Free Slow Dancing on Price's Pier by Lisa Dale Page B

you’re going to get a hole in one.”
    â€œTold you so,” she said, glancing at Garret.
    He laughed—a real, unpracticed, and not at all sarcastic laugh. His face seemed ten years younger. It tugged at Thea’s heart.
    Irina kissed her on the cheek. “Love you!”
    â€œLove you too, sweetheart.”
    When she stood, she saw that Garret was watching her. Staring. The anger had melted from his expression, replaced by something quieter, more forlorn than mad. She wondered what he saw, what he was thinking. She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and hold him—to clasp all that anger and sorrow that she saw in him and heal it, somehow.
    But all she could think to say was, “You’ll bring her back this evening?”
    â€œAt eight,” he said. He looked down at Irina, who was now holding his hand. “Ready, kid?”
    Irina smiled, enchanted by her uncle. Like mother, like daughter. There was no hope for either of them. “Have fun,” Thea said. She watched them walk out the door—her daughter and the man who might have been her husband, if life had taken a slightly different turn all those years ago.
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    Thea was on the Harvest Dance decorating team during the fall of their junior year, but much as she loved school dances, she didn’t think she would attend. She’d had to play her cards close to her chest: Of course I’m going, she told her friends. I don’t need to have a date to go.
    But the truth was, she’d been hoping that Garret would ask her. And when she’d heard he’d asked Carin Woodhouse instead, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stand watching the two of them slow dancing under the basketball hoops, which had been decorated with a garland of paper pumpkins that she had made.
    The night of the dance, Thea bailed without telling her girlfriends. She and Jonathan rented a handful of prom slasher movies, and they curled up under blankets on opposite ends of Sue’s couch. Thea had spent the afternoon making chocolate-covered espresso beans with her mother—the caffeine and chocolate combo was her mother’s prescription for Thea’s bad mood—and she and Jonathan sat crunching beans between their teeth and laughing at campy murder scenes until at last Garret came home.
    He was wearing nice clothes—grown-up clothes—and unlike other boys his age, he wore them well. To Thea, he looked like a prince—or some dignitary from a different time, come to visit their century. He took off his jacket and hung it behind the door.
    â€œHey!” Garret leaned on the arm of the couch, glancing at the Farrah Fawcett haircuts and polyester gym shorts on the TV screen. “Is this Carrie ?”
    â€œYeah,” Jonathan said coolly.
    â€œWhy didn’t you guys tell me you were watching movies tonight?”
    Jonathan glanced at Thea. Her heart went fluttery in her chest, and she found herself going quiet—as she so often did when Garret was around these days.
    â€œIt was a last-minute thing,” Jonathan said. “Sit down if you want to sit down.”
    Garret did. He plopped on an overstuffed armchair and began to take off his shoes. Thea was rapt by the muscles moving under his shirt, the way his gold hair flopped forward as he leaned down. When he looked up, his eyes found hers immediately, as if he knew she’d been watching.
    â€œI thought you were going,” Garret said to her. “Everyone was asking me where you went. Are you sick or something?”
    She shrugged. “I’m okay.”
    Jonathan threw a handful of popcorn at him and told him to shut up and watch TV. Now that Garret was with them, the atmosphere had changed. Jonathan clammed up around his brother these days—he was a totally different person. It wasn’t long before he excused himself and went to bed.
    Later, when the movie had ended, and Thea was getting her jacket on to go