His expression is full of concentrated intent, and as much as I like his smile, I also really like it when he looks at me like this. My arms leave his neck and his hands leave my waist and we’re both standing on the dance floor, staring at each other awkwardly, and I’m not sure what to do now.
“The thing about dancing,” he says, folding his arms across his chest, “is that no matter how good it feels when you’re doing it, it’s always extremely awkward when it’s over.”
It makes me feel good to know that it’s not just me who doesn’t know what to do now. His hand touches my shoulder, and he urges me back toward the bar. “We have drinks to finish.”
“And fries to eat,” I add.
He didn’t ask me to dance again. In fact, as soon as we got back to the bar, he seemed like he was in a hurry to get out of there. I ate most of the fries while he chatted with Harrison a little more. He could tell I wasn’t really digging my drink, so he finished it for me. Now we’re walking back outside and it feels a little bit awkward again, like when the dance came to an end. Only now, it’s the entire night that’s coming to an end, and I hate that I really don’t want to say good-bye to him yet. But I’m certainly not about to suggest we go back to his studio.
“Which way is your place?” he asks.
My eyes swing to his and I’m shocked by his forwardness. “You aren’t coming over,” I immediately say.
“Auburn,” he says, laughing, “it’s late. I’m offering to walk you home, not asking to spend the night.”
I inhale, embarrassed at my assumption. “Oh.” I point to the right. “I’m about fifteen blocks that way.”
He smiles and waves a hand in that direction, and we both begin walking. “But if I were asking to spend the night . . .”
I laugh and push him playfully. “I would tell you to fuck off.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Owen
If I were eleven years old again, I would shake my Magic 8 Ball and ask it silly questions, like “Does Auburn Mason Reed like me? Does she think I’m cute?”
And I might be making assumptions based on the way she’s looking at me right now, but I expect the answer would be “It is decidedly so.”
We continue walking away from the bar, toward her apartment, and considering it’s quite a few blocks away, I can probably think of enough questions between here and there to get to know her a whole lot better. The one thing I’ve been wanting to know most since I saw her standing in front of my studio tonight is why she’s back in Texas.
“You never told me why you moved to Texas.”
She looks alarmed by my comment, but I don’t know why. “I never told you I wasn’t from Texas.”
I smile to cover up my mistake. I shouldn’t know she isn’t from Texas, because as far as she knows, I know nothing about her other than what she’s told me tonight. I do my best to hide what’s really going through my head, because if I were to come clean with her now, it would make me look like I’ve been hiding something from her for the majority of the night. I have, but it’s too late for me to admit that now. “You didn’t have to tell me. Your accent told me.”
She watches me closely, and I can tell she’s not going to answer my question, so I think of a different question to replace that one, but the next question is even more rushed. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
She quickly looks away and it makes my heart sting because for some reason, she looks guilty. I assume this means she does have a boyfriend, and dances like the one I just shared with her shouldn’t happen with girls who have boyfriends.
“No.”
My heart instantly feels better. I smile again, for about the millionth time since I first saw her at my door tonight. I don’t know if she knows this about me yet, but I hardly ever smile.
I wait for her to ask me a question, but she’s quiet. “Are you gonna ask me if I have a girlfriend?”
She laughs. “No. She broke up with you last week.”
Oh, yeah. I forgot we’ve already visited this subject. “Lucky me.”
“That’s not very nice,” she says with a frown. “I’m sure it was a hard decision for her.”
I disagree with a shake of my head. “It was an easy decision for her. It’s an easy decision for all of them.”
She pauses for a second or two, eyeing me warily before she begins walking again. “All of them?”
I realize this doesn’t make me sound good, but I’m not about to lie to her. Plus, if I tell her the truth, she might continue to trust me and ask me even more questions.
“Yes. I get broken up with a lot.”
She squints her eyes and scrunches her nose up at my response. “Why do you think that is, Owen?”
I try to pad the harshness of the sentence about to come out of my mouth by speaking softer, but it’s not a fact I necessarily want to admit to her. “I’m not a very good boyfriend.”
She looks away, probably not wanting me to see the disappointment in her eyes. I saw it anyway, though. “What makes you a bad boyfriend?”
I’m sure there are lots of reasons, but I focus on the most obvious answers. “I put a lot of other things before my relationships. For most girls, not being a priority is a pretty good reason to end things.”
I glance at her to see if she’s still frowning or if she’s judging me. Instead, she has a thoughtful look on her face and she’s nodding.
“So Hannah broke up with you because you wouldn’t make time for her?”
“That’s what it boiled down to, yes.”
“How long were the two of you together?”
“Not long. A few months. Three, maybe.”
“Did you love her?”
I want to look at her, to see the look on her face after she asks me this question, but I don’t want her to see the look on my face. I don’t want her to think my frown means I’m heartbroken, because I’m not. If anything, I’m sad that I couldn’t love her.
“I think love is a hard word to define,” I say to her. “You can love a lot of things about a person but still not love the whole person.”