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“I have vodka in my purse,” June muttered from the side of her mouth.
“Are we going to need it?” I frowned. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“Lots of speeches tonight.”
I nodded and June and I walked through one of the special tunnels built into the fish tank where fish swam above you, bumbling together in their glowing blue water.
Piper lingered behind, gaping at the tunnel.
“We’ll be right there, okay?” I murmured to June and turned around, passing the other football players and their dates, the ones that weren’t also their babysitters. Standing next to Piper, I placed a hand on her back, gently bringing her along with me through the tunnel.
The blue water reflected on her face and her lips parted, watching all of it. “It’s so…magical.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You are.”
Piper glanced up at me, a little smile tugging up on her lips, a breathtaking, heartbreaking smile that cut out all of my words and put them in the paper shredder. Every smile Piper gave me was precious. I had to appreciate them when they happened.
“I really want to kiss you right now.” My hand curled along the fabric of her dress, and Piper’s breath hitched in her throat.
“Me too,” she murmured.
The tunnel opened up into the aquarium’s restaurant, blocked off for the evening. Most of the tables and chairs had been pushed to the other part of the room and in their wake, a dance floor was set out with a band just starting to play. Everybody understood we were only at the beginning of the night but in the middle of the dance floor, there was our team captain and his girlfriend, slowly dancing together.
“They make me sick just looking at them,” I said, walking along to the tables.
“I think it’s sweet.”
I shot her a grin. “You think everything’s sweet.”
“Not true. Why is Coach Lawson wearing a Romans hat?”
I snickered. Our head coach could clean himself up nice, suit and all, but he didn’t take the caps off for anything. It stayed right where it was supposed to. We had a running joke in the chats that he slept with it on.
“Our dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes,” a man announced in a crisp suit. “In the meantime, enjoy yourself, find your seat, and—just for your information—our Sand and Sea Exhibit is closed for construction.”
He clapped his hands and walked away, but Piper’s eyes strayed to Ryan and Kassie dancing together.
I held out a hand. “Want to show these assholes up?”
“What?” Piper gave a quick glance at my hand and turned back to the dance floor. Pink touched her cheeks. “Wait—do you mean dancing? Adam, are you asking me to dance?”
“Yeah. We’ve done it before.”
Piper stared at me. “Uh…no, we haven’t.”
Oh, man, I didn’t tell her?
I couldn’t keep the grin off my face, bringing Piper back a foot away from everyone else. “See, when you were drunk, there were three things you desperately wanted.” I counted them off my fingers. “Rides on my back, dancing, and my dick.”
Piper’s mouth fell open. “What?”
With a deep sigh, I shook my head. “I was just a piece of meat to you.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
“We—we danced?”
