Page 76 of My Secret Snowflake
“Can we go?” Wim reaches for her hand. “I’m sorry. Hey, Rupert. I just flew in from Tokyo, and I’m beat.” He pulls her to his side, slightly away from our crowd, and says in a low voice but one that we can all still hear, “I’ve missed you, and I just want to be with you.”
I’d believe that more if Mom hadn’t said he just spent the last half hour shmoozing with my dad and his finance buddies.
“Sure,” Melody says. “It was great to see you all. But I think we’ll head home now.”
“No waltzing?” Rupert asks. “But you like waltzing, Melody.”
“I meant to take waltzing lessons after last year,” Wim says, “but there was never time.”
I waltzed with Melody last year. Wim probably wants to avoid a repeat of that. Fair enough.
“Sebastian insisted we take dancing lessons in college,” Rupert says, “so Melody and I signed up together because there was a discount for couples, but then—”
“The instructor separated us because he thought we were a real couple. He said couples have too many fights when they’re learning to dance together,” Melody interjects. “We could never convince him that we weren’t really a couple.”
Wim stares at Rupert as if suddenly wondering if they ever were a couple and then says, “But that’s why you won’t teach me the waltz.”
“Exactly,” Melody says. “He was adamant about it. I figure he knew what he was talking about.”
“I’ll walk you out,” I say.
“It’s okay. You’re with your friends,” Wim says. “We’ll say thank you to your mom and see ourselves out. I’m sorry I’m stealing Melody away and that I didn’t get a chance to catch up with you all. We should plan to have a party soon and get together.”
I’ve yet to see this party materialize in eighteen months.
Melody smiles apologetically as she leaves. Personally, I think he should have gone home to sleep and left Melody to hang out with her friends. But maybe they are really going to spend some quality time together.
The waitstaff offers a tray of quiche appetizers. We all take one. Zeke and Tessa arrive, and we all stand in a group, joking and devouring the finger food. I feel lucky to have this group of friends—and that I like all of my friends’ girlfriends.
And Iris. I turn to Iris and smile at her.
“Shall we get drinks?” I ask. She nods, and we move away to join the line at the bar. There’s quite a cluster, so we stand off to the side by the wall to wait.
Iris takes a step closer. “There was a guy I liked once in college, but I wasn’t his type. He asked out this other woman who was very nice but never seemed to have her own opinion. I felt a lot better about his rejection afterwards.” Iris waves her hand. “So, what I guess I’m trying to say is that I think Melody has a different type than you. You and Wim are completely different.”
“How so?” I agree, but I want to know how Iris views Wim.
“I thought he was kind of a jerk. It could be that he was jetlagged, but there was no need for Melody to leave the party early. Is the only time for them to be together now—when she’s hanging out with friends she clearly hasn’t seen in a while? And he seemed kind of threatened by you. I just think you’d be completely different and suck it up and hang out with her friends even if you were jetlagged.”
Iris’s green eyes blaze. It’s adorable that she’s defending me. And getting so worked up about this.
“Are you saying I fall into the ‘toonice guy’ bucket?” I ask.
She nods very earnestly.
“That might be the worst thing of all. Do you think of me as a nice guy?”
“Of course,” Iris says.
I pretend-crumple against the wall.
“I admit, at first, I thought you were a bit of a flirt and not to be trusted.”
“But now I’m nice—as in boring and tame?”
“No. As in…” Her gaze searches my face. “Someone I’d trust.”
“Thank you.” That’s a high compliment coming from Iris. “That means a lot to me.”
