Abby
All attention turns to Zach, who can command a room with his blue eyes alone. Dark blue, lined with sexy black lashes that go with his dark hair. The entire family has dark brown hair, ranging from the almost black of Austin’s to the red highlights in Ben’s. Zach’s is in the middle—rich, chocolate, enticing me to run fingers through it.
I haven’t seen Zach McLaughlin in years, and I realize I’ve missed out.
I notice Zach’s hand shaking a little—he is not happy to speak in public.
Yes, he kissed me when we were middle schoolers, and I went home half-fainting with joy. I figured he’d think me some nerdy girl chasing him if I talked to him again, so I ignored him. The logic of a thirteen-year-old.
We could joke about the kiss now, like old-timers reflecting on days gone by.
Except, I keep wondering what it would be like to kiss him now …
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here—” Zach breaks off amid chuckles and his brother Austin’s boo. “Oh, wait, we already did that. We’re celebrating Ryan and Calandra hooking up. Finally.” More laughter.
Zach waits until his audience is quiet, then he opens his mouth again. And nothing comes out. Maybe a little squeak of air.
He’s freezing, with his whole family, their closest friends, and a hundred friends of friends and acquaintances waiting for him to be Mr. Eloquent. I know enough about the McLaughlins, mostly from Calandra talking about them nonstop, to realize they’ll never let him hear the end of it if he can’t finish his speech.
“Say what’s in your heart,” I remind him in a hurried whisper.
Zach switches his panicked gaze to me. He is so seriously good-looking I almost lose the thread.
“What?” he asks.
“Say what’s in your heart. Go on.” I make motions for him to get back to it.
“Sorry.” Zach straightens up. “Taking cues from my prompter. The beautiful maid of honor, Abby Warren.” He indicates me, and there are awws and applause. My face goes hot.
“She’s telling me to go with my heart,” Zach continues. “So here it is. Ryan, you’re a pain in the ass. Now you’re Calandra’s pain in the ass.” A ripple of laughter. “But you know what? It’s obvious you two are so much in love. You make each other whole. So be happy Ryan, be happy, Calandra. You know we always have your back, bro. And sis.”
More awws, even Austin wiping off his grin to applaud. Zach lifts his champagne flute, and the rest of us follow.
“To Ryan and Calandra,” he says.
“Ryan and Calandra!” we all shout. Zach sits down, flushed and out of breath.
“How was that?” he says to me under cover of the clapping and cheering.
I take a demure sip of champagne. “Your fly was open.”
The horror on his face makes me laugh, my body shaking with it. Zach checks—he has to—finds his pants closed up just fine, and shoots me a vicious glare.
“Oh, you’ll pay for that, Abby Warren. You’ll pay.”
I pretend to myself that his words, his eyes, his voice, don’t make my blood run hot. I drink champagne and smile, until his mom comes to hug him and he turns away, giving me a much needed chance to cool down.
Wedding receptions pretty much follow the same pattern unless something goes seriously wrong. I pray as the meal finishes, the sun sets, and dancing begins, that nothing goes wrong. Getting Calandra to the church had been a feat. I deserve seven shots of tequila for pouring her into her dress and driving her there before she could run.
Ryan and Calandra do their first dance. We watch, breathless, as the two gaze into each other’s eyes, their love strong.
I relax. They’re going to be okay.
The bride and groom finish, and Calandra pairs off with her dad, Ryan with his mom. The rest of the guests stream to the floor to join them. I toss back the last of my champagne from the sidelines and watch, smiling, because my best friend has found happiness.
“Dance?”
Zach is next to me in the shadows beyond the dance floor, his hand out.
He’s tall warmth in the dark. His body is hard and honed from whatever workouts he does or whatever sports he engages in. I suddenly want to know which ones.
Should I play it cool? Pretend a shock hasn’t gone through me from his nearness, from the enticing way his tux hugs his trim body?
I can try.
“Do you ballroom dance?” I wave my empty champagne flute at the dipping, spinning crowd. “They’re waltzing.”
“You’d be amazed at what I had to do to prep for this wedding.” Zach plucks my glass from my hand and deposits it on the nearest table. “Come on. Need to pay you back, remember?”
“By dancing with me?” I was already swaying to the music. “Not much of a punishment.”
His eyes sparkle, and my face scalds. Could I have sounded any more eager?
“By me showing you up on the dance floor,” he says.
