I couldn’t stop my eyes from flickering toward Max.

Was this some sort of plan? He’d practically dragged me out even though I really didn’t want to go anywhere, he’d dressed me up like a dog’s dinner, and now I was standing in front of Gio having an incredibly awkward, stiff conversation in a totally bizarre nightclub. The sort of place I didn’t think either of us would normally be.

“So, this is nice.” Bryant tried his best to make it less weird. “A bit of a coincidence.”

“Erm, actually Bryant, I need your help with something.” Max tugged on Bryant’s top and physically dragged him away from us.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and watched them move right across the building on some mystery mission, just to avoid looking back at Gio. Much as I wanted to speak to him again, to really explain, this wasn’t the time or place.

“Well that was subtle, wasn’t it?” Gio dragged my eyes back to him with his slightly bemused remark.

“Honestly, this is worse than being back at school.”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to say a single thing on that subject. Being at school was the best time of my whole life, and that was primarily down to the person standing in front of me. Ever since he’d been gone, things had gone downhill.

As our eyes connected I was inexplicably taken back to the moment where we both lost our virginities together. It was sweet, tender, a little bit awkward but fine because it was us. There wasn’t anyone I would have rather shared that moment with. That was back when we were totally in love and we had the world at our feet.

“What are you doing here?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I can’t imagine you coming here voluntarily. It just doesn’t really scream Gio.” As soon as those words spilled past my lips, I felt bad.

I didn’t know Gio, not anymore, so I shouldn’t pretend like I did if I didn’t want to make an already fraught situation worse.

Luckily, Gio didn’t seem to pick up on my faux pas.

“No, it isn’t really. I got dragged here by my boss who for some reason seems to be in the middle of a mid-life crisis. He made us all come and I really don’t know why.”

“Yeah, it is a bit grim, isn’t it?”

We both laughed loudly, which was so much better than the big fight we had the night before.

At least this felt a little bit easier.

Still, it wasn’t the time to force that horrible conversation upon us. I would just have to wait until he hopefully gave me another shot at talking.

“Well, I suppose I better get going back…” he indicated behind him and started to sidle away which had all my defenses raised. This moment talking to him was the happiest that I’d felt in a very long time, and I wasn’t ready to give that up just yet.

“No wait!” The words blurted out of my mouth before I had the chance to think them through. I was going to have to think on my toes now. “Let’s go and dance.”

Dance? Urgh, why the hell did I say dance? I wasn’t a dancer, not really!

“Are you serious?” He furrowed his eyebrows at me, which made him look utterly adorable. I loved his expressive face; it was one of the best things about him.

“You want to dance?”

Well, I couldn’t back out of it now. I grabbed hold of his hand and dragged him out toward the masses of bodies. Drunk people were everywhere we looked, grinding against one another.

It was late enough in the evening that politeness was starting to fall to one side, and people were getting down and dirty. The dance floor was filled with lust, and that affected me deeper than I expected it to. By the time I spun back around to face Gio, I could feel a deep need flowing through my veins.

He moved his body in time with the music, shaking his hips to the beat in an incredibly sexy way.

My eyes were drawn to him. I found myself staring intently, my whole body heating up. He was smoother now, even more so than me, and I really wanted to know how that would translate in the bedroom.

I didn’t come here wanting to explore Gio’s body all over again, but now it was the only thing in the world that I wanted.

“Are you dancing, or what?” he teased, sliding in closer to me.

“You brought me up here so let’s see what you’ve got. Don’t leave me here doing this alone.”

With him up in my personal space, breathing on my neck, it was easy to lose my self-consciousness. I could barely remember that there was anyone else in the entire building. It was as if me and Gio were the only people left on the planet.

I inhaled, breathing him in, and I started to wiggle. I did it in a goofy way at first, but soon I forgot myself and I moved in nearer to him, grinding in time with him.

This was a bad idea.

There was no denying that, I never should’ve suggested it, but with Gio’s knee bumping against mine, with his hand lightly brushing my skin, with that playful smile on his lips, it felt like the best thing that could’ve happened.

I moved in nearer again, until my body was practically pressed up against his, lust absolutely fogging up my brain.

I felt heady, desperate, like all I wanted to do was lean forward and kiss him. My body was tense and relaxed, stressed and happy…

Everything was buzzing, my whole mouth was tingling, this was exactly the sort of passion that I needed in my life. This was what I wanted for my own happiness…

God I should never have screwed things up.

“I’m sorry,” I leaned in and whispered into his ear.

This was a bad time for anything, but I needed to say something.

“Just know that you’re incredible.”

With that I pulled back, just so Gio would know that I didn’t expect him to answer me, but he laced his fingers through mine and he yanked me back to him. Once we were connected again his head fell on my chest and we moved a lot slower. We were practically slow dancing to a fast paced dance song. My heart flip-flopped, my emotions danced, and this felt like a perfect scene in a romance film.

It was just a shame that I’d already wrecked the ending.

My feet shifted from side to side and I held Gio close to me. I didn’t want the song to end because I never wanted to let him go. I wanted to clutch him in my arms for the rest of my damn life.

“Oh my God!” I jumped as Gio exclaimed and pointed wildly in another direction. “Oh God, I’m so sorry I just have to go and stop this…”

“Why, what’s going on?” Panic bulldozed through me, as I tried to grip onto him.

“That’s Jamie, my boss, and Nadine from accounts. She’s hitting on him, even though she knows he’ll never be interested. That’s why I have to intervene. I was basically brought here to stop things from getting too messy.”

I fell backward, hating how much this sounded like an excuse, but if Gio wanted to go then I had to let him. I couldn’t be in charge of how he felt at all.

“Okay, sure…”

But just before he left he grabbed onto my hands and he stared intently into my eyes.

“But if you want to hang out afterward, then I can meet you outside? We can speak a bit more then?”

This was it, my second chance. There was no way in hell that I could let this one slide by.

“Of course, yeah I’ll go now. You take as long as you need.”

He raced off and I watched him for a second with a smile on my lips. That was until Max grabbed hold of me, and I was reminded of the reason I’d turned up.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, giving me an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry for what I did, I just want the both of you to talk. I thought that bringing you into a more relaxed environment would help you both to loosen up.”

He bit down on his nail, looking very guilty, which actually made me forgive him. Maybe this wasn’t the best way to go about things, but he did have both of our best intentions at heart.

“Actually, it’s okay. He’s asked me to meet him outside for a talk so I think I finally might be able to explain myself. That’s all I really want to do. I just need him to know that I didn’t ever want to go.”

“Hmm…” Max didn’t look totally convinced. “Okay, well have fun and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

I made my way outside, anticipation coursing through my veins.

I was almost as excitable as the teenage version of myself, back when my love story was on the right track.

At least now I wouldn’t always be the asshole in Gio’s mind, I could tell him the truth of things, then we could both move forward with our lives.

The only question was, which way would we want to go?