Eastern Lights (Compass 2)

“I can feel your heartbeats,” she told me.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was a corny guy. When it came to being the cornmaster, I was the leader of the pack. But I didn’t want to go full-blown corn and tell her that heart she was feeling was beating for her.

But let’s be honest…that heart was beating for her.

“Mario never danced with me. He said it was stupid,” she told me. Everything she told me about that man made me hate him that much more.

“Do you like dancing?” I asked.

“Yeah. I love it.”

“Can you make me a promise, Red?”

“Yes.”

“Never again fall in love with a man who won’t dance with you.”

She looked up at me for a second before laying her head against my chest. “How many times have you been in love?”

“In the normal sense of the word? Never.”

“What do you mean by that? ‘In the normal sense’?”

I smirked. “I’ve never had a girlfriend. Therefore, I’ve never had that normal boy meets girl, boy and girl see each other nonstop and talk nonstop and fall madly in love kind of love story.”

“If you’ve never loved a woman, then you’ve never been in love. Easy as that.”

I smiled. “I disagree with you on that. If only it were that easy. But I feel love all the time. I call it flashes of love, small or big moments of connection with a person. It’s the small moments of love that I like the best. Like when a person rushes to open the door for you when your hands are full. Or when a little kid falls into a laughing fit and can’t stop giggling. When an older couple walks by holding hands. Those are moments when I feel love. Those are the moments I fall head over heels. I love the flashes of love.”

“See, I hear what you’re saying, but can I be honest for a second?”

“I thrive on honesty.”

She pulled away a bit, bringing our dancing to a stop, and she scrunched up her face. “When you say all of that, 99% of me believes you, but the other one percent is like, That sounds like some major fuckboy stuff,” she joked.

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you could see it that way. Honestly, that’s why I wanted this night to be only tonight. Do I want more time with you? Absolutely. But am I aware that I’m not in a place to give you the love and time you deserve? Yes. I’m too focused on my career to respectfully take up real estate in a woman’s life when I am not equipped to give her the fair equity she deserves.”

She arched an eyebrow. “So basically, you’re trying not to waste people’s time.”

“We’re on this earth with limited time. It would be a shame if I wasted someone’s.”

“That’s really un-fuckboy of you to say.”

I snickered. “I’m trying to be as un-fuckboy as possible.”

“Captain?”

“Yes?”

“Can we dance again?”

Within seconds, we’re swaying again to our own kind of music.

“So this would be one, wouldn’t it?” she asked.

“Be one what?”

“A flash of love.”

I rested my chin on the top of her head as we moved back and forth. “This whole evening with you has been nothing but flashes of love.”

After our time in Wish Alley, dancing to our own music, we both realized time was running out, and it was my turn to take her to a place I loved.

“So, here’s the thing. I love a lot of places in the city, but I kind of want to go back to the beginning of the night where you and I began. I was hoping maybe we could watch the sunrise over the city on the rooftop of the bar,” I offered.

“I feel bad. I feel as if I took up too much time in the comic bookstore geeking out. Now, you don’t have enough time to take me to a place you love,” she explained.

“The places I’ve loved tonight were the ones I went with you. Wherever you were tonight, I loved it.”

She blushed, and if that wasn’t a small sample of what love felt like, I didn’t want to know what love truly was. Because the feeling in my chest was so overwhelmingly packed with joy that I thought my heart was going to explode.

“You’re such a smooth talker, Cap.”

“I think you like it, Red.”

“I do,” she confessed. “I’ve liked every single moment of the night. Well, minus the one when you got a black eye,” she said, gently touching the space around my eye. I’d almost forgotten I got my ass kicked.

Funny how she didn’t think she was the heroine of her story when she literally made me forget about my pain. Only a leading lady could do that.

“Won’t the bar be closed by the time we get there?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that. I have a few connections, remember? Unless you want to do something else to help ensure you fall in love with me. I can book us a quick trip to Bora Bora or something,” I joked.