Page 74 of Atlas
Damian was charming and flirtatious by nature and seemed to find Lumi’s comment amusing. With his sweaty hand, he patted the top of her hair, and when she tried to swat his hand away, he grabbed her head and brought his forehead down to hers.
She pushed at his chest and gave him the same hard stare that I’d seen her use at work when she wasn’t happy. But unlike the people she worked with, Damian just laughed like he was ever so entertained by her disgust.
“Don’t put your sweat on me.”
“I had to, love. Ye look too bloody pristine for this bar. No man will dare ask ye to dance if ye don’t loosen up a little. A bit of messy hair and sweat makes ye more approachable and sexy.”
“Touch me again, and I’ll make sure no woman in here will want to dance with you.”
“Is that so?” Damian tilted his head. “NowthatI’d like to see. I’ve already had three women approach me tonight.
My eyes were on Jolene and Nathan on the dance floor, while I listened to Damian and Lumi’s banter.
“Easy. I would just make the women here think that you’re taken,” Lumi said and gave Damian a challenging look.
Damian narrowed his eyes for a second, but then he chuckled and shook his head. “Nah, lass, you’re underestimating the good people here. No one would believe we were together. Not even if you plastered a big kiss on my face.”
“Why? Because you’re older than me?”
“Nay, because someone as fun-loving as me wouldn’t marry a humorless intellectual like ye.”
My lips twitched in a smile. Only Damian would dare say something that outrageous to Lumi. The two of them had a special bond ever since he took a bullet for her on the night that our parents died.
“What are you smiling at?” Lumi muttered to me and crossed her arms.
“Lumi, try to relax and have fun,” Liv suggested from across the table.
“Maybe my fun is different than yours.”
“Or maybe ye live too much up here,” Damian tapped her temple with his index finger. “And too little down there.”
“Did you just point at my private parts?” Lumi asked him in a dry voice.
“Aye, because I once had a captain who had a stick up his arse and was a real pain to be around. Then he met a woman online, and after they took up bed-sport, he became a different man, all mild and pleasant. It could work for ye too.”
Lumi rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone as if she was bored, but I caught the moisture in her eyes before she looked down. She was hurt. Everyone took Lumi to be imperturbable, but she was as sensitive as anyone. If she hadn’t been so skilled at hiding her emotions, they would know.
Damian and the others were moving on to a different subject, but I leaned my shoulder against Lumi and took her free hand under the table. Without words, she leaned her head on my shoulder.
Sometimes even her loved ones around this table seemed to forget that Lumi’s mother had been killed in front of her eyes by the man she trusted the most in the world. My sister was fierce and smart, but she was also a porcupine with her quills raised permanently high in self-protection.
“Oh, I love this song. Atlas come dance with me.” River was swaying from side to side in her high heels.
I looked at the dance floor again and saw that Nathan and Jolene were now dancing to the third song in a row. She leaned her head back and laughed at something he whispered into her ear. Why did she say yes to dancing with him and not me? And why the fuck was his hand so low on her back?
“Come on, Atlas; you haven’t danced at all,” River pressured.
“All right, let’s dance, but don’t step on my toes with those murder weapons you call high heels.”
Walking behind River, I saw the men in the bar stop and pay attention as she moved past them. River was used to the attention and didn’t seem bothered by the staring eyes or whispers among the men. Maybe some of them recognized her from magazines as the ex-girlfriend of movie star, Storm Johnson or star soccer player, Tyler Knight. But it was more likely that they were staring because of the way she lit up the room with her beauty and style.
River took my hands and smiled as she began dancing. “I was afraid you wouldn’t move from your seat all night.”
I smiled back at her, but my eyes kept finding Jolene, who was now swaying back and forth in a close embrace with Nathan. She was talking, and from her hand gestures, it looked like she was explaining something.
Nathan shook his head and laughed, his lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear his words because of the loud music.
I found it hard to focus on my dance with River when my pulse was speeding from watching Jolene and Nathan together. I wanted what Nathan had in that moment; Jolene’s full attention, her laughter, and her bright smile directed at him. It was tempting to cut in and swap dance partners, but that would be giving in to the selfish, possessive bastard that lived within me.
