Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)
“Sure. I’ve gotten some great shots from the middle of the line dancing. And believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen the Casserole Patrol doing The Whip and Nae Nae.”
The notion of Wishful’s favorite trio of busybodies—who had to be in their seventies or eighties by now—taking over the dance floor distracted her for long enough that Zach managed to spin her into his arms, fitting her against him without a struggle. She’d been pressed up against him before. He was an affectionate guy. A hugger. But this was different. He was different, somehow. More…focused on her. Which was utterly ridiculous. But she was so very aware of every part of him touching every part of her as he smoothly moved them to the rhythm of the song. She wanted to sink into him and revel in the feeling of having his arms around her. Not daring to give in, she did her best impression of a fence post.
“Relax. We’ve covered all the important stuff. It’s smooth sailing until the bouquet and garter toss and the going away shots.”
“I don’t know how to relax at a wedding. I’m always working.” It wasn’t a lie. She took her job seriously, and she couldn’t imagine what her clients would think if she suddenly took to the floor.
“When was the last time you were just a guest?”
“Some of my friends from college got married in the last few years. But I shot their weddings, too. I can’t actually remember the last time I was just a guest.”
He studied her. “Tell me something. Do you actually do anything besides work out in Texas?”
“Of course I do.” Though she was hard-pressed to remember what, right this second. Or rather, he
was hard pressed. Had she realized how leanly-muscled his body was before? What did he look like beneath the starched shirt and dress pants?
“What’s keeping you out there?”
She had a hard time focusing on the question. “What? My business is there.”
“Your new business that you’re still working to establish. You could do that somewhere else.”
Lexi bristled. Was he criticizing her slow start? Did he think she was a failure? “And lose the money for breaking my lease and all the time I’ve put into building my reputation?”
Zach’s thumb stroked over the back of her hand in a gesture he probably meant as soothing but tied her guts in knots.
“You can do your art anywhere. If you were talking about friends or how much you love it in Texas or the theoretical guy you’ve already said you don’t have time for, that’d be something else. But you didn’t say any of that.”
She stiffened, more because he’d hit too close to the truth of her bare-bones existence. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m just saying, you’re not so enmeshed out there that you couldn’t decide to make a change.” His eyes were so very intense as he looked down at her.
She forgot about the insult as she really focused in on what he was saying, her heart starting to pound. “What kind of a change?”
“Do you ever think about coming home?”
All the time since I got back. “No.”
“You could, you know. Your mom would be over the moon.”
Her mom. Was this really about her mother? He wasn’t wrong. Lexi knew her mom missed her. But Leandra understood why she’d built her life so far away, even if they’d never overtly discussed it.
“My life isn’t here, Zach.”
His hand squeezed hers and there was a weight to his voice as he murmured, “It could be.”
She couldn’t even let herself think about this. The idea of it was too seductive, too appealing. He was too much of both, and he wasn’t even aware of it. “Where is this coming from?”
“It’s been so great having you back here. I didn’t realize how much I missed you, and now I can’t imagine you not here again.”
Lexi didn’t know what to say to that.
He looked down at her, into her, as they circled the floor. His eyes darkened again with that look she couldn’t read, and he shifted his hold on her, drawing her closer. Her heart stuttered. Part of her wanted to relax into him. To slide her hand across his shoulder and up his nape, into his hair. But that wasn’t what this was.
“What happened to us, Lex?”
You broke my heart and didn’t even know it.