It’s official. This is the best wedding I’ve ever been to. Shauna and Sherry’s four dogs were a part of the processional, and they were much better behaved than their nieces and nephews. The ceremony was officiated by a hilarious, gorgeous drag queen called Shazam. Shauna and Sherry are both wearing white sundresses with cowboy boots and their curly hairstyles match. The dining area is lit by hanging café string lights and tea light candles in mason jars, the flower arrangements are lavenders, white and lilac colored roses, eucalyptus and rosemary. The entire ranch smells amazing, and it’s all Eighties and disco music all the time.

It is so beautiful and fun and cool, and I’m so happy for Shauna, that I haven’t had one neurotic thought since we parked and stepped out of the car here. Not about Braddock, not about my career, or my financial situation. I don’t wonder why he and I have been seated at the same table together yet again. I even laughed it off when Maya sent me a text during the first course that said: Dude. You should see the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking! He totally hearts you!

No stressful reactions at all.

Until now.

I have wandered back over to the buffet table for more delicious non-greasy organic fried chicken and mouthwatering buttered gluten-free biscuits, and Brianna has approached me, wine glass in hand. I can already tell by her gait and her glassy eyes that she’s on her fourth glass of chardonnay. She grasps my arm and squeezes, probably harder than she means to.

“Erin Duffy Erin Duffy Erin Duffy.”

“Hi.”

“You have to tell me—I mean wait. I have to tell you first…” She takes a deep breath, looks back at her table, where her lawyer husband is watching her judgmentally. She waves at him to mind his own business. “Erin!” She speaks directly into my ear canal. “I have to tell you. That time I had sex with Scott Braddock. He came to our room looking for you. And I seduced him. With my boobs.”

“Oh, we don’t have to talk about that.”

“No, I have to. I didn’t tell you, because I wanted him for myself. Not as much before, but after he fucked my brains out, I don’t know if you remember, but I was kind of obsessed with him.”

“Vaguely.”

“So I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Because I think he really liked you.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“But I mean, come on.” She nudges me, so hard that I almost drop my plate full of chicken. “That guy’s mouth, am I right? He can just fuck a woman silly.”

“Oh we aren’t—we just—”

“He’s still the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, can you believe that?”

“Um.”

“And I mean I had a lot of sex the year after we graduated. A lot. But my vagina was like—enh. Braddock was better. So I’m just saying. I’m glad you finally got him.”

“I don’t have him.”

“I mean. I’m over him, mentally. It’s not that.”

“Of course, I get it.”

“But your body remembers things, you know?”

I know. My body is still trying to forget. Stop talking. “Uh huh.”

“Like I can’t remember the address of the dorm we lived in, I can’t remember the moves to Gangham Style, but my sexual anatomy has an unbelievably strong sense memory of every single thing that guy did to me in that one hour period of my life.”

Please kill me. “Mmmhmm. Well. You’re happy now, so.”

“I mean, if I weren’t married…”

“Well, you are, and he seems like a great guy, so good for you.”

“He’s okay. We work on it. I have to pee. We need to talk more later.”

“Definitely.” Not.

I’m fairly sure she made it to the restrooms without falling on her face, but I can’t be certain.

“So, you and Braddock, huh?” A man’s voice this time.

I look down at the fried chicken, sadly, wishing I could just disappear into a barn to eat it in peace, then look over my shoulder and see David Stack grinning at me.

David Stack was in my acting class at Emerson. He is tall and very good-looking in an super WASP-y sort of way, though he has never really done it for me. We did a scene from a play called Closer together (one of my favorite plays). I played a stripper, he was the drunk older guy whose wife had run off with my ex-boyfriend, and although the scene in no way called for us to kiss each other, he insisted that his character would French me and that I would allow him to. The teacher, who I think would have liked to kiss him herself, agreed that it would be an interesting button for the scene, so yeah—his tongue has thoroughly explored the inside of my mouth.

“Hey David Stack.”

“Hey.” He makes an unconvincing attempt at perusing the roasted vegetables and grilled salmon. “These girls sure know how to throw a wedding, huh?”

“They sure do. How’ve you been? You still in New York?”

“Nah, I’m with the news in Chicago. But I wouldn’t mind moving out to this coast. So you’re with Braddock?”

“I’m working with him, yeah, on one script.”

“Imagine that. I thought you hated that guy.”

“So did I.”

He forces a laugh, but studies my face, eagerly looking for clues that it’s true.

