Page 79 of Last Night Was Fun

“I’m a proud graduate of Señora Sanchez’s Junior Dance Academy.”

“The one in East Village?”

“The very one.” He dipped her over again as she giggled. With her vision turned upside down she caught a glimpse of Jacob swaying with his date nearby.

“What’s wrong?” Gabe asked when he pulled Emmy right side up and noticed she was no longer smiling. His face dropped in concern.

The music transitioned into a bouncy salsa-pop song with a heavy beat. Bodies around them started shimmying and shaking to the new sounds.

Emmy glanced over her shoulder without responding and felt Gabe follow her eyes. He stiffened at the sight of Jacob staring at them.

“Is that him?” he said under the song, obviously having figured it out.

Emmy nodded.

As soon as she did, Gabe sharply pivoted and led them across the floor—straight toward Jacob.

“What are you doing?” she whispered. She tried to plant her feet and stop, but he was holding her too tight and moving too fluidly. They were basically tangoing right at him. “Gabe, stop it!”

“Just relax.”

She could do nothing of the sort. Not only were they gliding directly toward disaster, but everyone was staring at them because Gabe was moving like he’d waltzed off theDancing with the Starsstage. He stepped and pivoted and dipped like it had been choreographed, and Emmy was along for the ride, somehow a nimble ballerina in his arms.

“What are you going to do?” she nervously asked.

“I told you I’d have choice words for him if we ever met,” he said. Before she could react, he shifted to grip her hand and reeled her in to his chest. Then pushed her hip hard so she spun out with their arms fully extended, linked by their hands.

He’d spun her directly at Jacob and his date, and for a frozen moment, Emmy’s eyes locked on Jacob’s from a foot away. Jacob watched her with a stunned look on the face she’d been familiar with once upon a time. His blue eyes studied her as something unspoken passed between them. She couldn’t be sure what all their silent conversation contained on his part. Maybe surprise. Maybe intrigue. Maybe, she was happy to believe, a little bit of regret. On her end, it was... nothing. An absence of feeling. Where she thought she would feel angst and anger, she felt pure neutrality at seeing him again. Which was relieving and supremely satisfying. Especially whenGabe skillfully reeled her back in and then dipped her over right in front of him. The steps couldn’t have been more perfectly placed.

“Jacob?” Gabe asked, and nodded at him once they were upright.

“Yeah?” Jacob said with a confused frown.

Emmy worried what was going to come out of Gabe’s mouth next, but he gave Jacob one of his devastating million-dollar smug smiles and said three words. “Big mistake. Huge.” Then he twirled Emmy like a top and moved them back across the floor.

She was nearly crying with glee by the time he stopped spinning her. “Did you justPretty Womanhim?”

“I told you: choice words,” he said, and pulled her flush against him.

Emmy cackled under the moonlight and let him continue to spin and sway her body. They didn’t run into Jacob again, and Emmy wondered if (hoped?) he was off sulking in defeat. For how worried she’d been about seeing him, it ended up not being a big deal at all. Thanks in no small part to Gabe. His presence was buoying her in so many ways.

Later, when it came time for her speech, Emmy left the crowd misty eyed. Then she shared a dance with her dad and a few with her sister and Ben in a mob of bouncing bodies belting lyrics to “Good as Hell” and “Uptown Funk.” By the time the cake came out, the air had thickened enough to erase all the stars and started to tingle with electricity. The first clap of thunder rolled in around the time most guests had shed their shoes and moved to the sand for nightcaps anyway. Gary and Cary’s boat was visible lurking offshore.

Piper found Emmy at the edge of the party and slung her arm around her shoulders. She kissed her cheek with a contented sigh, resigned to their fate. “Well, it was perfect while it lasted.”

Emmy turned to her with a smile, happy to see her surrender to Mother Nature. “It was.”

They watched the storm clouds roll closer until a playful drizzle turned into big, juicy drops that sent everyone scattering for cover. Gabe grabbed Emmy’s hand and towed her under the nearest bar’s thatched roof.

“We should catch a shuttle before this gets too bad!” He nearly had to shout over the sudden downpour. The sky had cracked open.

“I think it’s already bad!” Emmy shouted back.

Globs of water pummeled into the sand and slapped the swimming pools. Emmy’s feet were already soaked in her strappy heels, and the hem of her dress lapped up water like a sponge. She gathered her skirt up around her knees as Gabe took off his jacket and held it over their heads as a shield. The warm smell of him enveloped her in a heady rush.

“I don’t think that’s going to last very long!” she yelled and pointed to his thin jacket.

He shrugged with a smile. “Come on!”