I bat my eyes at him. "Why, I would be honored." He drags me to the dance floor and puts his hand around my waist and holds my hand up.
We move side to side and then bump into Presley and Travis. "Yeah, this is wrong," Bennett says, letting me go and then grabbing Presley’s hand. "Now this." He wraps his arms around her. "This is so much better." He moves away from us, leaving Travis and me just standing here.
I shake my head. "That would be weird," I say to him, and he nods his head.
"Let’s get a drink," he offers and holds out his hand for me to lead the way, and I can feel his hand at the bottom of my back as he follows me to the bar.
"Two glasses of scotch." He holds up two fingers and sits on the stool beside me. I lean on the bar instead of sitting.
The bartender comes back in record time, putting the two glasses down on two white napkins. "You know what I didn’t expect today?" he asks, bringing his glass to his mouth.
"Not to get married?" I say, picking up my own glass and bringing it to my lips while he chuckles. The liquid is cool against my tongue yet burns all the way down. My eyes never leave his, and I see the little lines at the side of his eyes that weren’t there before. He’s older now, and I wonder if his lips taste like scotch. I wonder if I kissed him, would it be just like it was back then? I move my eyes away from him, scared that he will be able to read my thoughts.
"That." He points at me, putting his glass down. "And." He looks at his glass and then at me. "Seeing you."
Chapter 9
Travis
"You know what I didn’t expect today?" I sit on the stool holding the glass of scotch in my hand, taking a sip and then placing it down. She leans against the bar in front of me.
"Not to get married?" She picks up her glass, bringing it to her plump lips, and I can’t help the chuckle that comes out of me. She was always sassy and funny. She looks at me, and I can’t help but think about how it would be four years ago. For one, she wouldn’t be this far away from me, and two, my mouth would be on hers. She looks away from me, and I wonder if it’s because she’s seen what I’ve been thinking. Seeing her today has thrown me off-kilter. My life in black and white is now littered with color, and I know it is because of her.
"That." I point at her, putting my glass down on the bar. "And." I look at the amber liquid in the glass and then look back at her. "Seeing you," I say honestly.
She throws her head back and laughs, and it makes my stomach tighten. It was a sound I buried away in my mind somewhere, and now it’s back out. When we were together, I would always do something that would make her laugh just so I could hear it. "Well, I got an invitation," she says, and now it’s my turn to laugh, and she just looks at me.
"You can thank my sisters for that," I admit it to her, and her eyes widen and her mouth hangs open.
"Are you saying that you wouldn’t have invited me?" She has a serious face, and I suddenly feel like a dick for bringing it up when her mouth slowly forms a smile. Now it’s her turn to chuckle while she brings her glass of scotch to her mouth. She takes a sip, and I want to suck her lower lip into my mouth right before my tongue slides into her mouth. "So if I invited you to my wedding," she says, and the knot in my stomach feels like it’s turning and twisting. "You wouldn’t come?"
I grab the glass of scotch, downing the rest of it as a lump grows in my throat, and the anger starts to form and spreads from my toes all the way to the tip of my head. "Are you getting married anytime soon?" Everything in me stops while I wait for her to answer the question. For four years, I pretended I was fine. For four years, I let myself only think of her on special days, like the day we met, her birthday, and until this day, no one knows why Halloween was always my most hated holiday.
She finishes her own scotch and then places the glass down. The bartender comes over and refills the glasses. "Can I have water also?" He nods at her and then comes back with a bottle of water. "What did you ask?" She looks at me, and it takes everything I have not to reach out and tuck the strand of her hair behind her ear.