Love and Other Words(70)

His lips come over mine in a fever, hands moving to cup my face, to hold me close as if my kiss is a delicate, fleeting thing.

His kiss is an aching prayer; devotion pours from him. He sucks my bottom lip, my top, tilting his head for more, and deeper, before I pull back, reminding him with a tiny flicker of my eyes where we are and just how many people have noticed.

Elliot doesn’t care about them. He takes my hand, leading me down the steps from the lit dance floor and into the gardens.

Our shoes swish through wet grass. I pull my dress up into my fist, jogging after him.

Deeper down the trail we go, into blackness, where all I hear is the buzzing of insects and the ripple of wind through the leaves. The voices disappear into the light behind us.

then

sunday, december 31
eleven years ago
D

ad materialized at my side, holding a flute of champagne for him and a flute of what smelled suspiciously like ginger ale for me.

“Not even one glass of hooch?” I asked, pretending to scowl. “This party sucks.”

Dad took this in stride with an impressed sweep of his attention around the room, because this party, quite obviously, did not suck. It was in the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel and was packed with beautiful people who were dripping jewelry and were – thankfully – surprisingly lively. The entire room had been decorated with thousands – maybe even a million tiny white lights. We were spending New Year’s in the heart of a constellation. Even though I was away from Elliot, I couldn’t exactly complain.

It was only a few minutes away from midnight, and the crowd was growing thick around us, pressing in closer to the bar so everyone could get a drink in hand before the New Year was rung in.

Tucked beneath my arm, my clutch began to vibrate. I looked up at Dad, who gave me the single nod of permission, and stepped out into the hall.

I glanced down at my phone. Eleven fifty-five. Elliot was calling me.

“Hey,” I said, breathless.

“Hey, Mace.” His voice was thick and happy.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Have we had a couple of cocktails, Mr. Petropoulos?”

“One or two.” He laughed. “Apparently I’m a lightweight.”

“Because you’re not a drinker.” Moving deeper into the quiet hallway, I leaned against the wall there. The clamor from the party faded into an array of background noise: voices, glasses clinking, music. “Where are you?”

“Party.” He fell quiet, and I heard shuffling in the background, the sound of a doorbell in the distance. “At, um… someone’s house.”

“‘Someone’?”

He hesitated, and with the intake of air I could hear on the other line, the way he held it, I knew what was coming. “Christian’s.”

I was quiet for a beat. I knew only enough about Christian to feel faintly uneasy about his influence. Things always turned too wild when Christian was around, at least that’s how Elliot spun it. “Ah.”

“Don’t ‘Ah’ me, missy,” he said, voice low and slow. “It’s a house party. It’s a party with lots of people in a big house.”

“I know,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Just be careful. Are you having fun?”

“No.”

Grinning at this, I asked, “Who else is there?”

“People,” he mumbled. “Brandon. Christian.” A pause. “Emma.” My stomach clenched. “Other people from school,” he quickly added.

I heard something fall and crash in the background, Elliot’s quiet “Ow, stop,” and a girl laughing his name before he seemed to move somewhere quieter. “And, I don’t know, Mace. You’re not here. So I don’t really give a shit who is.”

I laughed tightly. This call felt like a shove forward, into a life where we had beers together, and dorm rooms, and hours upon hours alone. I felt our future looming, teasing.

Tempting.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m at the glitzy soiree.”

“Right, right. Black tie. Society.”

I looked back over my shoulder into the wide ballroom. “Everyone around me is hammered.”

“Sounds awful.”

“Sounds like your party,” I shot back, watching Dad across the room, talking with a pretty blonde. “Dad seems to be having a decent time.”

“Are you wearing something fancy?”

I looked down at my shimmering green dress. “Yeah. A green sequined dress. I look like a mermaid.”

“Like, Disney princess?”

I laughed. “No.” Running my hand down my stomach, I added, “But I think you’d like it.”

“Is it short?”

“Not really. Knee length?”

“Tight?”

Biting my lip, I lowered my voice. Unnecessarily, for sure: the party was roaring. “Not skin-tight. Fitted… ish.”

“Eh,” he grunted. “Wouldn’t you rather be wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with me? On my lap?”

I giggled at his missing filter. “Definitely.”

“I love you.”

I froze, closing my eyes at the sound of these words.

Say it again, I thought, and then immediately wondered if this was really how I wanted to hear him confess this: while he was drunk – for the first time, as far as I knew – and many miles away.