“What are you doing?” I demanded, smacking him on the shoulder.
“You were supposed to whisk me off to the dance floor.”
“Well, we had a change of plans.”
“No shit. And now they think you’re my girlfriend.”
“It was super-rude to just walk away from your mother when she was complimenting my name.”
“It’s not your name,” he said. “It’s my name. My almost-name. If I’d been a girl.”
We stared at each other. The song ended. A new one started. Suddenly, the lights dimmed, and we heard the DJ—yet another cousin—on the speakers. “Welcome to the greatest slow dance of all time. The Bee Gees’ timeless classic ‘How Deep Is Your Love?’”
“They’re watching us,” the rookie said then, looking over my shoulder. “Put your arms around my neck.”
“I guess we’re slow-dancing,” I said.
“I guess we are,” the rookie said, like it was a dare.
I never backed down from a dare.
I reached up around his shoulders and settled against him. Once again, I was aware of how naked I was under my dress. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I stared at the knot of his tie.
I felt dazed. All I could focus on, really, was how strange I felt. I’d slow-danced before, but this was entirely different at the cellular level. I was achingly aware of every part of my body that was touching his—the weight of my arms on his shoulders, the warmth of his palms on my hips, the nearness of his freshly shaved neck, the scent of his deodorant.
The way nothing separated us but fabric.
“If we’re going to pretend to date, Christabel, you should probably stop calling me ‘rookie.’”
I tried to focus. “What else would I call you?”
“How about my name?”
Finally, I met his eyes. “Whatisyour name?”
He pulled back to give me a frown. “You know my name,” he said.
“Callaghan,” I said.
“My first name.”
I studied his face for a minute. Then I shook my head. “Nope. Nothing.”
He flared his nostrils. “Try.”
This was good. This was helping me focus. Now my brain had a task—and that task was teasing him. “Felix,” I said, mentally trying it out on him.
“Seriously?”
“Frank!” I tried. “Melvin.”
“Melvin?”
He actually looked a little perturbed. This was fun. “Reginald,” I offered. “Maximilian. Jebediah.”
He set his jaw with a kind of grudging respect for my obnoxiousness. “Jebediah Callaghan.”
I was delighted by his irritation. “It has a ring to it.”
