Page 58 of Up All Night

“Fine.” I thought of what word I could use that would beat hers in the conversations we would be having with people. A few words came to mind, but none of them were as good as investment. I’d just have to pick one. “Okay, my word is capital.”

“Ooh, that’s pretty good,” she mused, tapping her chin. “Definitely sounds like a second-place word.”

I chuckled at her teasing, grateful I had brought her with me tonight. I usually dreaded events like this, but I was actually enjoying it.

Dinner came and went, and we chatted with all the couples at our table. And yes, the word investment and its variations were flying around like crazy. It didn’t help that she would, every so often, lead a conversation in a way that the word would eventually come up.

My personal favorite was when she’d pretended to forget the word investment, then had claimed how she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten the word when we’d all been using it so much. She’d even given me a secretive wink afterwards before taking a bite of her food. She was so far ahead of me that I had no hope of catching up, but that didn’t mean I would give up.

The dance floor had opened up, and I saw it as my opportunity to get us away from conversations that could include the word investment, so I leaned over to Halle. “Do you want to dance?”

She looked over at the dancing couples. “I guess I’m far enough in the lead that I could take some time to dance,” she teased.

I stood, holding my hand out to her. She placed her hand in mine and even though it was a simple gesture, not meant to mean anything more than helping her out of her seat, the buzz where our skin touched was as surprising as it was pleasurable.

I should have dropped her hand, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to. So instead I held onto it, in the guise of leading her out onto the dance floor.

Turning, I pulled her in close to me, placing one hand on her waist while continuing to hold her hand as I brought it up and out between us. Her other hand came up and rested on my shoulder, and though I was wearing a tuxedo, I still liked the feel of her hand on me.

A live string quartet played on the stage, a slow song filling the room. We moved slowly in rhythm to the hypnotic notes. I stared down at Halle, who was still a few inches shorter than me even while wearing high heels.

When I’d first gotten a glimpse of her tonight, I’d forgotten how to breathe. Which had never happened to me before. I mean, who forgets how to breathe? You breathe in, you breathe out, it’s one of the easiest things to do. 99.9 percent of the time, you never have to think about breathing, your body does it all on its own. But it was like my whole body had locked on Halle, and every part of me wanted to focus on only her. The dress looked like it had been made for her. I didn’t even know how much it cost, and it was still the best money I’d ever spent.

“West?” her voice floated out, breaking through my inner thoughts.

Had she been talking to me?Crap.Was it normal to be so attracted to your neighbor that you zoned out?

“Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, sure a guilty expression was plain on my face.

She gave me an amused look. “I said, are you ready to accept defeat?”

Right. The game we were playing.

“Never. There is still plenty of time for me to catch up.”

Her ‘yeah, right’ look was unmistakable. “You do realize that the more time we spend on this dance floor, the less time you have to make a feeble attempt at winning?”

I slid my hand around to the side of her waist and squeezed lightly, her ticklish yelp making me smile.

She looked up at me with both surprise and laughter in her eyes.

I spun her out and away from me, before pulling her back. “I’m spending my time exactly how I want to.”

Her lips made a small O.

“Unless you want to stop dancing,” I said before slowly dipping her down, our faces lined up.

“Um,” she swallowed, her eyes locked on mine. “I’m fine with dancing.” Even with the music, I could hear the breathlessness in her voice.

I pulled her back to standing, feeling braver than usual. I wanted to pretend, just for a moment, that we weren’t neighbors, that she wasn’t here with me as a favor, that we were two people who’d met under different circumstances. I wanted to pretend I could be a guy who was in a place where I could think about dating, that I could wine and dine a woman like Halle and we could see if there was a possibility of a future between us.

But that was a far place from where I was right now. I couldn’t give Halle what she deserved. Work was my priority. Dating and relationships took too much time and energy, and I already felt stretched too thin. Not that she was even interested in me. She had her own things going on in her life. She was focused on starting her new career, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t want any kind of relationship either.

“Are you sure your dad isn’t going to get upset that you are dancing with me instead of networking?” she asked.

Holding her this close to me, I couldn’t find it in me to care what my dad thought.

I shrugged. “He’s probably already upset with me about something or other.”

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