Page 7 of Stolen Vows

He sounds ridiculous, but I’m feeling indulgent tonight. And he’s not wrong. I graduate soon, and once I cross that stage, you couldn’t pay me to come back to the baseball house.

I weave through the hallway toward the living room, already planning my exit strategy. I’ll hold up a wall for ten minutes—long enough for Beau to get distracted—then I’ll slip out early.

The music is louder here, bass vibrating through the floorboards, the air thick with the scent of cheap beer, sweat, and something vaguely citrusy from a spilled drink. A small crowd moves in time with the music, some bodies pressed close, others swaying with that loose, careless energy that comes with a few drinks. Someone’s laughing, high and breathless, over by the couch. A couple stumbles past me toward the kitchen, fingers tangled together, oblivious to anyone else in the room.

I shift my weight, pressing my shoulder into the nearest doorway, already counting down the minutes until I can leave. My body is wrecked from the game. Six and a half innings, arm tight from pitching into the seventh, adrenaline carrying me through before Coach pulled me to preserve my arm.

Now, all I want is an ice pack and my laptop.

And maybe eight hours of sleep, though I doubt I’ll get that, either.

I find a corner cloaked in shadows and lean my shoulder against the wall, content to watch instead of participate. The music thrums through the floor, a steady vibration beneath my feet, but I barely notice it.

The crowd shifts, parting just enough?—

And then I see her.

The air leaves my lungs, like the time I took a fastball to the ribs on a dirty pitch. Sharp. Sudden. Stealing the breath right out of me.

She moves like she belongs here, like the night bends around her. Long, sun-kissed hair flashes like spun gold beneath the strobe lights and the disco ball someone rigged to the chandelier. Every slow tilt of her head, every sway of her hips, catches the light like she’s carved straight out of myth—a Greek goddess, radiant and untouchable.

Then she tilts her head back and smiles.

And I can’t stop myself from searching the space around her, expecting to see someone beside her, waiting for a reason for that amusement to curl up the side of her mouth. To find the source of whatever thought just lit her up from the inside.

But there’s no one.

And somehow, that makes it both better and worse.

Because now I want to know what put that expression on her face, what thought just slipped through her mind that made her smile like that.

Something about it gets under my skin, sharp and insistent. I don’t just want to look at her—I want to understand her.

One song bleeds into another, and by the fifth, I’m transfixed.

I don’t even pretend to play it off anymore—my gaze keeps catching on her, tracking every flicker of movement through the throng of bodies. My muscles ache from the tension lining my body, and for the first time tonight, it has nothing to do with baseball.

I watch as she gathers her hair in one hand, twisting it around her fingers and lifting it off the back of her neck. The movement is absentminded, effortless. Like she’s been dancing for so long, she’s not even aware of the way she’s caught the attention of half the damn room.

Then she weaves through the crowd, slipping between bodies with the kind of ease that makes it seem like the music is pulling her forward. She doesn’t stop until she’s two feet away from me, just outside the crush of dancers, the strobe light flashing behind her every few seconds—too bright, too inconsistent.

It makes it impossible to see her face clearly, and that annoys the shit out of me.

She tilts her head, amusement curling at the corner of her mouth. “Please tell me you know where the drinks are. My sister went in search of some almost an hour ago and hasn’t come back yet.”

I tip my beer toward her, offering it without much thought. “You can have mine.”

She grins, and the overhead lights flicker across her face, catching on the quick flash of her teeth. It snags my attention, distracting me more than it should.

Her gaze flicks to the bottle, then back to me, amusement curling at the edges of her mouth. “No offense, but I don’t take opened drinks from strange men at parties.” She pauses just long enough to make it deliberate. “Even the hot ones.”

My fingers tighten around the bottle. I clear my throat, heat creeping up my neck before I can stop it.

Which only makes it worse. And then it pisses me off.

“Good,” I say, but it comes out rougher than I mean it to.

She laughs, and before she can get another hit in, I turn, muttering, “I’ll show you where the good drinks are.”

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