A plume of cigarette smoke was the only indication that I wasn’t alone in the brisk night, shadowed by the few lights in the alleyway. I wasn’t walking away from the thrumming music because of the overwhelming scene inside the normally barren warehouse, I was doing it for the man I’d seen sneak out the emergency exit. He looked more uncomfortable than I did, suffocating in dark dress clothes and putting on a good face to appease the people for the sake of his best friend.
Pushing myself off the brick wall that vibrated my chest with every pump of the slow bass, I found myself drawn to the smell of tobacco, my nude heels clicking over the cracked pavement until my eyes were welcomed by expensive polished Tom Ford dress shoes and pressed dress slacks, perfectly tailored to the tall six-five figure encompassed by them, until my gaze drifted over the tight white silk pulled over taut muscles and olive skin with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showcasing bulging veins in his forearms, despite it being forty degrees tonight.
I knew the brand of the shoes he wore because I’d once used them to stand on during a dance very similar to the one we walked out on only moments ago. My feet were too tiny to keep up with the slow melody that he set for us at the time. Stand on my feet, little Della. I knew they must have been expensive because the blonde woman who’d been wrapped around his arm that night had all but gasped at me using them as a platform. I didn’t like her because she smelled too much like alcohol and something strong and floral that made my eyes itch. More than that, my dislike stemmed from her taking up all his time and attention if I wasn’t plastered on his feet.
But Theodore West and I danced like that, my tiny feet on his large shoes as he took lead, for as long as I wanted, which was much longer than a man like Theo would typically grant anybody. Even the blonde. Perhaps the kindness he offered me then was why I followed him into the dark, letting the secondhand smoke absorb into my lungs with every inhale I forced myself to take.
I hated smoking, and always wanted to scold him for doing it when he knew my grandfather had died of lung cancer. I may not have known my grandparents, but that didn’t make the outcome of their demise any less important when the man I grew up adoring sucked in nicotine like it was his favorite flavor.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” His gruff voice penetrated the silence, making my leather covered arms pebble with goosebumps.
Tightening my jacket over the skin exposed from the deep V of my black cocktail dress, I hugged myself for warmth. “You shouldn’t be either, especially without a jacket on. It’s cold.”
“I’m fine.” He took another drag of his cigarette, still not looking at me. His focus was on the empty road, dimly lit by broken streetlights. My father had loved this section of the city despite it being worn down and half abandoned. He hated me coming here alone, forbidding it on more than one occasion, no matter his soft spot for the warehouse that he met my mother in when they were younger.
“You left,” I noted idiotically, shifting on my feet. They ached from the four-inch platform heels I subjected them too, but they made my legs look good, longer, which my five-two height needed to pull off the longer dress. It was my mother’s favorite item of clothing and seemed fitting for tonight’s “celebration” of my father’s life.
He finally turned his head, his dark blue eyes piercing mine until I shrunk back. “What are you doing out here, Adele?”
Adele. Not Della. He called me that when he was upset. Not always at me, just life. It made sense considering we were saying goodbye to a man we both mutually cared about. Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I swiped a palm down the side of my thigh. “Checking on you. You were quiet all night and looked like you wanted to murder everybody who came up to you.”
“I’m not a fan of the socialites who decided to come,” he remarked coolly. “Your father kept them in his good graces out of civility, but even he thought they were pompous assholes. We both know who his true friends were when shit hit the