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“I am. And no one’s going to penalize me for going early with you. After all, you’re my fake fiancée.”
“Don’t say that again, and I’m out the door with you.”
“Consider the fake engagement done.”
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“It’s a surprise.”
And Ryder leads me out the door and into the night.
Brooklyn. Smith Street. We’re completely overdressed, but somehow, it’s okay. Ryder takes my hand as we step from the car and he leads me to a building.
He knocks and a little slot opens. Then he hands over what looks like two coins. And he says the words, “Honey and the Bee.”
The slot snaps shut and the door opens and we enter a long, dark corridor that leads to a set of steps that wind down. Music and laughter wafts up, growing louder as we go.
“Ryder, where have you taken me?”
But I think I know.
When the man opens the door down at the bottom of the stairs, we step into the luxuriously darkly red wallpapered and velvet seated bar, complete with a stage and a band. Nothing like the one I took him to. This is barebones, and it’s all wonderful.
“It’s a speakeasy. How…?”
He grins. “I looked into it. And I liked where you took me so much I wanted to find somewhere to share with you.”
“You did?” I grin back, I can’t help it. The place is something I never knew existed and I’m in love.
With the place.
Not with Ryder.
Oh, God, definitely not that.
It would be a disaster.
But he doesn’t let me sit with those thoughts, instead he makes me dance, holding me close, just there in front of a table. No one else is dancing but with the music and Ryder looking at me like I’m all that exists, I don’t care.
I’ll take the moment and run.
He spins me out and then back in again, right up against his hard, warm body and my heart’s beating wild and fast and erratic and everything is humming inside with the sweetest kind of electricity.
I can barely breathe because everything is taken up by him.
We finally stop dancing—we’re swaying now, his hands low on my back, mine flat on his chest—as the music ends, but he doesn’t release me.
“I do like you, Elliot. A whole fucking lot.”
I’m a coward and everything inside lurches like he sees into me, down past everything to my soul, and I can’t speak. The world shifts and tilts and my stomach is a wild sea. I drop my head against his chest and breathe in his intoxicating scent as he whispers fingers against my nape, beneath my hair.
I like him, too. More than like him. The other L word comes into my head, but I don’t give it purchase.
“Sit?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I raise my head and find my smile again.
He releases me and we find a table. The light is low in here, like shining bronze and the shadows deep and inviting. I sit, grateful not to be on my unsteady legs and I can’t help but think maybe there’s a chance for us, but I push it away as he goes to get drinks from the bar.
