Page 59 of Parallel
She releases me, pressing palms to rosy cheeks. “This is unbelievable! I’m starting school!” she squeals. “I’m really startingschool!”
She’s beaming, and it’s impossible not to smile back, but I still need to discuss something else with her and it’s slightly more sensitive. “I also talked to a friend who practices family law about protecting your money. He said a prenup would be best, but as long as you’ve signed the contract with Georgetown prior to the date of your wedding, the money from your father will be considered legally committed to your education and should precede any claim Jeff might have toit.”
She gives a small nod. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “So much. I don’t even know what tosay.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just want to make sure you’rehappy.”
She bites her lip as her eyes flicker to mine. Maybe she hears the finality in those words, the way I’m trying to convince myself this is goodbye. And itdoeshave to be goodbye. As much as I don’t want to walk away tonight, leaving her in Jeff’s incompetent hands, I also don’t have a choice. It’ll have to be enough for me to know she’s going back to school. Whether she marries Jeff or not, at least she’s getting something shewanted.
I rise. “I think maybe you owe me a dance before weleave.”
She looks up with cautious eyes, then slowly stands. “I really have no idea what I’m doing,” shesays.
I take her left hand and place it on my shoulder, before taking her free hand in mine. “Okay, just step,” I tell her. “One, two. One, two. Now rockstep.”
That dream I always have of us dancing—was it something in the past or was I dreaming about this, right now? What I mostly remember is how badly I wanted her. How badly I wanted to keep her with me forever. I feel it now, every bit asmuch.
“Are you okay?” she asks,frowning.
“I guess you won’t be too weirded out if I tell you I think I’ve dreamed aboutthis?”
Her gaze shifts away from me. “I have too. You used to…I mean, I’vedreamedyou used to come meet me outside of this evening class I took to walk me home. And one night we danced in thegrass.”
Her words settle, fill the blank spaces in my mind. I pull her closer. “Is that why you come here to watch?” Because if I’d known this existed, I think I would have come heretoo.
Her smile flickers out for a moment as she looks around us. “I think so. And now it reminds me of—” She flushes, letting her words trailoff.
My hand presses to her hip. “What does it remind youof?”
She focuses on the ground rather than me. “The night youproposed.”
I stop dancing for just a moment, surprised by what she’s said, but even more surprised that I already sort of knew this. I can’t detail our past the way she can, but I know the color of it, the feeling behind it. I know Iwantedto marry her, even if I can’t remember asking the question. “I feel like I knew that,” I tell her. She’s still embarrassed by the admission, so I pick up our steps again. “And now we do a littlespin.”
“I can’t sp—” she begins, but she is already twirling away from me, unfurling effortlessly like a spinning top before momentum pulls her back. She lands against my chest, and when I glance down, I find our mouths are inches apart. My eyes focus there a moment longer than they should. We’ve been here before too. Exactly here. I wonder if I wanted her as badly then as I do rightnow.
She swallows and steps away. “It’s getting dark,” she says. There’s a breathless quality to her voice that would give me a semi if I didn’t already have one. “I should probably head to theMetro.”
I want her to stay. I want this goodbye to never end, but it isn’t my choice. We head to the path along the water, though it’s the longer way to go. The sun is in its last gasp, coloring the sky in swaths of charcoal and pink. The crickets seem to begin chirping all at once, although it’s probably just that there’s finally enough silence to hearthem.
“I had another dream,” she says quietly. “The night we were inBaltimore.”
I freeze. She’d be better off remaining unaware of some of what happened that night. “Yeah?”
“About yourbrother.”
My brother has been dead for over a decade, but the idea that she climbed into my bed seeking Ryan makes me want to throw my fist through a wall. “Please tell me you don’t remember anything sexual with my brother when you were apparentlymarriedto me but remembernothing.”
She laughs. “No. It wasn’t like that. I was at homecoming with you, and he was there with…what was her name? Lisette Durand. She wasFrench.”
Jesus fucking Christ. She remembers things even I don’t remember. “So, I took you to homecoming and what you remember about it is my brother. You are singlehandedly destroying what remains of my self-esteem.”
Her laugh is throaty, and the sound goes straight to my cock. “Are youjealous?”
“Weirdly,yes.”
“Don’t be,” she says, smiling. “We wound up in the back ofyourcar.”
I groan. This is not what I need to hear in a public place, but I can’t stop myself from asking for more. “And I guess that, just like our honeymoon, you mysteriously don’t remember what happened thereeither?”