Page 48 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

I grabbed our drinks and handed one to him, dropping money into the bartender’s hand with a “thanks.” Turning my head, I glanced out at the dance floor to where Jude and Dalton had disappeared.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. I think so? Wonder if Chris knows him?”

“My first time at LKC and I meet a celebrity!” Davud crowed comically.

“All because I’m a klutz,” I said. “You should thank me.”

“It was my fault for not paying attention to where I was steering,” Davud said haughtily. “I did it all on my own.”

Both of us laughed and took healthy slugs of our teas before moving away from the bar so other people could place orders. We made a few laps around the club, sipping our teas, before we finally found our friends grouped together at the edge of the dance floor. Connor Payne had joined them, and everyone was dancing stupidly to Dance Monkey by Tones and I.

Since it wasn’t technically on the dance floor where it would have been difficult for Davud to navigate his chair, we joined them. The other seven of us danced around Davud as he did silly dances in his chair. After a few songs, all of us were breathing heavily and sweaty, so we made our way to one of the tables so we could all take a load off.

Of course, this prompted Aubrey to pass her phone to Connor and insist he take pictures of all of us. When Davud started to wheel away from us so we could get a group picture, I grabbed his arm and told him to get in the picture with us. All of our friends hollered at him to listen to me, so, blushing, he wheeled in next to my seat, and posed stupidly with us for Aubrey’s socials pictures.

More dancing had to be done then, and surprisingly, Davud was excited to join me at the edge of the dance floor to dance along with us. The night wore on as we danced ourselves into exhaustion and ate and drank ourselves crazy. Even though the dancing, drinks, and snacks were amazing—and only the best songs were played all night—my favorite part was seeing how happy Davud was at LKC. No one was mean to him or treated him poorly, and it seemed like he might have forgotten about his feelings of thinking I saw him as a burden.

Because he was anything but that.

Even though Davud’s parents hadn’t said specifically when he had to be home, we left Low-Key Café at midnight. Everyone forced us to take a few TikToks and pictures with them before we were allowed to leave. Davud ate it all up—finally allowing himself to enjoy his life and not worry.

Finally, we found ourselves back in my car, driving out to his house for the second time that day. I was blaring songs we’d heard at the club while Davud performed silly dances in his seat, which had me laughing harder than I’d laughed in a long time. When we finally pulled up outside of his house a few minutes later, his mom had left the porchlight on for him, but she wasn’t waiting outside like a worried parent. That was nice.

After I’d retrieved his chair and he’d slid into it from my car, I walked with him slowly up his drive towards the house. It was incredibly dark, even with the porchlight on, so far outside of town, so I wanted to make sure he got to the door safely. When we got to the ramp that his father had built that led up to the porch, he turned his chair to smile up at me.

“Thanks, man,” he said. “I…that was the best time I’ve had in a really long time.”

“Told you that you were missing out,” I nudged his wheel with the toe of my shoe.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving me off. “Shut up.”

I laughed as he started to turn his chair towards the ramp.

“Hey,” he said, stopping himself, “you haven’t given me a musical recommendation in a while, you know?”

“You haven’t given me a suck-ass cult classic movie to watch in a while, either.”

He shook his head in faux disdain.

“Rude, man.”

I shrugged.

“Have you seen Hamilton yet?” I asked. “It’s on Disney-plus.”

He pretended to be put out by the suggestion, but indicated with a nod that he’d watch it.

“Watch Some Kind of Wonderful,” he said. “It’s a rom-com from the 80s. You’ll like it.”

“A rom-com?” I teased. “Are you getting soft?”

Davud laughed as I reached out to jab at him.

“You’ll like it,” he said as he swatted my hand away. “I promise.”

“All right. If it sucks, my fury will be epic.”

“Whatever,” he said with a laugh and turned his chair. “Text me?”