Page 35 of Smoke and Glitter

I'm laughing with Summer when Marisol nearly knocks both of us sideways. Someone grabs my hand and turns me. Lucia barrels past with Bex. The group shifts and reforms around us until I lose track of who started dancing with whom.

For a while, I have the night.

When I finally look back toward the table, Sam is watching me.

Most of the people who had been sitting around him are out here now. Bex is dancing. Marisol is dancing. Dom and Colt have moved toward the bar.

There is nobody left beside Sam.

Nothing keeping him in that chair.

Our eyes meet, and the smile I've been throwing around the room changes.

Smaller.

His.

Sam sees it.

Someone catches my wrist and pulls me around, cutting off my view. When I turn back, two people have crossed between us, and I lose him for a few seconds.

Then the space clears. He hasn't moved. The disappointment settles quietly this time.

I'm done waiting. I turn back toward Summer and let the crowd close behind me.

A song later, her eyes shift past my shoulder. I start to turn, and a hand slides around my waist.

I know it immediately.

Sam steps into the space behind me, his chest brushing my back while the room keeps moving around us.

Neither of us moves at first.

Then I turn inside his arm.

"Hi."

It comes out more breathless than I intended.

Up close, he doesn't look anything like he did sitting at the table. There's tension in his jaw, and his hand tightens slightly at my waist while he looks at me.

Sam brings his other hand to my face.

I think he's going to say something.

He kisses me instead.

The room doesn't stop for us. Summer is a few feet away. Bex and Marisol are somewhere behind me. Teachers, parents and kids move around us while Sam kisses me where every one of them can see.

It's nothing like the kisses he gives me upstairs. His hand stays at my waist and the kiss is brief, careful enough for the room we're in, but there is nothing private about it.

My hands have found the front of his shirt by the time he pulls away.

"Sam."

He stays close enough that his forehead nearly touches mine.

"I tried to stay over there."