“You showing me up?” I laugh and take his hand, letting him steer me toward the whirling couples. “Oh, honey, it’s on.”
What I haven’t told him is I’ve been practicing. Calandra and I and our friend Brooke signed up for dance lessons in December. We spent the winter and spring learning the waltz, tango, foxtrot, samba, cha cha, and other long-forgotten ways of moving to music.
Zach’s been practicing too, I realize as he swings me wide and then tugs me to him, hand landing on my waist in perfect waltz position.
We catch the music, Zach gliding with the three-four time as he spins me around. No tame basic box-step waltz—he’s taking me to nineteenth-century Vienna.
I keep up, because, yes, I learned all this. So did Calandra, but a glance shows me she’s returned to Ryan and content to cuddle up against him. Zach and I? We’re putting it out for all to see.
Austin, the youngest McLaughlin and the show-off, grabs the microphone. “Let’s hear it for the best man and maid of honor. Look at ’em go!”
Everyone is staring now as Zach sweeps me around the floor. We glide-step and spin, sashay back, and glide some more. If I had a train I’d be holding it in a wide arc like a blushing Victorian lady, but I’m in a tame yellow dress, no trains, no whirling skirts.
The music changes, and everyone filters away. The DJ is playing a tango. Where he dug it up, I can’t say, but by the sly look on Austin’s face, he’s slipped the man a twenty to play it.
Not that he’s tangoing. It’s Zach and me. Everyone else edges back to watch, like Zach and I are on a TV dance competition.
Zach takes me along in the slow, quick-quick steps, pushing me with his strong hand on mine, fingers firm on my waist.
The tango is a dance of passion, our instructor told us. The male students had to smolder at their partners, and we ladies had to smolder back. The women were good at it—the guys, horribly embarrassed.
Zach isn’t. His eyes hold fire as he gazes deeply into mine. An act, I know, for the dance, but I can’t help burning all the way to my toes.
I lift my chin, pretending I’m a sultry lady on a hot night in Buenos Aires. I dare Zach to look away, and he doesn’t. A slight flush touches his cheekbones, but other than that, he’s in perfect command, no embarrassment.
He tosses me out, and I spin away, brought up short by his strong hand at the fullest extent of my arm. We do our swaying steps, then he twirls me back against him again as everyone applauds.
“They’re loving this,” I whisper.
“They should. We’re awesome.” Zach grins. “Want to give them a grand finale?”
“Sure, why not?”
Another spin, and this time I come against him with my back to his front. Nice. I fit well into him, his body curving deliciously over mine.
He twirls me out once more, and we do some good footwork before spinning together again. The music winds toward its conclusion with a sashaying rhythm suggesting warm nights, breathlessness, desire.
Finally Zach pulls me against him, and I end up fully in his arms. He holds my gaze with his, and I read passion in his eyes, which looks good on him, believe me.
Then Zach abruptly dips me, arching me back over his rock-solid arms. A fine place to be. He hangs over me, face a few inches from mine, as I hover above the floor. But I won’t fall, I know, because Zach has me.
I play along, gliding my high-heeled shoe up his calf to his thigh. The audience whoops.
Then I realize—Zach will drop me. This will be his payback for my crack about his fly.
I brace for it, ready to catch myself as soon as he lets go.
But he doesn’t. Zach gently raises me to my feet, sliding his arms from around my waist to take my hand. The sudden absence of his body heat gives me a cold, empty feeling.
Zach gestures to me with a wave of his hand, and I make a grand bow. He bows with me, and the guests reward us with wild applause.
Austin, who I remember as always loving the spotlight, runs in with a long-stemmed rose from one of the table vases and tells Zach he needs to hold it between his teeth.
Zach snatches the flower from his brother with a scowl, and then turns and presents the rose to me.
“For you, my lady,” he says, with an exaggerated bow.
I flutter my lashes. “Why thank you kindly, sir.”
The guests think we’re hysterical.
Zach leads me from the floor, buoyant. “We should take it on the road.”
I plop down in the nearest chair, still clutching the rose. “Once I get my breath. My feet are already killing me.”
“Don’t move.” Zach runs off through the crowd.
More music begins, this time modern stuff, which doesn’t require months of lessons. You go in, shake your groove thing, and have fun.
