Page 37 of The Love Losers

“Yes.” We haven’t finished writing our lists yet, much less working through them, but I want it to be true.

“Good. We should get started now.” And then she tugs me toward a side door leading into the warehouse.

I take a step before I realize what’s going on.

“I want to go inside and see the skylight,” she says.

“But it’s pitch dark in there.”

“Not pitch dark. I’ll bet we can see the stars through the skylight.” There’s excitement in her voice. The fact that it’s for this, my unicorn, has me pulling out my keyring. Or maybe I’m just incapable of saying no to her tonight.

I’m not worried about squatters. People move supplies in and out pretty regularly.

I unlock the door and reach for the light switch just inside, but Rosie stays my hand.

“I want to see the stars, Anthony.”

There’s something in her voice…

I really can’t say no. I’m more powerless against her charm than Dom was last week. If it had been someone else’s building,and she’d asked me to break in, I would have found a way to do it.

I lead her inside, skirting around tarp-covered supplies and large equipment, and even though the skylight is dirty and dim, not really all that impressive, she gasps and twirls in a circle. It smells of damp and dirt and there are suspicious dark spots on the floor, but if she’s noticed, she doesn’t care.

“This is it,” she says, her eyes shining in the dark, the dim glow from the moon and stars barely filtering through the dirty glass. “We’re going to dance to ‘Time after Time’ under the skylight in the dark. We have to. It’s the first item on my bucket list.”

My logical side tries to object, and my petulant side wants to object to her song choice, but I’m pulled in by her request.This is on my list.Dancing with me, in my shitty warehouse, is on her bucket list.

This woman, who could charm anyone, wants to be charmed by me.

Normally, the irony would make me laugh—I’m not a man who’s been in the business of charming anyone. Certainly, not lately. But I want to charm her. I want her to see something in me that I struggle to see in myself. I want to be the man who makes her happy.

“Far be it from me to object to your bucket list,” I say as I draw the song up on my phone and set it on top of a pile of bricks. She said she wanted to dance, so I sweep her into a waltz as the song starts, achingly aware of every place my body is touching hers.

It’s woken up, and now itwants.

“Of courseyou can dance,” she says, grinning at me with delight as we sweep across the floor. One of my hands is wrapped firmly around her waist—underneath her coat, because I wanted to soak in her warmth—and the other is holding herhand as we soar across the floor, dodging bricks and piles of tarp-covered supplies. She nestles her head into my shoulder for a second, and I breathe her in.

“You can blame preparatory school for that too,” I say, only then realizing that I’m having fun. It’s a miracle that it’s happening here in this warehouse, which has always felt like physical proof of my failures.

I, Anthony Rosings Smith, am dancing in the dark. And I’m having the time of my life.

I’ve broken rules before.

I’ve smoked pot at the Biltmore.

Snuck booze into the dormitory at prep school.

Held a party at Smith House so epic that people still talk about it.

But it always felt like I was trying something on for size and finding it too tight—same as I did when I attempted to fill my father’s shoes.

I don’t feel that way tonight.

I feel…joyful.

Joyful.

I don’t like this song, I typically prefer to be inside of places that don’t smell, and it’s cumbersome to dance in our coats, and yet…

---