Getting Real (Getting Some #3)(54)

*

Two weeks after what is now branded in my mind as the Taco Saturday from Hell, Connor and I have plans to meet up with a group of people from work at a bar called The Piano Man.

On our way out the door, I start to tell Connor’s youngest, “Remember, Spence, don’t—”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t eat any shrimp. I know, Violet.”

I may have reminded him once or . . . sixty times before.

But I can’t help it if I’m more traumatized than either he or Connor. And I’ll get over it . . . eventually . . . like when he’s eighty.

The Piano Man is a bustling, old-school bar with gleaming mahogany trimmings and supersonic speakers connected to a jukebox. Every stool along the bar is filled, the round tables are packed, and the dance floor is hopping with hip-shaking, head-bopping people dancing to the best singable tunes.

And at the center of it all is our rowdy group of medical professionals. Because if anyone knows how to have a good time, it’s people who work in the business of life and death every single day.

Two hours after we arrive, I’m on the dance floor, arms high and liberated, my feet stomping to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.” I’ve lost count of the number of Hawaiian pineapple cosmos I’ve ingested, but what can I say . . . they’re tasty. My limbs are loose, my vision is hazy around the edges, and my heart thumps with sweet, giddy happiness on every beat.

Connor’s at the table, laughing at something Tanner just said. But his eyes are riveted on me—observing, like I’m something fascinating and rare. Like he could go his whole life never looking at any other woman and he’d be perfectly, absolutely content.

It makes me feel powerful. And emotional. Protected and wanted and rapturously sexy. He makes me feel everything.

The song changes to something slower that begins with a moving piano solo. The girls I’m dancing with—Effie and Alice, the latter a mild-mannered anesthesiologist with a wild streak—head back to the table to wet their whistles.

But I stay right there.

Because Connor Daniels is on the move . . . and he’s moving straight to me.

He wraps one arm around my lower back and folds his other hand into mine as the male singer’s voice croons through the speakers. And I realize I know this song, I love this song—it’s “Chances Are” by Bob Seger and Martina McBride.

“You look like you’re having fun.” His warm breath tickles my ear.

“Understatement.”

I’m a little unsteady on my feet, but I don’t have to worry . . . he’s got me.

“Are you having fun?” I ask.

His grin is a little bit dirty, kind of suggestive—all ruggedly beautiful.

“Watching you? You have no idea.”

I sink against him with a relaxed sigh. It’s the sound you make when you’re submerged in a warm, scented bubble bath and you don’t have any worries or troubles because the heated water cradles you, surrounds you, and in that moment everything is just perfect. Connor is my happy place.

“This is a great song,” he says above my head.

“I was just thinking that.” But then another thought flits through my brain and out of my mouth. “This wasn’t like your and Stacey’s wedding song or anything, was it?”

“No,” he scoffs.

Then he looks into my eyes.

“But I was kind of hoping it could be our song.”

I feel myself smile—but smile doesn’t really cover it. Because my lips stretch so broad and wide it feels like my mouth consumes half my face.

And my stomach and my heart are somehow smiling too.

“Really?”

“Yeah. It reminds me of us.” Connor glances at the floor—almost shyly—and he’s never shy. “When you weren’t talking to me, I used to drive past your road on the way home from work.”

My cosmo-soaked brain takes a moment to process the information.

“But my road isn’t on your way home.”

“I know . . . but it felt like it was. Like you were on my way home. I would park at the corner at the end of your street, just for a little while. Because I was hoping to get a glimpse of you. I wanted to be near you, in any way I could.”

He shakes his head, glancing over my shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m fucking telling you this. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

I stare at him meaningfully.

“I wrote a poem about your penis.”

Connor found my box of poems the other day—to my ever-burning, napalm-level shame. It’s my fault; I left the lid of the jewelry box open and he walked past and saw the top paper titled “Connor’s Cock.”

What man wouldn’t take a second look at that?

He chuckles at me at the reminder.

“And it’s not pathetic,” I tell him. “I think it’s romantic. The most romantic thing anyone has ever done. And it’s a relief.”

“A relief?”

“Yeah. For so long I had you up on this unreachably high pedestal. And then, at the wedding, you came down off of it and you were human. You were real. And I liked the real you even more. So it’s a relief to know you liked me as much as I liked you. That we’re on the same page.”

He stares at our clasped hands, his voice hushed and soft.