Page 36 of That Reunited Feeling

She fans herself like she’s about to swoon on a fainting couch. “Oh, however have I coped until ten days ago when you swooped into my life to save me?” Then slams her hands into her jacket pockets and bores holes into my face with her defiant eyes. “I can handle myself, Tom. Because I’ve had to handle myself.”

She stomps toward where our driver’s parked, the damp sidewalk shining in the light of the streetlamps. After a few steps, she turns to face me and walks backward. “And it’s none of your fucking business who puts their hands all over me.”

Then her knees buckle. One of her spike heels is caught between two paving slabs. As her legs crumble underneath her, her arms windmill, trying to keep her upright. But it’s too late. Her angry momentum carries her back until her ass lands slap in the middle of a puddle.

“For fuck’s sake.” She tries to scrabble to her feet but fails at everything other than looking like a four-legged dancing spider with one trapped foot.

All I want to do is wrap my arms around her waist and lift her upright. But given her reaction to the Mr. Megadeth incident, I can’t assume that would be considered helpful.

I stand over her, coat and folder still tucked under my arm, gripping the inner lining of my jeans pockets to prevent myself from reaching out. “Am I allowed to help you now?”

She stares at the ground and silently reaches up with one hand.

This is the first time we’ve held hands for seventeen years. But it’s not the type of hand-holding filled with emotion or affection. This is purely practical, to get her backside out of the puddle. But there’s something natural about it. Like her hand has always belonged in mine. Like for the last seventeen years my hand has been empty without hers.

As soon as she’s upright, she immediately lets go. No unnecessary touching required, obviously.

“Thank you,” she says with all the gratitude of a homeowner receiving a bill from an emergency plumber.

“Take this.” I hold the folder out to her.

She shoves it back into her bag. “Yeah, pointless waste of time,” she mutters as I crouch down beside her and take hold of her ankle and stuck boot. “What are you doing?”

“Helping.”

I sense her hand inches from my back as she almost allows herself to lean on me for support but changes her mind, preferring to wobble.

It takes two tugs and several defiant arm flaps to extract her heel from between the paving slabs.

“And the band package was not a waste of time.” I straighten, but she doesn’t step away. “The scorecard was a great idea.And the summary of everything in the folder was great too. I’m terrible at remembering things like that, so putting it all in one place was great. It’s all great.”

“Well, the band was shit.” She lifts her previously trapped foot and runs a thumb along the fresh scrape on the heel of her boot. “So obviously I have no clue what I’m doing and I shouldn’t have bothered and I shouldn’t be here and you shouldn’t have given me this job, which you don’t need me to do anyway, and we should just go back and?—”

My hand on her upper arm silences her word vomit.

Her foot drops to the ground, and her eyes dart to where my fingers rest. Slowly, her gaze slides up my arm, over my shoulder, and up to meet mine.

I give her a beat to move away, but she doesn’t. “One bad band choice does not a bad evening make.”

She looks down at the sidewalk as the mist from my breath brushes her face. “But I watched some stuff online and they seemed like they had real promise, so I’m obviously a terrible judge.”

“Hey.” I let go of her arm, pinch her chin between my thumb and forefinger, and tip her face up to look at me. “It doesn’t matter. All it cost us was two beers and twenty minutes in a scene from aSawmovie.” She almost laughs. Almost. “I once signed—actuallysigned—a band who it turned out had been singing to a backing track the whole time, and we didn’t find out till they got in the studio. Cost me a whole lot more than two beers and twenty minutes to get out of that one.”

She grimaces in sympathy.

An inconvenient urge to slide my hand over her cheek and push my fingers into her hair rises within me. But that would be problematic in ways too numerous to count, so I shove it back down and let go of her chin. “And the last live music you saw wasNickelback coming out of a violin and a cello, so it has to be the third time’s a charm, right?”

I get the one-shouldered shrug. “At least I think the other two venues will be better than that bar.”

“Then if nothing else we’ve gotten out and gone to a couple bars. If the bands are great, bonus. If not, you and I will have had a good evening. Right?”

“Well…” She looks along the street to where the car’s parked. “The driver has brought us all the way up here. And your mom is already looking after Dylan.”

“Exactly. So let’s not waste the opportunity.”

She nods.

Hallelujah.

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