Page 33 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
“Trig!” Pudge waved him over after they entered the tent. “Happy Valentine’s Eve!”
They were warm enough to take off their hats with the courtyard heaters flickering in the corners. After accepting a steaming cup of mulled wine from Grandma Betty and passing it to Kissie, Trig said, “Do you remember Kissie? She was here—”
“A couple of years ago, isn’t that right?” Pudge said.
“That’s right,” she replied, fluffing the waves of her hair, glancing under her lashes at Trig. “And I loved it so much, I had to come back.”
He bit his lip.
“Twin Hearts can do that to a person,” Betty said, her sharp-as-a-fox gaze traveling between Trig and Kissie. “It’s a hard place to get out of your system. An even harder place to leave. Pudge and I thought we wanted to move away a few times when we were younger, somewhere bigger and fancier, but every time we’d barely made it to the interstate before the town called us back.”
“I didn’t know that,” Trig said, draining his cup of the warm, spicy wine and handing it to Pudge for a refill.
“Believe it or don’t,” Pudge said, laughing quietly, “but there is magic in Twin Hearts. There’s magic in that hot springs.” He winked. “It’s our best kept secret.”
“Especially this time of year,” Betty said, agreeing with Pudge while handing Kissie another full cup of wine.
Pudge wrapped his burly arm around Betty’s narrow waist, pressing a kiss against her temple. “It brought us together. Betty couldn’t stand me until that one night we swam in the hot springs together.”
“Oh, that’s not true,” she said, swatting his arm.
“It is too,” Pudge insisted, chuckling. “Only magic could have made you kiss me like you did that night.”
While Trig smiled one of those smiles that felt like it came all the way from his toes, remembering Kissie’s lips on his in the warm water, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand on her ass, he heard her say softly beside him, “Magic. Hmm.”
She pulled out her phone again, snapping pictures of the crowd under the tent, of Pudge and Betty, of Trig tipping his cup toward her. “I can work with that.”
“Wanna dance?” he whispered into her ear, tilting his head toward the dance floor where nearly half of the town was spinning the other half around to some bluegrass song.
After swallowing the rest of her wine, she wiped her smiling lips and said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Have fun, you two,” Pudge said, winking while Trig pulled her out onto the dance floor.
She was small enough that he could twirl her easily, pulling her in, spinning her out, making her squeal. The way her yellow skirt flared out over her black leggings and furred snow boots every time he twirled her around reminded him of sunlight peeking through the trees.
“You can really dance!” she cried, laughing hysterically when he pulled out this double spin, hand switch while shuffling her behind his back move he hadn’t had a chance to use in years.
“My mom was the town’s dance instructor when I was a kid. She taught me some moves.” He pulled her close, wrapping his arm around her waist, the wine making him bold. “And you are incredibly easy to dance with. Like we’ve been doing it for years.”
The atmosphere shifted as a slower song came on. He took her hand in his, resting it over his chest while he swayed her side to side.
“Do your parents live here?”
“Not anymore. Mom took a job at a big dance studio in Bozeman. Dad stayed behind for a few years, trying to get by on weekend visits while keeping one foot here in Twin Hearts. Eventually the drives back and forth got to be too much, so Dad moved too. They still come back all the time, though.”
“Small towns,” Kissie said, almost to herself. “I’d spent so long trying to get out of the one I grew up in, I think I’d forgotten all the good things about them.”
“Twin Hearts isn’t your average small town.” He pulled her in a little closer. “This place has—”
“Magic?” she said, sliding her hand up from his chest, over his shoulder, her fingers coming to rest on the back of his neck. “People keep saying that. I wonder if it’s true.”
Unable to resist, he dipped her so deeply she had to grasp his neck to hold on. She was wide-eyed and laughing and not kissing her right there and then under the tent in front of everyone might have been the hardest thing he’d ever done in his entire life.
Lifting her back up, he told her, “It’s absolutely true.”
* * *
After drinkingway too much mulled wine, introducing her to everyone he could think of who might have a story about Mystic she could use in her research, and dancing with her until his toes were numb and his head was spinning, Trig walked a stumbling and buzzed Kissie back to the resort.