“Anyway, I’m gonna go eat this food, so. Good to see you.”

“Yeah yeah,” he puts his hand on my shoulder in a totally awkward way and squeezes it, meaningfully. “Let’s hang later.”

“Yup.”

Shauna is at our table, talking to Scott when I return, but his eyes are on me, and I can tell from the way he’s looking at me that he saw me talking to David Stack. There’s a mild possessiveness, and I am startled to realize that I like it.

Shauna looks up at me and says, “Hey lady! You little peach, I can’t believe you guys are working together it’s so cool!” She comes over and high-fives me and I stand up to hug her.

“Congratulations, Shaun, this wedding is so perfect.”

“It’s so good to see you! I love that you guys are together, seriously, I always knew —”

“Oh we aren’t like together”

“Yeah I know, I mean working together whatever.” She lowers her voice. “By the way, I hated Sherry when I first met her and it ended up being the best sex of my life.”

All these people referring to Scott as the best sex I’m going to have in my life is beyond intimidating. But honestly, it wouldn’t be all that hard to be the best sex of my life. I’ve had decent sex and I’ve had bad sex and I’ve had good sex a few times, but it wouldn’t take a penis maestro to give me the best sex of my life at this point.

However, I can’t have the best sex of my life with Scott Braddock at this point in my life, because he is my writing partner.

“Well,” I say, clearing my throat, “I’m really happy that things ended up the way they did for you guys.”

“You have to come visit us in the Bay Area, you’d love it.”

“I would love to, believe me.”

“Braddock will tell you—we showed you a pretty good time, right Braddock?”

“You vixens know how to party.”

“Yeah we do!” She musses up my hair and kisses me on my cheek. “We need to start dancing. Where’s my wife? Wife!” She signals to Sherry, who is standing near the entrance to the big barn, Sherry signals to someone inside the barn, and all of a sudden, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing is blaring from the speakers.

“Hey everybody!” Shauna yells out. “It’s time to dance in the barn! There will be no formal father-daughter dancing, we will all dance together!”

I shove the fried drumstick into my mouth in a way that is probably obscene, but I don’t care. I will finish my fried chicken and not even the bride is going to stop me.

“Come on come on come on! Braddock! You! On the dance floor! Now!”

Shauna runs off to join her wife. Sam and Maya get up. I scarf down the rest of my chicken.

“Come on, girl!” Maya says.

Scott takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his shirtsleeves.

“Awww shit,” says Sam. “Watch out for this guy,” he says to me, pointing at Scott. “This man can dance.”

“That’s nice,” I say, mouth full.

“No, I mean it,” he continues. “This. Man. Can. Dance. Big heartbreaker out on the dance floor. He’s got moves. Like, ninja dance moves. I literally saw this one girl’s knees buckle when they were slow-dancing at a party in Santa Monica.”

“Let’s not oversell things now,” Scott says.

“Somebody’s adorable when he’s tipsy.” Maya puts her arms around Sam’s waist and kisses his cheek. He stumbles a bit, holding onto the back of a chair for balance.

“I’m just saying,” he says to me, looking at me, pointing at me, swirling his index finger at me. “You don’t even know how lucky you are.”

I don’t feel lucky. I feel doomed. Doomed to have the best sex of my life with someone that I should not be having sex with, now or any time.

“You got that, girl?” Maya gives me a look, as she pulls Sam towards the barn.

There is a mass movement towards the dance barn, but Scott waits for me to finish eating. He knows from experience now that I don’t eat much when I’m in work-mode, and he seems either happy or amused to see me eating so much today. He stands behind me and pulls my chair out for me. I wipe my fingers and mouth with a napkin.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Having a good time?”

“I am. You?”

“I am.”

We walk in silence. Perhaps it is the scent of lavender that is calming me, although I think I’ve read that it can have an aphrodisiac effect as well, so maybe that’s what’s doing it. I hear crickets. The moon is almost full. I can see stars, and even though I can’t see the surrounding hills and mountains, I can feel them hugging the land that we’re standing on, and I feel good and safe and I do feel like dancing.

As if on cue, or by some stroke of movie magic, as soon as we enter the barn, Night Fever by the Bee Gees from Saturday Night Fever comes on, and the crowd parts as Scott walks forward to join Shauna and Sherry and Shazam in the line dance formation from the movie, and they start doing the glorious disco moves from one of my favorite film sequences ever. I myself do not know the moves, so I retreat to the sidelines and watch as about twenty brave people who are cooler than me do the Brooklyn Shuffle. I mean, this had to have been planned, right? Because Scott is dancing like this is no big deal, he does this every Saturday night, in a barn with a disco ball hanging from the rafters, and a smoke machine.

