my entire body, even though just the tips of our fingers touch.
Ran pops the stem into his mouth. His lips move sideways, pursing and twisting across each other, and I can tell that his tongue is working hard on something behind them. My stomach clenches and I hold in all my breath, because if I continue breathing right now it would be humiliatingly shaky and unsteady. After about ten seconds, Ran draws the stem out and waves it in front of my face, teasing me with its perfectly knotted center.
“Is this what you were trying to do?” he smirks and tosses it at me. It sticks to my shirt and I peel it off quickly. I run it between my fingers unintentionally, and when I realize it’s been in his mouth and how unreasonably faint that makes me, I wrap it up in a cocktail napkin and shove it to the side of the table. “I can teach you how to do that sometime if you like.” The way Ran smiles his devilish grin makes my breath spill out all at once, unable to stay trapped inside the confines of my ribcage any longer. He stares me straight in the eye. “Do you wanna dance, Maggie?”
“No.” It fires out of me so quickly I’m not sure if it’s me saying it or if it’s some prerecorded voice.
“You mind telling me why?”
“I’ve been watching you dance with all those other girls all evening. I don’t think I can keep up.” I’m a little mad at him for stealing my stem because I really need something to occupy my focus right now. I settle on my empty glass and swish the half-melted ice cubes back and forth in it so they clink quietly.
“Does it bother you that I’ve been dancing with other girls?” The club’s lights flash rhythmically and colors dance across the walls. The blue in Ran’s eyes is every bit as intense as the bright bulbs that reflect around the room, and they’re just as entrancing.
I shrug my shoulders and slide an ice cube into my mouth. “You’re welcome to dance with anyone you want, Ran.”
“I’d like to dance with you,” he says, pressing in even closer over the table between us. “But I think you’re going to make that very difficult.” Ran wrinkles his nose like he’s thinking through some strategy. “What if I don’t dance with anyone else this evening?” He cocks a brow and I furrow mine, completely confused by his proposition. “It sounds like you don’t like guys that spread their attention too thin, so what if I give all of mine to you for the rest of the night?”
I choke on the ice in my throat and am grateful that it melts quickly and doesn’t lodge there permanently. “You don’t have to give me any attention. This night is for you. Go celebrate.” It’s an unnatural gesture, but I wave him toward the floor.
“I want to celebrate with you, Maggie.” His eyes implore me. “Will you please dance with me? Or are you going to make me beg?”
“It sorta sounds like you already are,” I tease, snatching a glance up at him. His eyes are fixed on me, unfaltering.
After looking at me, expressionless, for several seconds, Ran slides out of the booth and stands at the edge of the table, his hand outstretched. I look at it—at his strong fingers, the ones that I had the right to hold just a few months ago—and my own fingers tremble at the thought of linking with them again. Following a short pause, Ran dismisses my attempt at avoidance and yanks my hand out of my lap, tugging me out of the booth and onto my feet. “Dance with me, Maggie,” he breathes against my ear. I wonder if he knows that by doing things like that, he leaves me no choice. My body reacts even when my mind wills it not to.
We snake through the hordes of people that move as one element as they rhythmically stagger to the fast tempo blaring from the sound system. The energy of the crowd sucks everyone in, like an anchovy in a school of fish, flitting and moving just like the others—many small parts that make up one larger entity. But it’s as though Ran and I stand out. Like we swim upstream while everyone else morphs together and heads the opposite direction.
Ran’s fingers grip onto mine tighter as he guides me toward the far wall to a pocket that opens up into a section of empty dance floor. “This good?” He rotates his head over his shoulder and doesn’t wait for my response before he swings me into him, his hips pressed against me. I gasp. What the hell is he doing? Tonight isn’t supposed to go like this. I shouldn’t be here. My frantic eyes rove over the room, trying to locate the EXIT sign.
Ran drops his hands further down my waist and I lock every joint in my body. I know he can feel it. He has to. We’re so close that I’m sure he can even count every staccato beat of my racing heart just from the echoes of it against his thin gray t-shirt. Ran’s body moves to the music and my rigid frame shifts awkwardly, not at all in sync with the sound that thrums around us, or with his body that is closer than it should be.
“How’s your brother?”
I snap my head up. “What?”
“Your brother,” Ran says again, pulling my hips closer to him. “We transported him that night when he couldn’t stop vomiting.”
“You remember that?” I ask. “He’s okay.” While I’m answering, someone from behind clocks me between my shoulder blades with their elbow and I stumble forward, slamming my cheek onto Ran’s chest. A cool liquid spills down my back and pools at the base of my spine. It reeks of alcohol and now I do, too. “Ugh,” I groan, completely annoyed.
Ran peels the layer of fabric off of my skin and
pulls at it, fanning me. “Want me to beat him up and demand money for dry cleaning?” he teases, holding up a fist like he’s ready for the punch.
“Nah,” I smile. “This is Cora’s top anyway.”
“Cora?”
“My roommate.” Ran hasn’t loosened his grip on my waist, and my previously gawky movements start to mesh with his, my body following his rhythm because we’re so close together it doesn’t have room to do much else. “At the dorms.”
“You’re in school,” Ran says, more like a statement than a question, like he’s confirming something he already knows to be true. The DJ starts another track and the beat picks up tempo, transitioning from dazed and drawn out into a faster pace.
“Yeah, first year.”
“I know that, Maggie.” I look up at his face, at his perfect mouth, and the nerves that creep into every inch of my body feel just as electric as the atmosphere in the club. “I do remember you, you know.” He draws up one eyebrow to a point.
“You do?”
“Mmm hmm.”
I gulp nervously. Ran didn’t miss a beat when the DJ rolled this new track. His body has crazy good rhythm and it’s so distracting because it makes me think things I shouldn’t about it.
“What do you remember?” I stutter, looking down at my feet like I’m commanding one to move, then the other. It’s pretty much what I am doing, because any dancing skills I might have been able to claim were left in that booth back there. I have absolutely no control over my body when it’s in Ran’s arms.
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