“Coooooole!”I grab Roxanne’s boyfriend—no, husband—by the shoulders so he’ll stop spinning. Everything is spinning. “Stand still. I need to talk to you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not moving, DeeDee.”
I let go of his shoulders and pat his arm instead. “Ha. Of course. You know what, Cole? You’re pretty funny. Everyone thinks you’re really scary because you don’t talk a lot and you look sort of...uh...grim! That is the word. Grim. I think you’re pretty funny, though. I’m not scared of you.”
He nods. “Uh, okay. Do you want some water or something?”
“I want to know how you knew you were in love with Roxanne.”
He looks over his shoulders like he’s trying to find someone in the crowd. “Do you need to, uh, sit down or something?”
“Bonne idée!” I pat his arm again and then head over to the nearest empty table. “Come sit with me, Cole.”
I lost track of time—and champagne glasses—a while ago. A lot of guests have headed out already, and the crowd that’s left is divided into party animals going wild on the dance floor and people falling asleep or having deep conversations at the tables and chairs.
My heels are killing me from dancing for so long, so I figure it’s time to take a break from being a party animal.
Cole sits down on the edge of the chair farthest away from me at the table.
“Tabarnak. I’m not going to bite you, Cole. Come closer. We have important things to talk about.”
He moves one chair over.
“Good enough.”
I sit there blinking at him while the room keeps shifting around behind him.
“DeeDee?” he says after a minute.
“Quoi?”
“You said we have important things to talk about.”
“Right!” I smack the table with my hands. “We do. Um, hmm, what were they?”
There’s something I’m not supposed to be thinking about tonight. I know it got easier to ignore with every glass of champagne. I can still feel it floating around at the edge of my thoughts, like an annoying bug trying to bite me. I swat it away.
“Do you have something stuck in your hair?”
“What? No.”
“Why are you doing that?” Cole starts waving his hands around the sides of his head to imitate me.
“Oh. Whoops. I meant to do that in my head.” I burst out laughing.
He just looks as stern as ever. “DeeDee, I’m going to tell you something you probably don’t want to hear. You’re pretty drunk. Should I get someone for you? Do you need a cab?”
“Attends, attends!” I motion for him to stay still. “I remember. I wanted to ask you how you knew you were in love with Roxanne.”
I don’t rememberwhyI wanted to ask him, but I’ll figure that out.
“Ah. Well.” The corners of his lips twitch. I think that’s as close as he gets to smiling. “If you really want to know...Figuring out I loved her was the easy part. She scared the shit out of me in a way no one else ever had, and that’s how I knew she was the one.”
I blink. “What the fuck?”
Cole makes a rumbly sound. I think he’s laughing. “I know that’s not, you know, what they say it feels like in poems and songs and stuff, but when I met Roxy, it felt...big. Powerful. Inevitable, even. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but the second I saw her sitting outside that bus station all those years ago, I...It wasn’t love. Not yet. It was this pull—thisforce, and it was terrifying. When I look back now, that’s how I knew. What I felt for her was bigger and scarier than anything I’d ever felt before.”
“Wow. I’ve never heard you say that many words in a row.”
