Big Man(16)

Both occupied at the moment, though my eyes linger on them for longer than strictly necessary. I always loved pool—played it as a way to escape when I was younger, back when Dad was still around, when he’d get into his rages. Then I kept playing through college, mostly because guys found it sexy. After college, I kept playing to dupe guys out of drinks in bars. Guess you could say I’m a regular shark about it.

I grin a little to myself. I’ll have to challenge Grant to that later.

Grant, for his part, has drawn more than a few stares and shouts of welcome as we walked in. He’s waving back now, and gesturing from me to the crowd.

“Y’all will remember Sasha,” he’s saying, voice louder than I’d like, even with the music to cover some of it. “Maryanne’s girl. Sasha, this is…” He trails off with a shrug. “Well, everyone.”

A couple nearby laugh.

Across the yard, I recognize Hank and Etna from the hardware store, deep in conversation with another couple their age. Both of them are eating too, and drinking cans of the local cheap beer I grew up on before I went away to college and learned what real alcohol tasted like.

For some reason, though, watching them, my taste buds are suddenly craving that flavor. That familiar sour tang.

“Want a beer?” Grant asks, following my gaze. Most of the people he just introduced us to have gone back to their meals or conversations, though a few are still stealing surreptitious glances at me from underneath their eyelashes every now and again.

“Sure,” I reply, forcing a wide smile. I’m regretting my dress choice already—hell, maybe the choice to come here at all was a bad one. I should have just let Grant drag me into the bedroom and fuck me all night again. That would be far preferable to being stared at like I’m on display right now.

But as we drift across the room, beers in hand, and settle at a table by the dance floor, some of the stares drift away and drop off. One girl even leans over from a neighboring table to tap my shoulder and smile at me broadly. “Love your dress,” she whispers.

“Thanks.” I offer a hand. “Sasha, by the way.”

“Meredith. You new here too?” she asks.

Ah. Well that would explain the lack of an attitude. My cheeks flush, even as I shrug my shoulders. “Uh… Kind of? It’s a long story.”

Luckily Meredith doesn’t press for details. “I moved back here with Joe after we finished school.” She nudges the guy across the table from her, who starts out of a conversation he’s in with a neighbor for long enough to grin and wave.

“Where are you from originally?” I ask, turning to loop Grant in, only to find he’s been caught in a different conversation with a guy I vaguely recognize. Tommy? No. Trent? Something with a T…

“Philly,” she replies. “So, you know, bit different than this.” She gestures at the party with her beer and laughs softly.

My eyes widen. “Wasn’t that hard, then? Going from a big city to… well. This?”

Meredith laughs. “Hell no. Best decision I ever made. I was a mess up in the northeast. I know that pace of life, that speed, it’s right for some people, but for me, it just made me anxious 24/7. I felt like I always had to be on, on, on, couldn’t ever take time to breathe or relax. And life was just flying by. Here… Well. Life here moves at its own pace. Slower. More sedate. I like that.” She smiles and takes a long swig of her beer.

I sip mine too. It tastes familiar. Not hoppy or unique like a lot of the local brews I drink back in the city, all the fancy ones breweries in Brooklyn are always coming up with. It just tastes simple. Easy to drink.

It tastes like home, I realize with a start.

“I can understand that,” I hear myself saying. But then Grant taps me on the shoulder, and Meredith winks and turns back to Joe, and I spin to attend to my guy.

My guy? Is he that?

I shake that thought off.

“Sasha, you’ll remember Troy,” Grant says.

Troy. “Of course,” I reply, grinning as we shake hands. “You were in my English class senior year right? The one who made all those paper plane notes to throw at… Oh gosh, what was her name?”

“Sarah.” Troy’s smile widens, turns genuine when he realizes that I do remember him after all.

“Sarah, that’s right. How’d that turn out?”

He laughs. “Well, I married her, so guess for yourself.” He leans down to elbow me slightly. “But personally, I’d say it went pretty damn all right.”

Grant’s watching me interact with Troy, something like approval in his eye. I flash a small smile back at Grant, relaxing a little.

