Page 16 of Time for You

“Michelle is home from her shift soon,” he announced without preamble.

“You should knock—we could have been naked,” Daphne called without looking back.

“Good thing you weren’t, or Henry might have had an aneurysm.”

“It would have been challenging, yes,” Henry said, following Vibol in, and that got Daphne craning her neck.

Vibol had agreed to take Henry out shopping, and—well, Vibol had good taste, that was clear.

Henry looked appealing in new jeans and a button-down shirt, and for a second he looked at her and she looked at him until her ears started to feel like they were burning.

“What about this documentary about—” Brittany leaned forward, squinting through her glasses. “Mormon cheerleaders who started a cult?”

“Oh, I want to watch that, for sure,” Ellie said as she came out of her room. “But why are the guys here?”

“Michelle’s off soon,” Vibol repeated.

The rest of the women exchanged a look. “What does that have to do with us?”

“Um, we’re all going to be around and off work for at least twenty-four hours? Isn’t that like, unprecedented?”

“Probably,” Ellie said. She pulled a bag of pretzels from the pantry and passed them wordlessly to Vibol after taking a handful. “What do you have in mind?”

“As tempting as, uh, cult-leader cheerleaders is, I was thinking something more exciting.”

“Hard to think of something more exciting than that,” Brittany said.

“I was thinking we should go out,” Vibol said. “Maybe Benny’s?”

Brittany screwed up her face. “Eww, Benny’s?”

“Did you have a better suggestion?”

“Speakeasy?” Ellie offered.

“Michelle hates Speakeasy,” Vibol pointed out.

“Do we know if she wants to come?” Daphne asked. “Isn’t she still at the hospital?”

Vibol sniffed. “I know what Michelle likes, and she hates Speakeasy.”

The women exchanged another look, and this time, Henry joined in. “Well, where does she want to go?” Daphne asked.

“She likes Pour and Blanche’s.”

“Blanche’s has a good DJ on Saturdays,” Ellie said, taking the pretzels back from Vibol.

“DJ?” Henry asked.

“Person who ... plays music?” Daphne said in an attempt to translate.

“The one who picks what you hear, yeah,” Ellie said.

“Like the conductor?”

“Kind of?” Daphne said. “The music isn’t live, though.”

Brittany groaned. “I’ll have to shower if we go out, and I was just going to spend the day in my sweats. And I’ll have to put in my contacts.”

Vibol made a pleading face, and Brittany sighed. “Okay, fine, but you have to tell Michelle how you feel.”

That made him reel back. “What? I don’t—we’re just friends, same as you guys.”

“Um, you don’t pick where we go based on what I like,” Brittany argued. “Or else I’d be watching shitty TV in peace, like the good Lord intended.”

“No one’s forcing you to come,” he said around a pretzel.

“Oooh, good swerve,” Ellie said.

Vibol chucked a mini pretzel at her head, but Ellie just caught it and ate it. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” he insisted. “Help a bro out, Henry.”

“You do appear to have romantic feelings for Miss—Dr. Allen,” Henry said. “Your friends are portraying the situation accurately.”

“And after I taught you how to roll your sleeves up to your forearms? This is how you repay me? With betrayal?” Vibol replied dramatically. He looked around and shook his head. “You’re a bunch of assholes.”

“Yes, but assholes who will be your wing-ladies while you attempt to woo Michelle,” Ellie said.

Vibol was a smart man, who knew when he’d been beaten. “Fine. Let’s meet in the lobby at nine?”

“I’ll call the RideShare,” Brittany said sympathetically. “You can sit with Michelle in the back and everything.”

“Are establishments like this always so loud?” Henry said, bending his head to be down near Daphne’s ear. A pop song was blasting and Brittany and Ellie were out on the dance floor, while Vibol and Michelle huddled at the other side of the booth, absorbed in their conversation.

“Honestly, yes,” Daphne shouted back over the din.

“And you do this often?”

Daphne shook her head. “Not really. The others do, but I’m just not a lot of fun.”

“What makes you say that?” Henry said, brow furrowed.

She shrugged. “Experience. And besides, I never really did any of this in college, which is when most people do it.”

“Why not?”

“I was too busy studying.”

