Happy Place

WE SETTLE ON the dance floor, in front of the stage. Stiffly, I ring my arms around his neck and let him draw me in close, partly because Cleo’s watching us and partly because at least this way, I don’t have to look at his face.

“You’re playing dirty,” I say.

“Me?” he replies. “You just gave me a lap dance.”

“I did not,” I say, “and I will never.”

“Doesn’t Wyn’s hair look sexy like this?” he parrots in a breathy voice.

“I didn’t say sexy. When did I say sexy?”

“You did the voice. I knew what you meant.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m playing my part.”

“What part is that? Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Happy birthday, Mr. President’?”

“The part where I’m supposed to be in love with you,” I say.

He stiffens slightly. “Yeah, well, maybe you don’t remember this all that well, but back when you were in love with me, you didn’t often straddle me in public.”

“Well, considering I haven’t straddled you tonight either,” I say, “one can only assume you’re employing reverse psychology right now. Sorry, Wyn. It’s not going to happen.”

He scoffs but has no comeback.

We angrily sway to the music for a few more seconds.

“We’re really not going to talk about what happened in the cellar?” he says.

“Nothing happened in the cellar,” I remind him.

“So you don’t have any thoughts about what almost happened.”

Something he said a long time ago pops into my mind. “Tumbleweeds,” I say. “Rolling through my brain.”

He shakes his head once, the side of his mouth brushing my temple.

“Graduation” has ended. Someone’s singing “Wicked Game” now, someone who can actually sing. Not as well as Chris Isaak, but well enough to make the song appropriately devastating and inappropriately sexy. It’s the kind of auditory hard-right turn common to karaoke nights but less than ideal for these specific circumstances.

Kimmy and Cleo have moved onto the dance floor, only a few feet away from us. Wyn takes the opportunity to twirl me; I take the opportunity to get a deep breath of air that smells a little less like his heady mix of pine and clove. Then he brings me back closer, stomach to stomach and chest to chest, so he can murmur in my ear: “So. The heels, the dress, the Etsy-spell face, the new appreciation for facial hair—any other big changes I should be aware of?”

My fingers catch the ends of his hair, and once again, goose bumps rise up along his top few vertebrae. I thrill at having the power to stir at least some reaction in him. He might’ve shaken me up in the cellar—and his life may be so much better without me in it—but that doesn’t mean he’s any more immune to this thing between us than I am.

“The coffee-table book,” I say evenly. “The beard, the hair, the constant texting. Anything else I should know?”

As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I know how quickly he scrubbed me out of his life; I don’t want to know how fast he got the shrapnel out of his heart.

His gaze darkens, prying into mine, searching for the answer to some unspoken question. His grip on my waist loosens, his palms gliding down a few inches to settle on my hips. His lips press together. “I guess not,” he says.

When the song ends, we stay locked together for a few seconds, unspeaking, unmoving. Finally, we let go.

•   •   •

WHEN WE GET back to the table, Sabrina has claimed another chair. Before I can take it, Wyn sits and hauls me across his lap without hesitation.

The message is clear: if I keep upping the ante, he’ll keep matching the bet.

I’m in no mood to fold. I press myself against his chest and let my fingers find their way back into his silky hair.

He responds by sliding one hand up the outside of my thigh, the heat of his palm burning through the red chiffon. My pulse seems to drop straight down between my thighs. He nuzzles into the side of my neck, not quite kissing me but letting his lips drag over the sensitive skin on a slow inhale and exhale.

“Could I get a glass of white wine?” I yelp as our server appears with the six orders of fries Sabrina put in.

“Sure thing,” he says, mostly avoiding looking at my and Wyn’s ridiculous display before turning to scurry back toward the bar.

When he brings the wine back, I drink it in one go, because now slowing my brain down seems like the better of two fairly terrible options.

“You all right there, Harriet?” Wyn asks in his own husky equivalent of the happy-birthday-Mr.-President voice.

I turn back toward him, leaning in until his firm chest meets mine and our mouths are close. My arms lock tight across the back of his neck, and his gaze slinks down me and back up, the muscles in his jaw flexing.

His deep breath presses us closer, his pulse thrumming against my breast. His hands move to my hips, adjusting me in his lap.

Drunk on the power, plus five months of repressed anger, plus one glass of wine, I lean even further into him, feeling my nipples pinch between us as I lower my mouth, like he did, to the spot beneath his ear. “Never better,” I say. His fingers unconsciously tighten against my hips, glide down the sides of my thighs until they pass the chiffon and reach bare skin.

We may be playing our parts, but that’s not all this is. I can feel him stiffening beneath me. It makes every soft place on my body feel like magma: incendiary, volatile. But I’m not going to be the one to back down.

“Dartboard’s open,” Sabrina says from the far side of the table. “Anyone want to play?”

“I’m in,” Kimmy chirps, jumping up.

I hold Wyn’s gaze, waiting for him to break. Finally he flicks a look toward Sabrina. “Maybe later.” His eyes come back to mine, hard and steely. “I’m pretty comfortable right now.”

•   •   •

SABRINA BEATS FOUR locals, plus Kimmy, at a game of darts, and Parth and Cleo get into a long conversation with the bachelorette party about gerrymandering and how Parth’s organization works to fight it.

The bachelorette partygoers are impressively accepting of the turn their night of debauchery has taken. No one knows how to hold court quite like Parth Nayak. Plus, Sabrina keeps having shots of Fireball sent over.

By the end of the night, both she and Parth have exchanged literal, physical business cards (Who knew they even had these? Not me.) with a couple of people in the party, and Cleo, Wyn, and I have to basically mop the two of them and Kimmy out of the Lobster Hut and into the cab.

Still, Parth finds the wherewithal to play his traditional end-of-the-night soundtrack, the eerily beautiful Julee Cruise song from the opening of Twin Peaks.

In the back seat, Sabrina slumps against me, half asleep, a domino effect that forces me into Wyn’s chest. He holds on to my knee, and I wonder whether it’s his pulse or mine thundering between us.

Back at the cottage, the sober among us herd the others into the kitchen and ply them with water. Upstairs we hug each other good night, and then, with my heart clanging wildly in my throat, I trail Wyn into the bedroom. I’m suddenly too nervous to close the door and be truly alone with him.

He reaches over my shoulder and shuts it himself. His hand stays there, to the left of my head.

There’s a foot of space between us, but it feels like friction. Like straddling him in a dark alcove under the stairs. Like draping myself across his lap in a crowded bar.

His eyes move back and forth over my face, and his tongue sweeps absently across his bottom lip. In a rasp, he asks, “Are we done yet?”

I lift my chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Somehow we’ve gotten closer. The corner of his mouth hitches, but his eyes stay dark, focused. His breath feathers over my mouth. One more strong inhale, from him or me, would close the gap. “Why are you punishing me?”

I try for an angry laugh. It doesn’t come. He looks too earnest, too lost, like he’s desperately trying to understand.

Like he can’t fathom that all my love for him didn’t just vanish, the way his did for me. That it had to go somewhere, and funneling it into anger is how I’ve managed to make it through these last two days.

It makes me feel alone. It makes me feel defeated.

He swallows. “Can’t we . . . call a truce?” he asks. “Be friends for the next few days?”

Friends. The irony, the sterility of the word, stings. It’s pouring alcohol over my wounded heart. But I can’t quite grasp on to my anger.

“Fine,” I say. “Truce.”

Wyn’s hand slides clear of the door. He steps back and, after a moment, nods. “You take the bed.”

I can’t help but think he doesn’t look any happier than I feel.