Okay, maybe not everyone in town is a jerk. Or at least, once I get to know them—or re-know them—they stop assuming they know everything about me. I could get used to that. Not being a total pariah.

“So how about you Sasha?” Troy asks. “I hear you’ve been living up in New York City now. Big shot in advertising, right?”

I shake my head. “Paralegal. But I’m really just a glorified desk jockey, that’s all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Grant cuts in, eyes locked on mine. “Your career is really important to you, isn’t it?”

I chew on the inside of my lip. Of course it was. Is. I just hadn’t realized until I took this break away from the desk—until I was staying somewhere without Wi-Fi —how much of my life it consumes. Hell, I haven’t checked my email once since I got here.

Just thinking about that now sends a spark of panic through me. God, the pile that’s going to be awaiting me when I get back on Monday…

But I don’t want to think about that now. I don’t have to think about that now, because for once in my damn life, I’m unplugged. Really and truly unplugged.

“Well, who wants to talk about work when they’re on vacation?” I push to my feet and reach for Grant’s hand. “Dance?”

Troy tips his hat to us and steps aside as Grant accepts my hand, then tugs me to his side and leads me to the dance floor.

“You call this a vacation?” he asks as we line up for the next square dance, in a pattern I don’t know. “Working your ass off to fix up a farmhouse, that’s your break, really?”

I shrug. “It’s hard to get time off. Schedules are packed around this time of year—end of summer, you know, everyone wants to live up the last days of warmth.”

“And you’re spending them back home in the town you hated, doing hard labor with a business partner you never wanted,” he supplies.

The band strikes up a tune. Grant plants a firm hand on my hip and guides me into position across from him.

“I don’t remember—” I start to say, then cut off with a gasp when he pulls me straight into a fast, side-stepping swing.

“Just relax and follow me,” he says, rocking through the steps with an easy gait, pulling me along with him.

I promptly step on his foot, then stumble trying to catch my footing again. He tightens his grip on my waist, pulls me closer, until I can feel the heat radiating from him, our bodies almost touching.

“I said relax,” he points out, and I flush, biting my lip.

“That’s hard when I don’t know what I’m doing,” I mumble.

“You have to give up control, Sasha. You have to trust me. Because I know what I’m doing.” He locks eyes with me, and for a second, I have the sensation that we’re talking about more than just this dance.

I hold his gaze when he starts to move again. I try my best to listen to his advice—to forget about my footing, the pace, the song. To just watch him, feel his one big hand wrapped around mine, his other cupping my waist, drawing me across the floor.

When I keep my eyes on him, I find it’s easier to let go. Easier to let him take control, to read his body to learn what he wants mine to do.

Pretty soon, we’re flying across the floor easily. He swings me out away from him, then spins me back in to his side, and someone behind us whoops. There’s other dancers on the floor now, but we’re weaving between them, lost in a world of our own. I have eyes only for Grant. For a big man, he sure does move lightly on his feet. He dances like he was born doing it, and I’m just along for the ride.

Without warning, at a peak moment in the song, he grabs me and dips me backwards across his forearm. I gasp as I fall back against his arm, but he’s got me, holding me up as easily as though I weighed nothing at all.

I catch his eye again, and catch a hint of that hungry expression, the one that shows me just how much he can’t get enough of me. How much he wants to claim me.

It sends an ache through my body, makes me just as hungry for him. Having his strong arms around me, feeling the way he can fling me across this dance floor, it’s turning me on way too much to be appropriate in public.

And, judging by the hard press I feel against my thigh when he swings me back upright and pulls me flush against him for the final chords of the song, he’s feeling the same way.

The music fades, and for the span of a second, it’s just the two of us. His heartbeat pounding against mine as we stand there, chest-to-chest, arms around one another—when did that happen? My head swims, fuzzy with desire. There are people talking, laughing, slapping one another on the shoulders. From the corner of my eye I notice people watching us, whispers starting. I don’t care. I have eyes only for Grant.