Georgie, All Along (77)

Now that I’m here, though, I can see the way I want this—this noise, this unique buzz of separate-but-togetherness with other people who are out for the night, this collective offload of whatever stress accumulated during the day. I’m light, excited; I’m shuffling off that strange, pressured mood from earlier. And I’m all anticipation for Levi to arrive—for him to see me in my cute top and fancy eyeshadow, for him to sit here with my best friend and her husband, for him to have me cajole him out onto that dance floor later. In this place, it’s as though the outside world doesn’t exist. This is where everyone goes to get away from their outside worlds, and tonight, I’m ready to play along.

For the next few minutes, I divide my attention between Bel and Harry and the front door. When Levi arrives, my heart flutters in anticipation—he looks so good walking into this room, his best pair of still beat-up jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt that’s pushed partway up his forearms, his expression stoic and remote until he spots me. Once he does, his eyes turn warm and his mouth quirks beneath his beard.

God, I hope he’ll dance with me. A slow song, I think. The scruff of his beard tangling with my hair, that soft shirt against my cheek, those strong arms holding my body to his.

I stand as he gets close, and Harry does, too—both of us shoot a warning look at Bel, who rolls her eyes but then seems to agree it’s not worth it. Instead, she smiles brightly from her seat, offering up a single, small clap of approval when Levi bends to kiss my cheek in greeting.

“Hi,” he says quietly, before turning toward Bel and Harry. “Hello,” he says, which I now recognize as Levi’s word of greeting when he’s nervous, and my heart pulses with affection for all the soft vulnerability in him that only I see.

I set a hand low on his back and make introductions, keeping it simple, nothing like the careful, business-y introductions Bel once made between Harry and Evan. When we’re all finally seated again, I’ve picked up some of Levi’s nerves for myself; I’m suddenly worried that there won’t be anything on this menu for him to eat, or that the conversation will be strained, or that Levi will wonder about why Harry is wearing a dress shirt at a place with peanut shells on the floor.

But almost immediately, Harry turns to Levi and asks him about building a dock on their property, and everything in me loosens again. I know Levi enough now to know that he can talk about this for hours—everything about what’s wrong with bulkheads, with seawalls; everything that’s right about living shorelines, about docks built with the right materials. He tells Harry all about why a dock at their house is a bad idea, but he does it in a way that makes Harry nod along in agreement and rapt attention. At one point, I catch Bel’s eye and know she’s thinking the same thing I am—it’s this that we pictured when I wrote the fic, no Joe Jonas or Evan Fanning necessary. Harry and Levi hardly stop talking long enough for us to order food, and while I know Bel cares about plans for her house, I can also tell that right now, she cares more about the fact that she’s not the center of Harry’s nervous attention, that he’s finally relaxed enough to enjoy himself.

We smile at each other across the table, and then something even better happens: a song by The Chicks starts playing, one of Bel’s and my old favorites from back when we were still in elementary school, and both of us whoop in surprised excitement. Bel pushes herself up from her seat, slower now than that day at The Shoreline, but with the same urgency in her expression.

“Georgie, we have got to get out there!”

The dance floor is filling up, the women with the shocking cell phone content already out there, singing along and shaking their hips all out of sync with the music. Harry looks up at Bel, frowning, but I’m on her side—she looks as happy and as excited as I’ve seen her in weeks, and a little dancing won’t hurt. I’m on my feet, too, sparing a glance at Levi, who’s looking up at me with that quiet pleasure he does so well.

“Wanna dance?” I ask him, winking.

“I think I’ll do just fine here,” he says, a teasing note in his voice suggesting that he fully intends to watch.

“Your loss,” I say, linking arms with Bel and shimmying out to the dance floor, the chorus kicking up to greet us. The women singing along welcome us as though we’re somehow a forgotten part of their party, one of them shouting at Bel to “Get on out here, mama!” Bel laughs and keeps hold of my hand, both of us joining the singalong, both of us laughingly adjusting our moves to accommodate Bel’s protruding stomach.

Both of us, frankly, having the best time.

I twirl back to face the dining room, catching Levi’s gaze. I’m too far away to read his expression, but I can tell he’s watching, can tell he’s looking at me like I’m the moonbeam he once said I was: bright and rare and mysterious. Out here, I lean into that trying-to-click feeling: on this dance floor, with his eyes on me, it’s so close, so good, exactly the right sort of pressure. I’m not worrying about those big, blank spaces between me and Levi; I’m not worrying about two weeks from now, or about what Mrs. Michaels would say, or even about what I want or what I don’t.

Bel’s left me to get spun around by a woman who’s holding a gigantic margarita; she’s got a streak of pink in her white hair and the biggest pair of earrings I’ve ever seen, and she says something to Bel that has her cackling, too. When a small hand settles on my shoulder, I think I’m about to meet another member of this reckless, hilarious party of women, and I turn around with a big smile on my face, ready for the adventure. I’m so caught up in the moment that it takes me a second to register who I’m looking at and how her presence here is about to change everything.