Stupid Love (Stumbling into Love 1)

“You okay, son?” Mom asked while Danny and Dad talked basketball.

“No…but I will be.”

“I know.”

Dinner was served not long after. We ate and drank champagne. I tried to chat more and enjoy this. I’d never participated in a charity event before. All the money from ticket sales was going to help feed and care for the homeless in Atlanta.

Before I knew it, our plates were taken and Susanne was taking the stage. She wore a beautiful gold ball gown and a smile. She was great, and I really wanted to take another class with her.

“Thank you all for being here tonight. As you know, this event is very close to my heart. I grew up in Atlanta, and there was a time when my mom lost her job. The very food banks and shelters we’re providing money for, helped us. We have a fantastic lineup of dancers for you. Everyone has been working extremely hard. We have couples fox-trotting, waltzing, tangoing. The mambo, rumba, swing, and the cha-cha.”

I wrinkled my nose at the mention of my dance with Shaw. I thought she was cutting it from the lineup.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you Elijah Coleman?”

I looked over my shoulder to see a man standing there with a bouquet of red roses in his hands. “Um…yeah?”

“These are for you.” He handed me the flowers and walked away. I looked, but there was no card. The back of my neck began to tingle.

“Before we get into the dancing, we’re going to veer off topic for a moment,” Susanne continued. “Someone special wants to talk to you all, and, well, I’m a romantic wearing my heart on my sleeve, so of course I said yes.”

She turned to walk off the stage, and my heart was suddenly in my throat. I shot into an upright position in my chair, because I knew. In that moment, I knew who it was.

Then Shaw was there, and he was gorgeous, wearing a light-pink shirt like mine, with a bow tie and black slacks. His hair was styled the way he always did it, all messy and sexy, and he was there, onstage, looking like he might throw up, but somehow it didn’t take away from his beauty.

“I’ll try not to, um…” He leaned too close to the mic, and his voice was muffled. He pulled back slightly. “I’ll try not to take up too much of your time, but I have a few things I need to say.”

He cleared his throat, took a few deep breaths. Mom’s hand came down on my thigh and squeezed.

“This night is important to someone very special to me. I wasn’t going to be here because I was scared…I’ve spent a lot of my life afraid. You wouldn’t know it to look at me. I did a good job burying all those things behind cockiness, sarcasm, and flirtations. I did such a good job that I made myself believe those feelings of fear were gone. If you don’t acknowledge something, it’s not there, right? That’s what I told myself, but it was still there, and growing.”

Shaw paused. Closed his eyes. I held my breath, my hands tightening on the table. I wanted to go to him, tell him he didn’t have to do this, that it didn’t matter, that I just wanted him. But I didn’t move. I forced myself to stay still because if Shaw was up there, that’s where he needed to be.

“My family is a bit of a mess. I won’t get into that. The one time I put myself out there, I had my heart broken, and I swore I’d never do that again. I went through life not taking anything seriously—not love, not my career, and in a lot of ways, not even my friendships. I didn’t lean on people or let them in, reasoning that if I didn’t care about anyone or anything, I couldn’t lose someone or something important to me. Then my neighbor came into my life. And he was annoying.” Shaw looked at me. “You were and you know it.”

I smiled and nodded.

“He didn’t like me at all, but he fascinated me from the beginning. I think I knew he was special all along, even though I hated it. I tried to stay away from him, and I couldn’t. He never let me take the easy way. He challenged me on everything, made me want to be better. To have his strength, his conviction, his ability to be who he is and to risk his heart. To find beauty in small things. He used to text me lists of things as we tried to find what I was passionate about, because no matter how much I hid it from the world, he knew I didn’t let myself be passionate about anything. Not authentically.”

I could hardly see Shaw through my tears. I swiped at my eyes and saw him staring right at me. Shaw smiled, and I couldn’t help doing the same.