Page 162 of Things We Hide from the Light

“Twins? You poor thing,” I teased.

“The worst. Don’t ever do it,” she joked. “Anyway, we live forty-five minutes from here. Do you think I could give you my number and we could get together someplace that doesn’t allow children?”

“I’d like that.”

“It’s great to see you. I’m glad you found some real friends,” Angie said with that proud mom smile.

We traded numbers and went our separate ways.

I submitted to two rounds of posing in the photo booth and sampled Naomi’s milkshake. Sloane handed me a copy of the printout and we laughed at the antics captured.

Real friends.That’s what Angie had called them. Naomi and Sloane had accepted all of me, including my less-than-perfect parts.

Was I still holding everyone at arm’s length? And was it time to change?

“We should dance,” Sloane announced.

“I don’t know if I can dance. These gussets make it hard to breathe,” Naomi said, fiddling with the ribbing under her boobs.

I felt a tingling sensation between my shoulder blades. There were only two things that created that kind of awareness: trouble and Nash Morgan.

I turned and found Nash flanked by Knox, Nolan, and Lucian, approaching like a team of stoic sentries immune to the merriment around them. The closer they got, the faster my heart beat.

Naomi threw herself into Knox’s arms. His eyes closed as he pressed his nose and mouth to her hair and breathed her in. Sloane glared at Lucian like he was the sheriff of Nottingham before smiling and waving at Nolan.

Meanwhile, I pretended not to notice Nash’s gaze boring holes in me.

“I missed you,” Naomi said as Knox released her. “Is everything okay?”

“Just dealin’ with some business. Didn’t mean to worry you, Daze,” Knox said almost tenderly.

“You weren’t really hiding a body, were you?” she teased.

“Angelina,” Nash said quietly. His gaze traveled my body. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Nancy freaking Drew and you’re late.” I put my hands on my hips and was trying to decide whether I was going to yell at him or ignore him when the universe delivered an answer for me. The band launched into the opening bars of Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Night,” and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be far away from this exact spot.

“Let’s dance.” I grabbed Sloane, who grabbed Naomi, and off we went, leaving the men staring after us.

“I don’t know the steps,” Naomi said.

“It’s easy,” I promised, dragging my friends into the center of the crowd of dancers as they lined up. “Besides, with those boobs, no one’s going to care if you miss a step. Just follow along.”

We slid in between Justice and Tallulah St. John on the left and Fi and her husband on the right. Sandwiching Naomi between us, Sloane and I fell into step with the rest of the dancers.

I’d fallen in love with line dancing in my early twenties thanks to a honky-tonk bar near campus. Country music still reminded me of those early years of freedom when I could just be a girl on the dance floor and not some medical miracle.

We were surrounded by denim, leather, and a parade of Halloween costumes. The sharp clomp of boots echoed off the asphalt. Colors blurred as we whirled around. I forgot about Duncan Hugo. About Nash Morgan. About work and what camenext. I focused on Naomi’s laughter, the platinum gleam of Sloane’s ponytail as we danced.

But I could only block out the real world for so long. Especially with those blue eyes locked on me.

Every time I spun, my gaze was drawn to Nash and company standing on the edge of the crowd, legs braced, arms crossed. Together they formed a wall of unfairly hot masculinity. It should have gone against the laws of nature to allow so many perfect specimens of alpha male to occupy the same territory.

They were all frowning.

“Why are they glaring at us?” I groused between boot stomps.

“Oh, that’s Knox’s happy face,” Naomi insisted, stepping the wrong way before correcting her course.