I heard Mac draw in a breath next to me, and his eyes narrowed on my face.
Mom cleared her throat, turning the conversation deftly with years of experience. She looked at Georgie’s mom and said, “Manya, how was your flight?”
The room picked up with chatter.
“What the hell was that about?” Mac asked quietly.
I didn’t respond at first. My nerves were on edge from being around Nash, because even though we hadn’t said a word, it still felt like he was standing right next to me. I gathered myself together and then said, “Nothing. I’m just tired of everyone trying to shove a job down my throat. I’ll find what I want soon enough.”
I pushed back my chair and headed for the ladies’ room. I stood there, staring at myself in the mirror again. Public restrooms and I were not friends anymore, because I always flashed back to the restroom at The Oriental. But as bad as they were, restrooms weren’t as hard as elevators. I refused to let myself go down that route tonight as we celebrated Mac and Georgie. I was determined to have a smile on my lips.
I washed my hands and left, only to run straight into Nash. His hands settled on both my arms in an attempt to keep me on my feet, scoring me like a knife.
I stepped back, pulling away, as he took in my entire body. I was in one of my favorite halter tops and a flowy skirt which reminded me of Georgie more than me. I’d bought it in an effort to debusiness-ize my wardrobe. The longer Nash stared, the more it felt as if I had shed my clothes and was standing there as naked as I’d been the weekend before.
“Dani,” he breathed out.
I looked back down the hallway toward the ballroom my family was in. I wasn’t going to be the one to talk. I had nothing to say. I’d rather be eating raw onions at the moment than standing there speaking with him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. The sorrow was practically pouring from his veins, and it just made me angrier. At both of us. For not stopping when we’d both known we should.
“Can we just stop talking about it?” I asked, and I hated that I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“We just didn’t get to talk about it before you left.”
“It was one night, Otter. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be upset and avoiding me.”
I laughed a forced laugh. “I’m not avoiding you, and I’m certainly not upset. You’re the one going all toddler on me about this.”
I finally returned his stare, and I hoped mine only reflected the anger and the hatred for everything about this situation. Anger at getting myself into this mess to begin with.
He searched my face and was going to say something else, but then I happened to look behind him to see Truck coming down the hall, and I cut Nash off by calling out to Truck. “Hey! You made it!”
I swept away from the man who’d made my blood come alive just by standing next to him and hugged Truck.
“Dani, this is my wife, Jersey,” Truck said, and his voice went down five notches with emotion as he turned to the beautiful blonde with her hand tucked tightly in his. She was much smaller than him but had hair so fair it was almost white, just like Truck’s—as if they’d been molded from Swedish clay.
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you,” I said, greeting her with a genuine smile I hadn’t been able to give to Nash.
I ignored the way my heart jumped as Nash joined me. He and Truck shook hands while the introduction to Truck’s wife was repeated. “We’re just in here,” I said, and I turned to open the door to the ballroom and let them all pass.
When Nash got even with me, he looked like he still wanted to say something, and I just went in first, leaving him to grab the door before it hit him in the face. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t talk to him right now. Maybe never. It had nothing to do with him at the same time it did. But mostly, it was about me.
Nash
BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS
“Read between the lines
What's fucked up and every thing's all right
Check my vital signs to know I'm still alive
And I walk alone.”
Performed by Green Day
Written by Pritchard / Frank E. / Wright / Armstrong
Dani was ignoring me again. She’d denied it, but the truth was, if she wasn’t ignoring me, we would have been able to continue the normal flirtation which had existed between us from the first day we’d met. I’d allowed myself a moment of weakness, a moment where I’d given in to emotions, and it had fucked everything up. I knew better. I’d trained for almost two decades to not let emotions take over, because if you did, the wrong person almost always ended up dead.
Dani had been my casualty. She’d lit my charred heart on fire, and then I’d doused it—and her—with fire repellant, the white powder drowning both of us.
I was standing with a gorgeous blonde, her hand light on my Navy whites, but my eyes were on the woman in front of me who had done something no one had done in my lifetime: made me react without thought. Truck, in his own Coast Guard dress uniform, had Dani on his arm. She was in a magenta dress that curved to every graceful edge of her and showed off muscles like the toned lines of her shoulder and back showing above the top of her strapless dress. The bare skin I’d seen in its entirety last weekend.
My body reacted to that memory, and I had to force it into submission as I continued to take in every part of her. Long, dark hair swept partially up away from her