Zach returns with two tall glasses of ice water. I gulp mine with relief. It’s April in Phoenix, and it was in the nineties today, only about eight-five now. We’re dancing in an outdoor tent like it’s nothing, because we like to sweat.
I down the water and a waiter appears bearing two drinks that look like piña coladas. “I thought we deserved it after that show,” Zach says, taking the glasses and thanking the waiter.
He sits down and lifts his glass of frothy white ice in a toast. “To dirty dancing.”
“Wasn’t dirty.” I click my piña against his and take a sip. Cool coconut and pineapple slide over my tongue, quenching my thirst. The bite of rum doesn’t hurt either. “That was classic ballroom dancing.”
“Hot stuff, back in the day.” Zach winks at me, his cute blue eyes drawing me in.
He’d had the same effect when I’d been a gawky kid, falling in love for the first time. Or what I thought was love. A huge crush, I realize now, pure and simple. Not that I blame the girl I was for the crush.
“Isn’t this kind of a sissy drink for you?” I hold up my glass, half empty. “Shouldn’t you be throwing back more shots of single malt?”
“Who cares? A drink’s a drink. As long as it’s good.” Zach takes a gulp. “And this one’s good. Talented bartender. Only the best for Ryan.”
He says it without resentment, as though he approves.
We drink a bit more, a silence descending. I wouldn’t mind simply sitting here basking in Zach, enjoying the view, but I also fear he’ll finish his drink and walk away.
I mean, we’re nothing to each other. We’ve come together tonight to celebrate my best friend and his brother finally joining at the altar. We shared a dance to take the pressure off Calandra and Ryan, to let them have a moment while Zach and I commanded the attention.
What is left?
“So …” is my scintillating conversation opener. “What have you been up to since, oh, eighth grade?”
Zach laughs, gravelly and sexy. He doesn’t have a model-perfect face, too hard for pin-up photos, but he still manages to be gorgeous. There’s character in that face, eyes that have gazed upon the world and decided how he’d be in its context.
“Let’s see.” Zach watches the dancers, thoughtful. “Played a lot of football. Finished high school. Went to college. Started working for my folks. That’s pretty much it.” Again, no resentment. I hear no regrets about his life.
“You were really good at football, I heard.” I poke at what’s left of the drink with my straw. “Did you continue in college?”
“Nah. I loved playing, but I wasn’t great, you know? Not the kind of devote-your-whole-damn-life to being an expert at catching a ball kind of great. I didn’t want to make something I enjoyed into work, know what I mean?” Zach breaks off and gives a self-deprecating laugh. “My way of saying I didn’t make it past tryouts. But I really didn’t care. I remember wondering why I was so relieved when I didn’t make the team, not even second string. It helped me realize there were other things to be interested in. So now I play with my brothers and friends for fun.” Zach tosses back the rest of his drink. “Your turn.”
My face heats. “Nuh-uh,” I say quickly. “You’re not done. That was just the explanation of why you didn’t play football in college. What else happened to you?”
He shakes his head. “This is me trying not to make my life boring. I finished college and started working for my mom and dad at their business. End of story.”
“No, no, no.” I wave my glass. The waiter, taking it as a signal, brings us two more. “Not end of story. Did you fall in love? Meet someone? She’s not here, so either she’s not feeling well or doesn’t want to have anything to do with weddings. Or he, if that’s the case.”
Zach’s laughing at me the whole time but I note a flicker of pain in his eyes. “No he. Or she. I’m not in a relationship.”
I swirl my second piña. “See, this is the difference between men and women. If you were a woman, I’d already know every detail about why you aren’t with whoever it was. Who was she, and what happened?”
“You’re right. A guy friend would say, Women, what can you do?, smack me on the shoulder, and order me another drink.”
“You haven’t finished that one.” I point at the half-empty glass in his hand. “Spill the beans. I won’t post it on social media. Cross my heart.”
Zach’s smile dims. “Why do you want to know so bad?”
“I want to know everything about you, Zach McLaughlin.” The piña coladas are catching up to me, not to mention the Scotch and the champagne I had before the dance. I’m talking far more freely than I would otherwise. “Everything I missed by moving away from the old neighborhood.”
“I asked her to marry me.” Zach’s affability fades. “She laughed and said no way was she marrying anyone. Two months later, she runs off with my best friend—my ex-best friend—to Las Vegas where they got married by Elvis.”
He finishes, clamps his mouth shut, and gulps down his piña colada.