A collection of excited squeals had the two men’s heads snapping back to the dance floor as the familiar opening bars of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” filled the club. Well, Max thought, as the girls started jumping around even more, at least this song was an improvement on the shit that had been played since they arrived. In fact, he had this particular song on vinyl. It had been his mom’s. His dad had told him once that, while she was pregnant with him, Max’s mom would listen to it at least once a day, singing and stroking her baby bump. He was sure that somewhere in his apartment back in New York, he had a photograph that his dad had given him of her doing it.
The small smile that pulled at his lips at the memory grew wider when he saw Grace dancing, well, jumping toward him. She looked ridiculously endearing, all wide eyes and hair flying about. And the dress? Yeah, the dress was still fucking tremendous. Max had noticed the lingering stares it coaxed from the other guys in the bar but tried his best to ignore the shameless flash of possessiveness that streaked through him. His stink-eye was enough to keep those dipshits at bay.
“Come and dance!” she shouted above the music when she reached him, just as Marvin Gaye sang about remembering the day. Before Max could answer, Grace grabbed his hand and started swinging it from side to side, miming the words and bopping like a damn rabbit from foot to foot.
Unable to resist her happy face and happier dancing, Max lifted his arm so she could twirl beneath it. She beamed. “My love is alive way down in my heart!” she sang loudly while wiggling her ass.
It took a moment for Max to realize that he was dancing, too, just a little, rocking from one foot to the other. Once again Grace’s infectious spirit had yanked him away from any worries that his uncle may have had, any temptations and melancholy memories. Throwing caution to the wind and losing himself in the chorus of his mother’s favorite song, he wrapped an arm around Grace’s waist, gripped her free hand in the other, and began dancing—silly dancing—with her. He tipped her backward, swayed her from side to side, and twirled her some more. Her loud laugh filled the room over the music as he did and, whether he realized it or not, slowly crept into the deep, cold recesses of Max’s heart.
At a little after one in the morning, with pizzas, burgers, and fries bought and devoured in the car on the way back to the house, Max held on to a very tipsy Grace as she stumbled up the stairs to their bedroom. She giggled and hummed to herself as she leaned on his arm, while repeating how much of an amazing, fantastic, truly amazing night she’d had. Max couldn’t help but laugh at her. Truth was she was stinking cute when she was drunk.
“And the fireworks?” she slurred. “Oh my gosh, they’re so pretty. So pretty. Did you see them?”
“I saw them.”
“They were pretty, right? And all boom and pffffttttttt!” She flailed her arms to show Max just how pretty the fireworks were and tilted sideways.
Max held her tightly while he pushed open the door, glad that she barely weighed anything when she slumped her entire body against him. “Pretty like you,” she mumbled into his bicep as they moved into the room.
Max snorted. “You’re not gonna puke, are you?” he asked as she staggered toward the bed and dropped onto it face-first like a starfish, hair surrounding her like a black halo. She held wobbly thumbs up in answer.
Max checked out the way her dress gathered high on the backs of her thighs and rubbed a hand down his face. “I’m gonna wash up, okay?”
The comforter muffled her answer. “Mkay.”
In the bathroom, standing with his hands on the sink, Max thought back to what his uncle had said in the club. He shouldn’t have been surprised by his uncle’s concerns. Max himself had gone through the whole should he, shouldn’t he circle in his head about whether doing whatever the hell it was that he was doing with Grace was a sound idea.
And he was still convinced it was.
They were two—granted, fucked-up—consenting adults who found each other attractive. They were fuck buddies and nothing more. Yet both Tate and his uncle had pointed out that Grace may have wanted more, liked Max more than she should.
Max stared at himself in the mirror. “Shit.”
If he was truly honest with himself, Max liked Grace. He liked her a lot, but the scarred, battered, and bruised muscle that beat in his chest just wasn’t up to the task of loving anyone ever again.
The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. She deserved more than that. It wasn’t that Max thought Grace loved him. No. Despite Tate’s and his uncle’s words, Max knew better. She may have looked at him with affection, but that was merely because she showed her feelings without any filter. She was like an open book and, ironically enough, that was one thing Max really liked about her. There was no bullshit. She said it how it was.
And then there was the fact that he wanted her. Shit, of course he wanted her. He couldn’t wait to be inside her and see if she’d go off like the firecracker he hoped for.