Donovan's POV:
Seeing Jeremiah at the wedding brought up feelings that I thought were long gone. At one point, he was a good friend of mine and then he dated Josie— cheated on her— and now I kind of hated the guy. Maybe hated was the wrong word, but seeing him made me want to continuously pound him in the face. So, it didn't feel like that wrong of a word.
"I can't believe you guys are actually here together," he was saying for what felt like the sixteenth time.
It took a lot of willpower to not outwardly groan in his face. I'd punched him once in high school. He said some stupid shit to me in the hallway and I was an angry kid back then. Angrier that particular day too, and so the stupid shit he said was the last straw. I snapped. When the principal called us in to his office, Jeremiah had the decency to not rat me out.
That was okay, I guess. But right now? He was unbearable. I glanced around while he continued to talk and tried to keep the irritation out of my expression.
The reception that Josie's dad and her soon-to-be step-mother were throwing the night before the wedding rivaled every wedding I'd been to before. Supposedly, this was the rehearsal dinner, but as I glanced around at the caterers and the fresh flowers, I wondered how they would be capable of topping it tomorrow.
How could they possibly top Josie Troutman admitting that she came to this wedding with me? She hadn't even clarified by saying that we came as friends.
God, I thought watching her laugh as she talked to a distant cousin, I did not want to be her friend.
Almost as if she could hear the path my thoughts had taken, she glanced over at me. When she saw that I was already looking at her, she smiled and raised a finger from her glass to wave at me. Pink lips, blonde hair, and green eyes.
And a motherfucking sundress.
Damn it, I felt like my chest was going to split open.
Never mind, I quickly changed my mind, I could be whatever she wanted.
Vaguely, I was aware that her ex, Jeremiah, was still speaking to me. He was a nice enough guy when he wasn't dating her I guess, but he was also the type to try and one-up everything I said. Stupid things too.
I was also, however, acutely aware that Josie was scratching the side of her champagne glass with her thumbnail. She only did that when she was feeling anxious. As politely as I could, and without punching him in his upper lip again, I excused myself from the conversation with Jeremiah.
Making my way over to her, the words I could say ran through my mind. When I was younger, it used to happen all the time— words I wanted to say used to bubble up on my tongue and I used to swallow them down because I was afraid. Afraid that I wasn't good enough. Afraid that she would hear the words, look at me, and laugh. Afraid she would quickly put an end to the pieces of her that I had.
"Donovan," she greeted cheerfully and with an easy smile. How was this so easy for her? How could she not feel the way my chest splintered? Could she not hear it? "Have you met my Aunt Cecilia before?"
The older woman she was speaking to reached out her hand. The way she reached out her hand was peculiar, but I noted it. I took the slightly weathered hand and pressed my lips to the top of it, and the woman looked overjoyed.
"A pleasure to meet you," I said. "Cecilia is a beautiful name."
The older woman beamed, first at me and then at Josie. "A gentleman! You didn't tell me you were hiding one of these from me, Jo-Jo bear?"
Josie winced.
"Not hiding," she explained, giving me a look that told me she was very much hiding me from this woman, "we go to school together. Donovan plays—"
"But you came together?" Aunt Cecilia asked, her discerning and wrinkled eyes flitting between the two of us. Josie hesitated and her Aunt's eyes narrowed.
"We did," I answered for her, "and I would like to ask Josie to dance with me, if you could be so kind as to spare her for a moment?"
"Oh, go go dear boy. Take her!" Aunt Cecilia said, probably too enthusiastically. I resisted the urge to laugh and held my hand out to the slightly dismayed girl by her side. To my thrill, she took it.
Her hand was slightly chilled, but that was to be expected as she'd been gripping an ice-cold cocktail for courage the entire night. As we neared the dance floor, she gripped my hand the same way. But that was alright. I could do that.
There were other couples on the wooden dance floor set up for tomorrow's festivities, but they were all at least ten years older. As soon as I led her there, I took a step back. She hadn't challenged me the whole way there.
Nor did she challenge me when I reached for her. Or when I put an arm around her waist. Or when I brushed a long piece of gold hair behind her ears. Or when we started swaying gently to the music that was playing. Her hair smelled like lavender, but the perfume she wore on the column of her throat was something a little darker. Headier.
"So," I swallowed, trying to keep my hands loose on her hips rather than gripping them on instinct. "You never told me you have an English aristocrat for an aunt."
Josie snorted and rolled her eyes. "Cecilia is from Kentucky. Old money. She's my great aunt and related to my dad through some marriage or another. She used to hate my mom though."
