On many levels, I want to go with Gideon. But what makes me tense in his arms, my body drawing back from him an inch, is an instinct I can't control. The dancing has started at the reception, and the drinks are still flowing. If nobody is here to keep a watchful eye on things, who knows what might happen? I’m not about to keep track of every guest at the wedding—that would be absurd—but Leah and the bridal party have been drinking all day, and if any one of them gets into a car with the wrong person...

Gideon pulls back. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” I lean in and kiss the side of his neck, wrapping my arms more tightly around his shoulders, but something has shifted between us, changed in the air. My heart beats in a different rhythm than it was a few minutes ago, thudding in an awkward pattern that makes me uneasy. Aside from the champagne at the start of the reception and two mimosas earlier today—Leah insisted—I haven't been drinking, so it's not that. It's the slightest change in the way Gideon and I are existing together, and I don't like it.

He pulls us out of the alcove, sweeping me into him, his arm around my waist, and tugs us back down the hallway. This place must have really good soundproofing, because all I'm hearing from the banquet hall is a muffled bass line from the music.

“Where are we going now?” I say, but my breathlessness isn't because I'm feeling giddy or turned on, like it normally is.

Gideon grins at me, but there's a flash in his eyes that's gone so fast I can't read it. “Back to the reception. Don't you need to dance with the bridal party? They're probably going to play that sisterhood song soon, and you won't want to miss that.”

I roll my eyes. “I don't know if Leah put that on the list.”

He scoffs, laughing. “Of course she did. Anyone who hires a DJ has them play that song.”

“Are you a wedding DJ expert?”

He gives me a look. “I’ve been to a few of these. I even have my own ideas of what I might want at a wedding.” Something about the way he says it sends a chill down my spine, though there’s still a smile on his face. 

I’m about to ask what he wants in a wedding, leaping past the cold twist in my gut, but we’re already back at the banquet hall and Gideon is pulling open the door and ushering me through it, back to the music and the lights. Leah looks like a glowing cake-topper in the very center of it all, the rest of the bridesmaids gathered around her and her new husband unable to pull himself away.

What went so wrong out there in the hallway?

I catch Gideon’s arm.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks down at me, then back at the dance floor. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“One second we’re having a hot moment in an alcove, and the next you’re rushing me back here like missing Love Shack would be the world’s greatest tragedy.”

His eyes soften, and he steps closer to me. “Nothing’s wrong,” he repeats. “I made an assumption I shouldn’t have.”

So that’s what this is. One moment of hesitation, and he’s scrambling to fix it—even though there must be a better way to do it. For both of us. 

“I saw the look on your face,” he says into my ear. “I didn’t like it that I made you feel that way.”

His tone is sincere, but there’s still something in his expression that’s a little off, a little wrong. I don’t know if I can get him to confess what it is.

“Are you sure that’s all?”

He grins. “Of course.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to leave with you.” The music throbs in my ears, and I swallow down a lump that’s risen in my throat. There are no good words to explain this obligation that I feel to stay until the bitter end, in case.

“I understand.” He slips his hands around my waist, and through the crowd I see Leah notice the two of us and smile, then whisper into Jared’s ear. His head swivels toward us as Gideon says, “I remember a certain gorgeous redhead saying I wouldn’t have to convince her to dance tonight.”

Everything shifts back to the way it was, and I feel like I’ve caught my balance again. “I did say that.”

“I didn’t mean you,” Gideon says, standing up straight and looking around behind him. “There was someone else here who—”

I slap at his shoulder, and he leans back in, kissing me gently on the lips, sending pleasure zinging from my mouth to my nipples. When I pull away, I catch my breath. “How can I dance with you when you’re going to kiss me like that?”

“I’ve heard you can do two things at once.”

I reach for his hand, leading him back into the crowd, but I don’t reach up to kiss him again. There are too many people here, too many watchful pairs of eyes, and my body is thrumming with the need to be somewhere private with Gideon, somewhere nobody can see us, somewhere that we can forget that tense moment in the hall.

“I can’t wait to leave with you.”

Gideon laughs, his body moving with the beat of the song, hands coaxing at my hips to sway in time with him. “Is it me, or have we entered some kind of alternate universe since three minutes ago?”

“I meant…” A wave of uncertainty sweeps over me. After that strange tension reared up between us, is he still going to want to take me on some exotic getaway? “I meant the trip you’ve been planning.”

Now his smile turns satisfied, his eyes shining in the lights that are streaming in wild patterns from the DJ station. “I hate to disappoint you,” he says, his smooth voice curling around my spine, wiping away the nervous jitters in my stomach. “But there won’t be any DJs where we’re going.”

The song changes, morphing into something loud and heavy and perfect for a night out at the club. I think of the pristine sands at Virgin Gorda, the wind whispering through my hair while we climbed the Baths, the turquoise waves washing over the shore. All of it is reflected in Gideon’s green eyes.

“It can’t come fast enough.”