After two more songs, he took me by the hand and led me away from the room. I thought we were going back out, but he turned a corner and we went down a crowded hallway to a gorgeous, large kitchen with skylights.
“I heard them say there was cake,” he explained as we stepped into the thinly occupied room. “Someone’s birthday, I guess. Anyway, you love your cake. Grab a cut before we go.”
There was a marble kitchen island, its surface covered in half-demolished trays of cakes and pastries. It looked amazing, even though it was technically wrong crashing a party you were not invited to, dancing around strangers, and then eating someone else’s cake. But let’s not start counting our sins, right?
I smiled at him. “How thoughtful.”
His lips spread just a bit, enough to be a smile in my books. I grabbed a paper plate and cut a piece of the vanilla cake with that many inches of frosting on it. “Happy Birthday Chri” it said as I placed the piece with the letter “s” on my plate. Thanks, Chris. Then I turned back to Aston. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”
For a brief moment, he didn’t look at me. His eyes were over my head, narrowed and hard. When I followed, I saw a man in the corner of the kitchen with a couple of his friends. He was staring at me, openly checking me out from top to bottom before smiling at me.
“It’s a good cake,” he remarked, and it wasn’t lost on me how suggestive he sounded. It came off totally creepy, and I suppressed the shudder I felt crawling at a snail’s pace down my spine.
I nodded kindly, though I really didn’t care to answer. “Hope so.”
Then I turned back around, grabbed Aston’s hand, and walked out. He was quiet as we left the house. He led me to the board walk all the while not saying a word. I didn’t like the silence, and I wondered if he was upset with me for taking him into the house.
You’re a selfish bitch, Elise.
“I’m sorry,” I said, staring down at the cake as we took a seat on the ledge.
“For what?” he asked.
“For forcing you in there.”
“I didn’t mind. You have the right to have some fun.”
I looked up at him. “I appreciate it. You could have dragged me out of there the second I pulled you in.”
“I wanted to, believe me.” I caught the way his shoulders tensed as he spoke, a frown digging into his face. “When I’m gone, Elise, I need you to be very careful going into places like that. Don’t…don’t do it alone. The way some of the guys stared at you…it was bad, El. Please, promise me you won’t.”
I nodded solemnly. “I promise, Aston. I know better after what happened with Deck. I won’t go to a place like that alone.”
His face softened. “Good. Have a guy with you too. Not a girl like Cindy. She’d encourage the attention.”
I didn’t respond to that. I looked back down at my cake, feeling like someone was putting my heart through a shredder. I wasn’t going to have a guy with me. I didn’t want a guy with me. I wanted…
I shut my eyes briefly and sighed. “I’ll miss you. I know you’re not going away for another while, but…when you leave, I’m going to miss the shit out of you, Aston.”
“I’ll still be around.”
“Promise?”
He nodded. “I promise.”
“But it won’t be like normal.” God, was this the Days of our Lives? Why was I unloading all this shit now?
“What do you mean, El?” He waited patiently for me to answer, and I was so conflicted.
“I’m here, and you’ll be there,” I finally said. “It won’t be the same. I won’t see you every day. It’ll be like losing my best friend.”
“Apply for colleges in the city. That way we’re close again.”
I scoffed. “I’m a loser, Aston. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I’m…lost.”
“You love dancing.”
“No one can make a living dancing. Unless it’s wrapped around a stripper pole.”
“Don’t joke about that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a stripper.”
“Not if I was there to keep the creeps away.”
“I wouldn’t even have the courage to do something that wild anyway.” Wow, I was being a Negative Nancy. I should change my name to Eeyore.
“Pursue your passion.”
“Dad says to be smart and safe.”
“So you’ve had this talk with him?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. He wants me to go into teaching, or nursing, or…law. Yuck.”
Aston chuckled. “All I know is you’re young, El. We’re pressured to pick something now but…fuck, I just think of how boring life would be doing something you hated every day. It might seem like dancing is a dead-end pursuit but…passion always finds a way to make things work. I see the way you move. You’re…hot, El. You can make it happen. You can go to dance school, or…open up your own studio. You can do whatever you want.”