"What?" I balked, "why?
Holly Troutman was the most inoffensive and unassuming human being. When my dad would go on business trips, Holly was the one who drove me to practices when mom was working. She was one of my emergency contacts at school and when we were in middle school, she brought cupcakes to the class on my birthday.
She was also one of the only people that my mom told about what happened at the beginning of the semester. Holly swore up and down not to tell her daughter after I asked. Still, without fail, Holly Troutman brought dinner over every Sunday and sat with my mom until she ate a full plate. Maybe two.
So if Aunt Cecilia had a problem with her, I had a problem with Aunt Cecilia.
"She always thought my mom was too... artistic," Josie emphasized the word as though some people here thought it might be a bad thing. "She wanted to work and have a family. Aunt Cecilia thought that was preposterous and never hesitated to tell her."
I shook my head. Clearly, Aunt Cecilia was stuck in another century. Josie had lots of eccentric relatives, and I was a little bit jealous of her for that.
"Is this weird for you?" I asked after a moment.
She shrugged, knowing exactly what I was referring to. Her gaze flitted to where her father stood with Wendy, laughing at something a relative said.
"A little," she admitted, "but not as weird as I thought it would be. You're helping."
"I'm helping? I haven't done anything."
"Well, seeing you talk to my ex definitely kept my mind off of the wedding." She laughed and I smiled with her. Jeremiah had really been trying to talk my ear off, but the guy was a total bore.
In high school, she was the most interesting thing about him.
"Hopefully, from here on out, you won't exclusively date idiots."
She grinned. "One can only hope."
Then after a moment she added, "is this weird for you?"
I glanced down at her.
"What?"
"This." She gestured to the two of us. "Dancing with me. This wedding. Sleeping, um, sleeping in the same bed with me."
"We used to sleep in the same bed when we were younger," I pointed out, tactfully avoiding the other questions.
No, it wasn't weird. It was the most natural thing in the world. My skin and my heart felt like they were on fire every time I saw her, but that was exciting. Exhilarating. Intoxicating. Not weird.
"But that was—"
She stopped herself. What had she been about to say? But that was... different? Was that what she was going to say before her brain caught up with her mouth?
If it was, she was right. I had a schoolboy crush on her when I first met her, sure, and then it turned into something like longing in high school. Then irritation— mostly because she hated me. Never, not in the ten years since I met her, were the thoughts of her so pervasive as they were now.
My hands tightened around her, partially on instinct and partly in a desperate attempt to get her to finish her sentence.
She didn't. It was okay if she wasn't ready to admit it out loud. After all, I waited ten years for this moment. I could wait for that one too.
That night, the two of us were quiet as we got ready for bed. She changed in the adjoining bathroom and I ignored the shadows that trickled out from under the crack in the door as I changed.
I also ignored the tanned legs that poked out from sleep shorts. And a flimsy tank top. Jesus Christ, I thought the mini skirt would kill me. The sundress nearly did. But this? This was a new kind of torture.
What I didn't ignore, however, was that Josie took note of the fact that I was shirtless. And she took note of it for a longer time than she probably needed to. When she looked away, her cheeks were flushed and my heartbeat thrummed louder in my ears.
We laid side by side in silence, with only the ticking of the clock behind us cutting through the awkwardness. I would've laughed if every cell in my body wasn't screaming at me to cross the mere inches between us.
After the celebration party, I told her that the next time we were in a bed together she would remember it. Granted, she didn't remember me telling her that. But she would certainly remember this night as the most awkward one she ever experienced.
Could she feel me thinking this hard? If I shifted, would she be as acutely aware of me as I was of her?
Josie turned on the pillow to face me. Even in the dark I could make out her wide eyes and dark lashes.
"How are you doing this?" she asked.
"What?"
"How are you so calm and cool all the time? We're in the same bed for god's sake and you don't even seem to notice."
"I notice," I said and she sucked in a breath. "In fact," I continued, "I'm not capable of noticing much else at the moment."
"Me either."
Silence fell between us again. I worried that if I broke it maybe the small flicker of hope in my chest would disappear again. But I had to ask my question, even though I knew that the answer could... could mean everything.
So, I took a deep breath and, "what do you think that means?"
_________
Not the cliffhanger!!!
Yes, the cliffhanger.
Forgive me for any mistakes there may be, I'm trying to get this to you quickly :)
Thanks for reading!!
Stay safe and be kind, my friends.