Maya and Sam boogie over to join me, but everyone is watching the line dancers, and most of the women, including Brianna, are watching Scott. Maya nudges me and gives me a look that says “not bad, huh?”

I shrug and pull a face. “Not bad.”

“What’d I tell you?” yells Sam.

“This was all planned and rehearsed, right?”

“Course not,” he says. “He just likes to dance.”

I suddenly realize that if Scott knows all the moves to this sequence, then that means he’s probably watched the scene in the movie and a “how-to” video on YouTube like a hundred times and practiced—which is comforting, because that makes him kind of a dork. Though he looks anything but dorky on the dance floor right now. Even Shazam is quite taken with him.

The Bee Gees song finally fades out, and Pump Up the Jam comes up in a strangely seamless transition. Scott and Shauna and Sherry and Shazam high-five each other, and the line dancers disperse. Maya and Sam pull me over to dance with Scott, and we’re doing ridiculous Eighties hip hop moves in a small circle. In a flash, Brianna comes over and starts dancing like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, grinding on Scott’s leg. He immediately looks over at me and tries to politely move away from her, but her husband marches over and carries her from the dance floor, out of the barn. She’s literally kicking and screaming as he lifts her away.

I cover my mouth. Poor Brianna. Poor Brianna’s husband. Hopefully they will work it out back in their hotel room with some hot angry married people sex.

Scott seems determined to erase that little incident from my memory. He does some fancy footwork, keeping his eyes on me, as if I’m the only person in the barn with him. His torso moves fluidly and rhythmically. I do the one pop and lock move I’ve mastered, and he laughs and applauds.

And now the song is transitioning to my all-time favorite Madonna song, Crazy For You. It’s the greatest slow-dance song, and I always feel it in my lower abdomen, as soon as I hear the music. I turn and start to walk away, but I feel Scott’s hand in my hand, pulling me back towards him. He spins me into his arms, places one hand on the small of my back and holds the other hand up. He doesn’t hold me too close, so he can still look down at me. I can’t meet his gaze, it’s too much. I see Maya and Sam watching us, and I mouth “shut up!” to them. Scott smiles. He says nothing, and waits for me to relax into this.

By the time Madonna gets to the chorus, I have relaxed into it. He really is a good dancer. We sway together, almost imperceptibly. He gradually inches towards me, closer and closer, and I don’t even notice until I feel his warm breath by my ear. I rest my forehead against his chest. “Every breath I’m deeper into you…” I close my eyes and let him guide me with his subtle movements. I can feel his confident and sizable manhood against my thigh, but other than that, nothing about his demeanor betrays any overwhelming desire for me as far as I can tell. To anyone else, I’m sure it just looks like two writing partners dancing with each other at their friend’s wedding. I hope that’s what it looks like. I wish that were what it felt like to me.

And that’s when it happens.

He moves the hand that’s on the small of my back the tiniest bit, moves his hips a microscopic amount, and my legs give out from under me.

It feels like I am fainting.

He catches me, of course, and pulls me up without making a big deal of it, because apparently this happens to the women who dance with him all the time.

“You okay?” he whispers into my ear.

“Not really,” I say, as I push him away. “I need some air.” I walk off, out into the night, where there are fewer Scott Braddock particles in the air around me and I can finally breathe again. I finally stop and look down at me knees. Stupid knees. Stupid shoes. Stupid hormones.

“There you are.” I don’t have to turn around to know that it’s David Stack, and that he’s pretending he didn’t just follow me out here. There is no one else around, only the caterers who are clearing the tables.

“Hi,” I say. I can feel that my nipples are still erect, so I cover my chest with my arms and shiver.

“You cold?” he says, hurrying over to my side. “I’d offer you my jacket, but I left it on a chair somewhere. Here.” He puts his hands on my arms and rubs up and down.

“I’m fine, thanks.” I move away from him.

“You certainly are,” he says. “I’ve always thought so.”

I look around, as if I’m searching for someone, anyone other than him.

“Do I have to pay you to talk to me?”

It’s a line from the Closer scene we did together at school.

“No, but if you want to tip me it’s your choice.” And that was my line.

“Fuck, that was hot. That scene. You. I’m surprised you never went into acting, you’re good at it.”

