were finishing, the lights in the ballroom dropped, and pink and white lights around the outskirts of the room illuminated the walls as our cousin strolled in to some pretty majestic music that seemed totally over the top. We clapped, and Connie hooted. Lola danced with her dad, then her brothers as the servers came around and picked up all the plates.
Then the music started.
I only fought Connie for about three seconds when she got up, grabbed her son with one hand, gestured to her daughter with her chin, then went for my hand.
“I just ate. Give me a second,” I moaned even as she tugged at my arm.
“You need to work off those calories,” she replied, really putting some weight into it. “Quit being a heifer. You know you want to.”
I did want to.
Ah, fuck it.
I gestured to Boogie as I stood up. “Come save me if I’m not back in thirty.”
He had a breadstick in his mouth that looked like a cigar. “Okay. Uh-huh.”
He was useless. I knew it. “Save me, Zac,” I called out to my friend as I followed my sister and her kids.
“I got you, darlin’,” he called out after me even as he reached for a breadstick too.
I was pretty sure I saw him tap it against Boogie’s like they were swords before I turned back.
But… he didn’t have me. He didn’t have me at all.
I lost count of how many songs played while we danced in a circle, my sister, me, and her two kids, with a couple more cousins coming to join along the way. A few times, I grabbed my niece or nephew for some one-on-one, and at least twice Connie backed her ass up against me, and I was pretty sure I heard Boogie’s voice over the music… probably telling us to stop.
Finally, at some point, I ran off and went back to our table, finding Zac there… surrounded by four different women. I knew one of them. I could only see his profile, and it looked like he was smiling at them.
And that was fine. Good. At least he wasn’t bored and miserable.
Where the hell was Boogie?
Somehow, Zac must have sensed my approach because his eyes instantly swung toward me the second I got close enough, and I saw the truth. He was smiling, but it was his polite smile, not the real one that was so bright it lit him up from the inside out.
I smirked.
One corner of his mouth hooked up higher than the other.
His new companions must have seen him stop paying attention to them because when they spotted me making my way over, two of them pushed their chairs back and got up, which was weird, but okay.
“There she is,” Zac called out as I stopped behind the chair that I’d been sitting in and sucked back my leftover watered-down lemonade.
He held his own glass up toward me, and I took it and drank it all too. I was thirsty.
“Sorry, ladies,” my friend said as he got to his feet as I set his glass on the table. “I owe someone a dance.”
He did?
“She’s so busy I had to schedule it in,” he lied as he shoved his chair under the table.
He was using me as an excuse to get away. All right. My feet hurt, and I wanted to sit down, but I wouldn’t leave him hanging.
I made eye contact with my second cousin, who had been one of the people surrounding him and the only one I recognized, and waved.
I didn’t like the curious face she made back at me, but whatever, she still waved in return. I looked back at Zac as he got to my side, grabbed my hand, and led me out to the floor as—like it had been freaking planned—a country song came over the speakers.
Zac grinned as he reached for my free hand once we were on the edge of the dance floor and set it on his shoulder. “Still remember how to two-step?”
A blurry memory of him teaching Boogie—and me—how to dance a lifetime ago filled my head and made me smile. “Shit.”
He beamed down at me, his hands warm and mine probably even hotter, as he led me straight into it, moving around the floor, spinning me around from time to time, and thankfully not stepping on my toes a single time. “Kiddo, you’re better at this than I am,” he called out loudly, his pink mouth wide with laughter.