Page 86 of Written in the Stars
ELLE (5:54 P.M.):hard sell but deal
ELLE (5:55 P.M.):pleasure doing business with you
DARCY (5:59 P.M.):No, but it will be.
ELLE (6:02 P.M.):
***
Physiologically improbable as it was, Darcy’s heart sputtered to a stop before kick-starting when Elle stepped into the Regal Ballroom of the Bellevue Hyatt Brendon had booked for his party.
Forgoing the traditional red or green holiday attire, Elle wore a sparkling silver minidress that made her skin glow, luminescent beneath the twinkling lights of the chandeliers. She accepted a glass of champagne from a waiter and scanned the room. Their eyes met and a bright smile lit up Elle’s face. Darcy tore her eyes away and stared at the bubbles rising inside her champagne flute, trying to quell the similar giddy stirring in her stomach.
“Hey.” Elle stopped in front of Darcy and reached out, tracing one of the thin straps holding up Darcy’s dress. Darcy fought against the resulting shiver and lost. “I like this. It’s very 1930s,let’s have clandestine sex in the library.”
Darcy coughed out a laugh and wiped champagne off her lips with the back of her hand. “I don’t even know what to make of that, but thank you?”
Elle shook her head. “Atonement? Come on, it was the movie that made me realize you can be sad and horny at the same time.”
“I’m surprised you let such a prime opportunity for alliteration slip through your fingers. Angst and arousal. You’re off your game,” Darcy teased, lifting her flute and taking a sip.
Elle reached out, fingers ghosting down Darcy’s arm before dropping. “Your dress is distracting. I’m proud I’m even making words right now. Complete sentences. Whoops. Sentence fragment.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Look what you do to me.”
As if Elle didn’t drive Darcy to distraction, too. The majority of Darcy’s dreams, both waking and sleeping, as of late, were about Elle. That terrified and elated her in equal measure.
Not knowing what to say, Darcy took another sip of champagne.
Elle spun, the light overhead catching on the multicolored glitter sprinkled down her zigzagged part, the rest of her hair left down, imperfect waves tumbling atop her shoulders. “Fancy party. I should say hi to your brother, but I haven’t seen him yet.”
Darcy set her glass down on the table of hors d’oeuvres behind her. “He’s near the front of the room making the rounds with my mother.”
“Your mom?” Elle shifted uneasily on her heels. “Do I get to meet her?”
Darcy’s brows rose. “Youwantto?”
Elle reached out, resting a hand on Darcy’s upper arm. “Unless you’d rather I not.”
Darcy stared across the room to where Brendon was currently introducing Mom to a group of coworkers who appeared to hang on her every word. Darcy twisted the ring around hermiddle finger. “Later? Do you want something else to drink? More champagne?”
Elle stared at her with huge eyes rimmed with dark, smudgy liner. Glitter had fallen from her hair down onto her lids, her cheeks, her jaw. “Okay, that sounds—”
Elle broke off, cocking her head to the side. More glitter scattered around her, falling from her hair.
“This song.” Elle drained her glass and set it aside with one hand, reaching for Darcy’s hand with the other. “I love this song.”
Dancing wasn’t something Darcy usually did unless forced. But the beat was slow, had a hazy dreamy quality to it that she could probably sway to. That and Elle seemed eager, so eager Darcy didn’t want to deny her. She let Elle drag her out onto the dance floor where she wrapped her arms around Darcy’s waist, fingers dragging against the skin left bare by her low-cut dress. Darcy shivered and stepped closer, resting her hands lightly atop Elle’s shoulders.
“Your dress.” She swallowed. There was a lump in her throat that hadn’t been there before, not until she caught a whiff of Elle’s perfume, something sweet but not floral. Vanilla. Elle almost always smelled like cookies or some kind of baked delicacy, mouthwatering. The same scent had clung to Darcy’s pillows, her sheets. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I meant to tell you I like it. You look like—”
“A disco ball?” Elle suggested, laughing. She continued to trace nonsensical patterns against Darcy’s skin.
She gasped softly when Elle’s fingers slipped beneath the satin of her dress. “I was going to say you look like... you look like the moon.”
The stars, too, for that matter. Elle looked like she’d been draped in the night sky, dipped in starlight.
Rather than laugh or roll her eyes at Darcy’s fumbling ineloquence, Elle pressed closer, fingers squeezing Darcy’s waist. Her tongue swept against her bottom lip and Darcy couldn’t help but track the movement. “Fun fact—the moon doesn’t actually produce any light of its own. It reflects light from the sun, making it appear bright at night. So, if I look like the moon, I guess that means I’m reflecting the light that’s around me.”
Her eyes lifted, staring up at Darcy from beneath the blackest of black lashes.
