Page 49 of Our Hearts Knew Better

I chuckled. “Like fireworks on the bay.”

He nodded again and it was dreamy. He was dreamy. The night was dreamy.

“This is my dad’s,” I told him with a wave of the bottle. “He saw me take it.” And he didn’t have it anymore. I considered returning the bottle to him, empty. Like I was always returned to him, empty in the heart.

I sat up too quickly and breathed through a wave of dizziness as Levi perched on a bench seat, answering his concern over what happened to get me wined up. I told him most of what my dad told me, including the part where my own father admitted he didn’t want me to be born.

And Levi’s jaw jerked, setting tighter and tighter.

“It’s been hard for him without Mom,” I said, my inebriated state only allowing me to mock, but after a sip of more wine, I was questioning. “I should feel bad for him, right?” I had sympathy for single parents. I saw in many ways what it was like to be one, real and not real. But I never gave my dad any trouble. Never. While all he made me feel was troubled.

“When it comes to your mom, yeah. But not when it comes to you.”

I raised the bottle in cheers to Levi and swallowed another sip. Single parent and Floyd Kinnison couldn’t be synonymous. He wasn’t a parent or a friend.Remember, Summer?

“I hate that this is true but he deserves to lose you,” Levi added, and my heart stretched, reached, as I held his blurred blue gaze.

“Do you want to lose me?” I asked as I scooted closer to him, a staticky feeling shooting straight to my head.

His mouth moved around an answer he didn’t say as I asked another, a bit more pressing. “Do you want me?”

His back met the back of the bench with a sigh like it knocked the air out of him. Or I did. He made some noise into his hands and I didn’t know what he meant.

“What do you mean?”

A chuckle, still into his hands, but when he lowered them, he studied me so seriously. My grip slid down the bottle as my heart raced like it was about to break again tonight.

“No,” he finally breathed, inconclusive, and I brought the bottle to my chest.

“For which?”

He wiped his hands on his shorts, a pause, more studying. “The first one.” His voice was so low, but at least my next swallow went down smooth and warm.

Then I was laughing, my body bouncing in place to the tune of his voice and words in my head.

When my two means of intoxication took over, I stood and danced.

Then I started singing when I heard Ten Decembers croon through the space, the bottle my microphone.

Levi, on the bench, was my rapt audience to my drunken concert, lifting his hand to catch the bottle in case I stumbled and stained his dad’s boat. He was making faces. His face was changing, as he watched me. It reminded me of those theater masks, so tragic and so tickled.

“What’s this face?” I asked, breathless, pausing the show to bend over him and touch the tragedy lines.

“It’s my face,” he teased, one hand securing me by the wrist and his other hand securing the bottle, the lines back to tickled.

“What nickname would you give me?” I asked him through my liquid courage. “Like in a book,” I added to the bend in his brows.

He released a small laugh, glancing to the side in thought, before getting this stilled light bulb look that gave me an anticipating bounce.

But he said, “I don’t know,” and I just groaned, my energy suddenly fizzling.

I sank to the sole. I was more drunk than I thought. I wasn’t blackout drunk. Levi cut me off here before I lost the light.Him. I didn’t lose him. Not tonight. I was just drunk enough to be more brave or reckless or anything I wanted to be.

A ringing sound jolted me back to lying down, my laughter rivaling the non stop sharp chiming.

Levi was staring down at his lap, at his phone screen, stalling, like our first night. This night, I groaned over the interruption.

“Adam?” I guessed.

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