“Not really my thing.”

“You wanna get out of here?”

He says this at the same time as I say: “Well I better get back to my friends.”

“Your ‘friends?’ I hope you don’t mean Scott Braddock.”

“My friend Maya’s in there.” I start to walk away.

His hand grips my shoulder, yanking me back. “Get back here, you.” He pulls me into him, and plants a sloppy kiss on my mouth.

I try to pull away, but he is strong and determined. I push against his chest.

“Hey!” I hear Scott stomping towards us. He pushes David away from me, shoves him backwards. David stumbles, but regains his footing. “Why don’t you back off, Stack.”

“Why don’t you fuck off, Braddock.” David shoves Scott, hard, but Scott’s feet are firmly planted on the ground and he barely moves.

“You guys, let’s just—”

David pulls back, winds up and punches Scott in the face. “You piece of shit!”

I cover my mouth. “Oh my God!”

A small ribbon of blood spurts from Scott’s nose.

He feels under his nose, realizes he’s bleeding. He looks over at me, looks back at David. David is flicking his opened hand, his knuckles no doubt hurt.

Scott jerks forward, menacingly, and David takes off running.

“Fuck you!” David yells out, as he disappears into the night. Scott runs after him for about twenty feet before stopping.

It’s clear that David is going to keep running.

“Fuck me,” Scott says to himself. He tilts his head back and holds the bridge of his nose.

I run over to him. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” he says, smiling. He sniffles.

“Hang on, I’ll get some ice.” I run over to one of the caterers.

There is already a woman running towards us with a glass of ice water and a napkin. “Here,” she says. “Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine. Thank you.”

I dunk the ice into the napkin and give her back the glass, thanking her again.

I walk back to Scott, who has gone over to the nearest table. He sits down and leans back. I place the cold pack over his nose. He watches me. I pick up his hand place it on the ice pack.

“That was unnecessary. I can take care of myself.” I pull out a chair and sit beside him. “But thank you.”

“That guy’s always been a dick,” he says.

“Agreed.”

“Fuck,” he says, under his breath.

“It hurts?”

“Kinda.”

“Do you think it’s broken?”

“It’s not broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ve been punched in the face more than once before.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me.” I want to kiss him so badly right now, but I don’t and I won’t.

“At least I wasn’t wearing my glasses.” He shakes his head. “You are nothing but trouble.”

“Me? You are.”

He exhales with his mouth open, loudly and dramatically. “So I know how you’ll feel about this, but I have to bring it up now so I can start calling around. Obviously Maya and Sam are going to want to be together in one of our rooms, and I know you won’t want me in yours. Hopefully I can find a free room for the night somewhere, because there isn’t anyone here I want to ask about crashing with.”

This has, of course, been in the back of my mind ever since Maya told me that Sam was going to be Scott’s plus-one. He’s right, I don’t want him in my room. But I will have him. In my room.

“No, it’s fine. Brie did say all the rooms were booked up. I have two double beds, I don’t care.” I have almost even convinced myself that I don’t care, by the way I manage to shrug it off.

“Really?”

“They can stay in your room.” At least if we’re in “my” room, I might feel like I have the home court advantage.

His eyelashes flutter a tiny bit as he tilts his head back again. “Okay. Cool.”

“Yeah. Cool.”

“So they’re getting pretty serious, huh?”

He laughs a little, then winces. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Has Sam had serious girlfriends before, or?...” Maya hasn’t asked to me to get intel on Sam, of course, she is as happy as a clam, but my defenses have gone up on her behalf.

“He had a serious girlfriend in college that he used to talk about. He dated a singer-songwriter for about a year, couple years ago, but she was crazy. Nothing like what he’s got going on with Maya.”

“And how would you classify what he’s got going on with Maya?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Beautiful, hot, genuine big love.”

“Oh.”

“You should be happy for her.”

“I am.”

“Good. Because if you’re questioning my boy’s intentions or his integrity, then you’re even more mistaken than usual. He’s one of the best guys I’ve ever known.”

“Okay.”

“He’s the most loyal friend I’ve ever had. He doesn’t talk too much, but when he does, he’s right about everything.”

I smile. “That’s what I always say about Maya. I mean, except she does talk a lot.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. I mean, I know you’re being protective, but…you’ve got nothing to worry about where Maya and Sam are concerned.” He gives me a look, before closing his eyes and tilting his head back again.

Right.

It’s me and you I should be worried about.

Got it.