Page 26 of Gravity of Love
“That’s right.” She slapped his chest. Hard.
Now he knew why Frat Boy had doubled over. He wasn’t being dramatic. She was a beast.
“You made such a pretty girl.” She touched his face.
“Thanks.”
Her face scrunched in the most adorable way. “Why did you do that again?”
“Because Cam was coming out to his parents.”
“Oh yeah.” She slapped his chest again, and he actually winced. “Causeheworked there, and his dad was always saying, ‘You should be more likeLiam, Liam is so smart,’andLiam is so thisandLiam is so that,” she said in a deep voice before poking him in the chest. “Soyouwent to the management and asked if you could do the shift that he was going to be there with his parents and come out for moral support, and they said yes, and you surprised him by being their server. I would have loved to see the look on his dad’s face!”
“It wasn’t good.” His dad got pissed and stormed out. But his mom stayed, and they still had a good relationship.
“How is Cam?” she asked. “I always liked him.”
He loved that she wanted to know how he was. She wasn’t just making small talk. She’d always had the best heart.
“Good. He’s in Florida. He and his husband work with endangered wildlife.”
“That’s nice.” She sighed and laid her head back on his chest as the song was ending. “What anicelife.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Liam started to walk off the floor, with her feet still on his, when the next song started and she gasped loudly.
“No, we can’t. It’s Daylight!”
He looked down at her. “Daylight?”
“Taylor Swift! Daylight!”
One more song might kill him, but if that’s what it took to put a smile on her face, then so be it. “Just one.”
Huge brown eyes stared up at him as she made a cross sign over the left side of her chest. “I promise.”
“Fine.”
Her face split into a wide smile, that caused his heart to split open even wider. They began to sway again as the lyrics in the song spoke of love being as cruel as the cities she’d lived in, lines she’d crossed and not been forgiven, and that she’d tell the truth but never goodbye, and he realized this song might be as on the nose as Sam Cooke’s. With each second they remained on the dance floor, Frankie’s breathing was becoming more and more labored. He felt her heart beating through her back against his palm. He could feel himself getting a little too swept up in the moment, physically, and needed to think of anything other than her breaths, her body pressed against him, and how good this felt.
“It’s in the center,” he said, his voice rough.
She tilted her head back, her eyes peering up at him through several pieces of hair that had fallen on her face. “What?”
He brushed the stray strands off her forehead and tucked them behind her ear as he told her, “You crossed over the left side of your chest, your heart is in the middle.”
“Oh.” She kept staring into his eyes as her breathing continued to come in shallow gasps.
Liam let his hands roam just a little lower, his thumbs began to trace circles on her back, marveling at how right it felt even if it was completely, totally wrong. He tried to picture what would happen if he just scooped her up and carried her out of there, back to his place, back to anywhere they could be alone, away from the noise, and they could lose themselves in the memories. But even in his fantasy, he knew she deserved better than a rerun of an old heartbreak.
Still, as he stared down at her he wanted to taste her, just once. Just to see if she still felt like home.
“This is a good song,” he managed to get out over the lump of emotion clogging his throat.
“It reminds me ofThe Summer I Turned Pretty. Have you seen it?”
He’d heard his fourteen year old niece Zoya talk about it and some of the staff at the hospital talking about it. He remembered them saying their kids watched it, and then they got hooked.
“Is that the show where people are either Team Jeremiah or Team Conrad?”
