Page 57 of This

Chewing on the straw, Chevy tips his head toward the stage. The girl ballad cousin Stephanie was singing has faded out, and I spin my stool around. Dane’s onstage, swinging the microphone around by the cord. Suspicious, I squint at the guy wearing an ugly olive beanie in May.

He winks. And then the music kicks on. A chord everyone knows accompanied by drum hits fills every corner of the room, repeating to the openingda-da-dada-daof “Bennie and the Jets.”

Oh no.

“Fuck yes!” Lincoln shouts, moving from underneath a dancer.

He dashes for the stage along with Liam and Keaton.

The burn should rise in my cheeks when Dane brings the microphone to his mouth, but I can’t stop smiling. I blame the alcohol and not the way he looks at me with every, “B-B-B-Bennie.”

In the middle of his performance, he hands the microphone off to Liam and jumps off the stage. He drags me off the stool and holds me close, swaying to the rest of the song. I never want him to let me go and blame the alcohol for that as well. It has nothing to do with any of it though. Every shiver and moment since we’ve met has belonged to him. Even when I didn’t want it to.

“You’ve never called me Bennie before.”

He chuckles, gliding his hands further down my back. “I’ve never made an ass of myself on a regular basis for someone either, but here we are.”

Later, we’re at a tablewith half a dozen other people. They talk while Dane and I stare at each other. I’ve tasked myself with remembering him from the bar even if I have to make it up. I looked up and smiled a thank-you. His gaze slid down me, and his teeth worked into his bottom lip by the time it returned to mine. Our eyes held longer than they should have, and when I stumbled from not paying attention to where I was going, he caught my arm.

My mind loses focus on the task then, filling in what would have happened if I’d stayed. More extended looks, his hand on my thigh, the two of us leaving together and screwing in his truck because neither of us would have taken the other home.

“When you look at me like that, it makes me hard,” he says.

I lay my arm on the table and my head on my arm. “Convenient since I was thinking about you inside me.”

Again, Dane finishes the drink in his hand, only instead of telling me I’m not leaving the bar without him, he proves it.

We make it through hisfront door before undressing each other. His keys skid across the counter when he tosses them, jangling to the floor. He collapses onto the couch and pulls me on top of him. I straddle him, on my knees with him pressed between my legs.

“Condoms are in the bedroom,” he says, not taking his mouth off mine. “Nightstand. Drawer.”

“Okay.”

But our movements mismatch the conversation. I lift onto my knees, and Dane drags me back down, letting out a groan as I sink onto him, all the way down.

“I missed this last night.” His arm wraps my waist as I start to move against him. “I missed you—fuck, I miss you every night,” he says.

I miss him, too, but it comes out in a moan.

He thrusts up into me, slower than I thought he would, each drawn out like they mean more. The same more that he slips between words unlike anyone else can. The more in his eyes when he looks at me sometimes. The way he’s staring at me now with my palms against his chest and his heart beating wildly beneath them. He grabs the back of my neck, bringing my face to his. Our lips rub together, not kissing but sharing air and drinking each other in.

“I love you,” he rasps.

As if he feels the panic race through me, his grip at the nape of my neck tightens, so I can’t pull away. He cups the side of my face with the other, and I can’t run, even though every instinct inside me surges to do so. All I can do is be there with him, his hips pushing up to fill me and his eyes pouring out the more.

“You shouldn’t. I’m a train wreck.” It’s a warning, albeit a short one part of me wants him to ignore.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I love you anyway.”

Breathing through what feels like my hardest confession yet, I rest my forehead on his. “I love you too.”

We’re both panting when I smash my lips to his, afraid of what else might spill out of me. I brace on his shoulders with my hands in his hair and ride him faster. He growls in response and grabs my hips. When he flips me over onto the couch, I gasp into his open mouth. He reclaims control and slowly thrusts so he can watch me come undone beneath him. My body curls around his. I hold on to him inside and out. As I cry out, he drives into me harder before he shudders and buries deep.

I’m shaking as he relaxes. We stay quiet while we recover, him breathing hard against my neck until my chest rises slower. After a minute, his lips find mine, kissing them and then smiling against them. And then he tightens his hold on me and rolls us off the couch and onto the floor.

“Dane!”

But I’m laughing as I land on top of him. He drags a blanket down to spread over us, and I cuddle into him. I fall asleep with my face nuzzled against his neck. We’re drunk and tangled in each other’s arms on the floor, like he said we’d be—how he thinks we were meant to be all along.

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