“Sorry. I had a little bit too much to drink and my mind is wandering, and…”
“You don't have to explain yourself," he says. "We don't even have to dance. I don't want you to get sick."
"I'm not that drunk," I say, “and I'm totally rude. Where was it you said you learned to dance?"
He chuckles. The guitar, the singer, the fairy lights, the setting. It’s all so perfect. It makes my heart ache. Is this what I've been waiting for? A handsome man to twirl me around a dance floor? I don't know. I haven’t spent too much time fantasizing about fairytales. And that might sound surprising since I've already mentioned Cinderella, but it's the truth. I'm happy, content at least. I like my job. I like the town I live in. I love Alaska.
And it's not like there are many men who've caught my eye over the years anyways. And by many, I mean any. I grew up in a one-room schoolhouse, as quintessentially small-town America as there ever was. Except instead of sidewalks and street lamps, I had snowbanks and snowshoes.
"You ran away again,” Maker says as the song ends. "You were lost somewhere. Want to tell me where you went?”
Heat rises to my cheeks, and I feel mortified. I've had this one chance, this one romantic dance around the dance floor, where I was supposed to fall in love, and instead I got lost in that damn fantasy.
I blink, this time more slowly, and I lower my eyes. "I think I should drink some water," I say, embarrassed.
"I can handle that," he says. He guides me to the bar where he gets a bottle of water, and then asks where I'd like to sit.
"How about down there?" I suggest. The reception is outside, under a tent, but I point just beyond it. There's a trail leading to the beach. And I know there are several benches there, a fire pit looking out on the water. Maker holds me steady, and we walk down the path. I kick off my sandals, and he takes off his dress shoes, rolling up the pant legs of his suit.
The night is dark, the sky is filled with stars. If I wasn't so inebriated, I might be able to find the constellations that I've had memorized since I was a little girl. That's how it is up here. You grow up looking up at the night sky. Lonely sometimes, because there are not a lot of people and the stars become your friends, or at least they became mine. And now I'm realizing I was wrong — maybe I've been in a fairytale my whole damn life. Maybe I'm just waking up.
"Hey," Maker says, "you sure you don't want me to just take you back to your room?”
I blink, looking around, realizing I have been lost again in my head and thoughts. Surprisingly, I find myself nodding as Maker picks up our shoes, and instead of winding down to the sand, we wind back up toward a yurt. "Which one is yours?" he asks, pointing to the row of them. Beam and Bellamy had them put up here for the wedding, but they're such great structures I'm sure they'll be here for friends and family, more parties, just like this one, for years to come. Beam built Bellamy a big tree house just like the one in Swiss Family Robinson. Fairytales.
I point to the yurt at the end of the lane. "Mine's the last one on the left," I say. He pushes open the door when we get there, turns on the light.
There's a queen size mattress in the center, not much else. My suitcase, which only has a few changes of clothes — I was just coming up here for the wedding — and my toiletries. There's not even bathroom.
"I feel weird leaving you. I know you said you just had some champagne, but you seem…"
"What? Drunk?” I ask, looking at him, wanting him. I swallow hard. "I don't want you to go," I say. "Stay with me, for a while at least. Please?” When he doesn’t answer right away I add, “I mean, leave if you want. I’m not trying to be weird."
"You're not being weird," he says, holding my gaze steady, but also not making a move. For such a deep and dark and dangerous man, I would have thought he would ravish me here and now, rip off my dress and take me to town, or to bed, whatever the case may be. Since he is showing restraint, maybe he's not everything that people say he is.
I know what Bellamy thinks of him. I've heard rumors of what he's done to her, done to Jemma too. They say he's a bad man, a criminal, an ex-drug lord and more. I know he's everything I shouldn't want, but that butterfly feeling is still here.
Is it me wanting what I can't have? Or is it finally knowing what I want, for the first time in my life?
"I won't go," he says, "but I'm not going to ravish you."
My eyes widen. "Did I say that out loud?"
He nods, “Yeah, you did."
"Right," I say, cringing, running a hand over my face. Is this the part where I'm supposed to be too mortified to speak?
Maker steps toward me. “It’s not that I don’t want to ravish you, but I think you need to go to bed. I don't want you to have any regrets tomorrow."
With my eyes closed, I lick my lips. We're standing inches apart and God, I like the way he smells. Rough, rugged, dirty, not in an unshowered way — in a filthy way. Like he could do filthy things. To me. Like he just might, if I asked him to when I wasn't so damn drunk.
"I think the only regret I'm going to have is not trying to kiss you,” I say.
Maker lifts my
