Forever Right Now

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything about that night, Darlene.”

“Oh.” I swallowed hard. “That’s nice.”

That’s nice?

I winced. “Well, okay, I should go.”

“Let me get the door.”

He moved to me, leaned over me to reach for the handle, but somehow we ended up face to face, my back to the door. My heart clanged madly and my eyes felt fixated on his, unable to tear away.

Sawyer’s expression was anguished, unsure. “Darlene…”

“Yes?”

Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me.

The need tore me in half again; to run away before we did something we couldn’t undo, and to let him kiss me until I could hardly remember my own name.

Sawyer’s gaze moved from my eyes, to my lips, to my forehead, and for a crazy second, I thought he looked straight into my mind where all my secrets were laid bare. His brows furrowed.

“What is it?” I asked.

He frowned and his hand came up to brush a wisp of hair from my temple. “You have a bruise there.” His eyes dropped to mine. His fingertips were still resting on my cheek.

“Oh, that,” I said, with a nervous, whispery laugh. My heart was now pounding so loud I could hardly hear myself. “My dance partner in the show? He clobbered me.”

Sawyer’s expression hardened. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, no, it was an accident,” I said. “We bonked heads. He’s kind of a klutz.”

Sawyer lifted his chin, and took a step back. “Tell him he’d better be more careful.”

I nodded. “I will. Okay…bye.”

I reached behind me for the door and slipped out, into the empty hallway where the only sounds were my shallow breaths and the blood rushing in my ears.

Sawyer

“Holy shit, I almost kissed her.”

My discipline had nearly gotten away from me, but Darlene was so beautiful and full of light and life, who the hell could blame me? Her tornado-like ability to sweep people up was so potent, it drew me in so that I wanted to kiss her and touch her and tell her everything.

I told her about my mother.

It had been years. And while I hated to see the story cloud Darlene’s light, I felt better for sharing it with her. My mother was gone, but instead of turning that horrible memory over and over in my mind, like a bad song stuck on repeat, she’d become a real person again with Darlene.

I wanted to kiss Darlene for that, too. When she was at my doorway with her chin tilted up, it was almost impossible not to. Until I saw the bruise on her forehead. Anger that some careless asshole hurt her—accident or not—surged through me with a different kind of heat. I was glad that my anger had pulled me out of the moment because it reminded me that I couldn’t start something with her. Not now.

I was so close to the end. A few more weeks and I would be done with law school and the bar exam.

Maybe then?

I had a purely selfish moment where I felt as if maybe, if I kept my head down and worked my ass off, I’d have this beautiful, vibrant woman waiting for me on the other side.

I went to my bathroom and took a very long, cold shower.