While the band and I mingle with fans at the merchandise booth, she waits. When the house music starts and we make our way to the bar, she follows. When we sit, she sits.
“Can I buy you that drink now?” one of the guys from before asks me, and I stop scowling at the girl’s stupid catwalk-ready face long enough to answer him.
I should be celebrating right now. I should be happy and excited and not daydreaming about swinging some chick around by her hair. I turn a manufactured smile on the guy and tell him I’ll have a rum and Coke, and he buys it for me while telling me how awesome I was, how hot I look, how talented I am.
I soak it all in, sipping on the drink he buys me and a drink another guy buys me and a drink another guy buys me, and there might be another guy or two but I honestly lose count. I mingle with girl fans and guy fans and try to give some of my attention to everyone who wants it, which isn’t nearly half as many people as those who are competing to talk to Adam and Shawn.
An hour after the show has ended, the house music is pounding against my eardrums, the alcohol is thinning my blood, and Shawn makes eye contact with me from down the bar. Most of the fans have left or gone back on the floor, but the auburn-haired girl from before is still hanging off of him. She’s treating him like her own personal jungle gym, talking his damn face off, and I’m suddenly on my feet.
“Dance with me,” I order, grabbing his hands and leaving no room for argument. The other guys watch me drag Shawn onto the dance floor, and Rowan and Leti stand side by side grinning like cartoon characters, like their mouths are going to stretch off the sides of their faces at any given moment.
I imagine the girl with the stupid hair is glaring poisoned daggers at the back of my head, but I’m too busy towing Shawn into the crowd to enjoy it. The drinks I’ve had are making the shiny dancers blur, the laser-filled room tilt, and my lips feel numb, but my feet don’t fail me. When Shawn’s hand squeezes mine, it’s enough to keep me sober . . . Kind of.
In the middle of the floor, I spin around and wrap my arms around his neck. He’s tall, but so am I, so I don’t have to crane my neck very far to catch his bright forest eyes. They’re locked on me, but the rest of him doesn’t make a move. He’s a statue, and I’m desperate. I step into him, pressing my every soft curve against his every hard plane, holding his eyes with every centimeter I close between us. He looks like he has no idea what I’m doing—and that makes two of us. My fingers play in the back of his hair, and when he still makes no move to put his arms around me, I make a soft plea against the shell of his ear. “Please.”
Shawn’s head is the only thing that turns, his hands hanging at his sides and his body stuck in place. He angles his chin toward my ear, his stubble brushing my cheek when he says, “Please what?”
Please touch me. Please hold me. Please want me. “Pretend I’m someone else.”
He pulls away to stare down at me, but I keep my arms around him, begging him with my eyes to please just let me pretend. Tonight, I don’t want to be the girl he left behind in high school. I don’t want to be his buddy from the band. These past few weeks with him have been torture, and right now, I just want to be a hot girl in a hot dress. I want to be the girl he was with at the bar. I want to be one of thousands.
When he shakes his head, my heart sinks. The word “No” leaves his mouth, and I turn to walk away from him. But then his hand catches my waist and pulls me backward. My back molds to his chest, my ass fits against his jeans, and his fingers slide up my arms, lifting them until my hands are curling behind his neck. With my body flush against his and me not daring to let go, his capable fingers slide back down my sides until he’s clutching my hips again.
I turn my head to stare up at him, and he doesn’t shy from my gaze. Instead, he pulls me even tighter—as tight as we can possibly be—and his hips rock mine from side to side. I turn away and close my eyes, tunneling my fingers into his soft, messy hair and grinding against him on the floor. There’s no mistaking that my dress is thin, that his jeans are stiff, and that whatever I’m doing, I’m doing it right.
Where Shawn’s hands move, a trail of fire follows. He ignites my sides, my arms, my thighs. A safety pin in the side of my dress gets unfastened, and then that hand is boldly sneaking inside my dress, caressing my blazing-hot stomach before flattening against it to hold me even tighter against him as his hips rock with mine on the floor. I long for him to move that hand up, or down, or, fuck, I don’t even know. I just want to feel him. I want to feel him like I felt him six years ago.