“But you don’t need to study anymore,” Henry argued. “Why not go have more fun?”

Across the table, Vibol slid out of the booth and held his hand out to Michelle, towing her over to the dance floor. Her dark-brown skin glowed against her turquoise blouse, or maybe that was because of the way Vibol was looking at her.

“Out of practice, I guess.”

“Then practice,” Henry said simply.

“I don’t want to leave you alone, and someone has to watch our stuff,” Daphne replied.

“Then we shall wait until the ladies return, and it will be your turn.”

Daphne shifted uncomfortably, Henry’s bright-blue eyes burning into her. “What did Vibol get you?” she asked, very unsubtly changing the subject.

“An India pale ale.”

“Ewww. Those are gross and way too bitter,” Daphne said, wrinkling her nose.

“I find it delicious,” he said primly. “Tastes like home.”

Daphne had another moment where the enormous weight of Henry’s situation slammed into her.

Absolutely nothing around him was familiar, even the drinks.

It must be so confusing and disorienting, and half the time she treated him like an annoyance.

“I’m sorry we can’t get you back yet,” she said, and the corner of his mouth quirked up sadly.

“You are blameless in that, my lady.”

Rather than her usual surge of irritation, her stomach clenched. Out on the dance floor, Vibol was now draping Michelle’s arms around his neck, and Ellie and Brittany were heading back toward the booth, sweaty and laughing.

“Everything okay?” Ellie asked, looking shrewdly between them. Daphne nodded and busied herself taking a sip from her martini while Henry studied a couple at a table nearby over his IPA. “Okay then, your turn, Granny.”

“Henry has to go, too,” Brittany announced. “Really experience twenty-first century life by grinding it out on a dance floor.”

“What does that entail, exactly?”

“She means dancing,” Daphne said. She took another sip and felt the warmth of the alcohol spread through her, softening her limbs.

“I haven’t learned your dances,” he protested.

“Nothing to learn, you just sorta—bop.”

“Bop.”

“Just look out there—no one knows what they’re doing,” Daphne said.

“That isn’t very comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Daphne said and stood up. The alcohol was making her feel reckless, or maybe it was just the way Henry eyed her low-cut shirt. She’d borrowed it from Ellie, and it hung down in a vee to just between her breasts, a style far more daring than she usually wore.

Henry swallowed hard and stood. “I hope—I cannot be as intimate as that, my lady,” he said, nodding toward a couple who were back-to-front with hands roaming and groping.

“I wouldn’t want you to be,” she said. She almost held her hand out for him but changed her mind at the last second. “Don’t worry, we don’t need to touch.”

“I trust you,” he said solemnly, and there went the pack of butterflies in her stomach. Again.

Daphne bit back her smile and, feeling his eyes heavy on her back, walked out onto the dance floor.

Henry followed, looking adorably nervous.

Vibol and Michelle glanced over, cheering in welcome, and the song bled from one song to another, this one a bright, poppy hit by a female singer.

Daphne was admittedly not the best dancer, but she felt brave as she spun to face Henry.

“Just find the beat,” she explained.

“How do I do that?”

“Just, uh, listen for it?” Daphne started moving back and forth—bopping, as she’d said—and Henry watched, copying her. Soon enough, he figured it out and grinned proudly.

“What’s the song about?” he asked.

“Being a, um, dancer who takes her clothes off?”

Henry’s eyes grew wide, and she couldn’t help but laugh at him. “This world will never fail to surprise me,” he said, shaking his head, but he was smiling broadly. “It’s fun, though. She sounds ... happy.”

Daphne was going to say something else, maybe tease him a little, but her two left feet got the best of her and she tripped, lurching abruptly forward. Henry caught her by the elbows almost automatically, setting her upright and then dropping his hands as if he’d been burned.

And he wasn’t the only one—where he’d caught her still tingled, as if he’d singed her through the thin fabric of her shirt.

It was the most deliberate contact they’d had since she had patched him up after their accident, and Daphne was abruptly all too aware of how much she wanted him to touch her again.

Henry wiped his palms on his jeans, and okay, sure, message received. Daphne redirected her energy to dancing, hoping he didn’t notice her awkwardness.

It wasn’t his fault she was being weird. She would just have to remember that.