“I’m sorry if I pushed you too hard, baby girl,” he whispers. “I feel bad.”
I reach for his shoulders and step closer to him so the tips of our shoes are touching. “You didn’t pressure me, although, you could have warned me that it was going to burn that bad. Then I would have tried harder not to choke and not look like a complete moron.”
“Trust me, neither of them think you’re a moron.” He laughs, like he knows a secret. “I don’t want to lose all that trust I’ve earned with you.”
“You didn’t lose anything.” I squeeze his shoulders with my fingertips, inching in as a guy in a fedora rams into my back. “The day you told me all your secrets was the day I knew we’d be friends forever. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.”
He smiles brightly and draws me closer. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel fine,” I tell him and rest my cheek against his. “Although, I'm a little iffy on going up to the cliff with them.”
“People go up there all the time. We won’t be the only ones there. You need to stop thinking of every guy as being like him, otherwise, he’ll always own you.”
I blow out a breath. He’s right. I need to let go of my fears and rid my brain of the guy who instilled them, but how can I let go of the one person who holds such a huge part of me?
Kayden
I can’t take my eyes off the dance floor. Even when my phone vibrates from inside my pocket, I slip my hand into it and press the off button on the side.
“Don’t do it.” Luke plucks a piece of ice out of his drink and pops it in his mouth.
“Do what?” I ask, distracted as my heart thumps when Callie throws back her head and laughs.
A hand knocks against the side of my head and my hand shoots up. “Okay, what the fuck was that for?”
“That’s payback for when you hit me back on the curb,” he says and his eyes roam to a girl with long red hair strutting by our table in a short black dress. “And it was also to distract you from doing something really stupid.”
“It’s not what you think,” I say. “I was just watching people dance.”
He rolls his eyes. “Do everyone a favor and send Daisy a text to break up with her. Then you can do whatever you want.”
“You want me to break up with her in a text?”
“Like you care. You don’t care about her even though you tell her you love her.”
“What is your problem with her, besides the fact that she annoys the shit out of you?”
He tosses his straw onto the table, grabs the cup, and pours the rest of the Long Island Iced Tea down his throat. “I’m going to go buy another round.”
I let him out, and then start to lower myself back into the booth, but my eyes find Callie again. She’s smiling as she talks to Seth. I’ve never been that happy before about anything. It makes no sense to me and maybe that’s why I’m drawn to her.
Even though I shouldn’t, I move across the dance floor, turning sideways to fit through the couples dancing, and getting rubbed on by a couple of girls along the way. Seth’s eyes locate me first and he whispers something into Callie’s ear.
Turning her head, she looks at me and her eyelids lift slightly. Her pupils look huge below the hazy lights, her skin pale, and her hair soft.
“Mind if I cut in?” I ask over the music.
Seth lets go of her hips. “Be my guest.” He winks at Callie and walks backwards off the dance floor, turning as he arrives at the edge, where the crowd closes in.
Callie’s gaze lingers in the spot he vanished from, her shoulders stiff and her fingers tucked into her palms.
I put my lips beside her ear. “You don’t have to dance with me, if you don’t want to.”
Her shoulders jolt upward and she rotates her tiny body to face me. Her gaze scrolls up my legs, my stomach, and it makes me kind of uncomfortable. She knows where my scars are hidden and she’s the kind of person who wonders things.
“It’s fine. We can dance.” Her nerves show through the shakiness of her voice.
I hold out my hand and she wavers before placing her palm on top of mine. Enclosing my fingers around her hand, I slowly lure her body toward mine with my eyes fixed on hers. She’s looking at me helplessly, like she’s praying I won’t hurt her. It takes me back to a time when I was younger and my father was furious with me because I’d knocked a vase off the shelf. He came at me with a belt in his hand and rage in his eyes as I dove under the table trying to hide. The cuts from the previous days beating hadn’t healed yet, and all I could do was hope he didn’t kill me.
“Can I put my hand on your hip?” I ask and she nods.
I spread my fingers around her waist and her eyes get a little wider, especially when I position my other hand on her side. I listen to my heart thud inside my chest, louder than the music. I’m feeling things I haven’t felt before and I might be getting in over my head. What if I continue to get to know her and the feelings amplify? I don’t deal with feelings.
She unwinds a little as her hands glide up my chest and hook around my neck, her head angling back so she can look up at me.
“I don’t really like to dance,” I admit. “I kind of developed a fear of it when I was little.”
Her lips twitch upward. “Why’s that?”
Digging my fingertips gently into her hips, I draw her toward me so our feet touch and I feel the heat of her breath on my neck. “When I was ten, my mom went through this dance faze where she took all kinds of dance classes and when she practiced at home, she liked to use my brothers and I as her partners. I’ve hated dancing ever since.”