I drink from the bottle, as well, then pass it back to the girls. “We don’t have any glasses, so we’ll have to make do with this,” I say cheerfully. And truly, who cares what Emily Post would say about an innocent touch of naughtiness? Well, Booker might. But I’m not going to worry about it. It adds to the night’s merriment.
Will hands me the cork he returned to its wire cage and puts the car back in gear. As he shoots back out onto the road, I carefully wrap it in my handkerchief and put the little bundle in my evening bag. I’m keeping it as a souvenir of this evening. Heck, I might even keep the entire bottle. It is the first standard of champagne anyone’s ever given me.
Between us, we kill off the giggle water on our drive to the new speakeasy. Dot, Clara and I do, at any rate, and even Booker downs a couple big gulps. Will merely drinks a single man-sized swallow, claiming only college boys and chumps drive blotto. I am oddly pleased by his responsibility and the knowledge I am always safe in his company. Dot nudges me and hands over the bottle.
We girls are more than a little bubbly by the time we arrive at Swanny Don’s. Will finds a spot to park in the big, dark lot out front and Clara, Dot and I all but tumble out of the car, laughing as we fumble a bit before finding our footing on the graveled lot.
The thump of drums and wail of horns filters through the walls as we approach the gin joint, but it’s nothing compared to when Booker opens the door for us. We’re hit by drifts of smoke and a wall of sound as we step into the dim, moody interior.
Dot whoops and shimmies her shoulders. “Look at all these flyboys!” She raises her voice to exclaim over the music. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
“I see a table,” Will yells and forges a path for us through the speakeasy to claim it.
I look around as we reach the table. “This isn’t near as high-class as your joint,” I say to Booker. “But it’s quite nice, don’tcha think?”
“Yeah, I do. They’ve put together a damn fine club. I like their use of wood in here.”
“I do, too!” There is a lot of it—on the floors, on the walls, in the polished bar and the tables hosting small hurricane lamps—and the wood glows with a warm-toned coating. It makes it cozy and welcoming in here. The band is more raucous than Henry’s smoother sound, but I bet he would say they’re solid. Flappers are dancing the Black Bottom with great energy with officers and airmen of all ranks out on the floor, and there is just a nice, general feel-good air about the place.
We have barely been seated, me between Will and Booker on one side of the small table and the Brasher girls on the other, when I hear a male voice say, “Hey, doll. How’s ‘bout you and me cut a rug.?” I look up from the drinks menu I’m trying to read by the flickering candlelight to see an airman leaning over Dot.
She flashes him a sassy smile and hops to her feet. “You bet! See if you can keep up, fly boy.”
Returning a cocky grin, he offers his arm, elbow bent, and Dot slides her hand beneath it then curls her fingers back over his forearm. Before she lets him escort her away, however, she turns to her sister. “Order me a G and T if the waitress comes while I’m gone,” she says and nods toward her little beaded bag on the table. “There’s some foldin’ money in the inside pocket.” Then she and the airman make their way to the dance floor.
Less than a minute later an officer claims Clara. Then Booker rises from his chair, saying, “I’ll go see if I can get us some drinks,” and makes his way over to the bar.
I turn to Will. “Is it wrong of me to feel both relieved and insulted that no one’s asked me to dance? I mean, I’m really nervous about displaying my not so Jake dancing skills. But...still.”
“You’re sitting between me and Booker, so the fellas probably think you’re taken by one or the other.”
“Okay, that makes me feel better.”
“If you move to the other side, you’ll likely be swamped.”
I shake my head. “That’s all right. I’m not kidding about being nervous. Especially next to those two.” I wave to where Dot and Clara are dancing up a storm, far and beyond superior to the rest of the dancers on the floor when it comes to sheer talent. “The girls have only been teaching me how to dance for a month now.”
“Ah, but you can sing everyone in this joint under the table.” Will taps my nose. “You don’t have to be the best at everything, Lena.”
“That’s true!” I laugh and bump shoulders with my friend. “But you know me—I want to be anyhow.” I pat his hand. “Thanks. You always know what to say when I start overthinking things or get crazy competitive for no good reason. Still. Maybe after I have another drink.”
Booker returns to the table, his hard upper arm rubbing against my shoulder as he takes his seat. I’m still sitting very still, trying to get a handle on the heat pumping through me when the waitress arrives carrying a tray with the drink order just before a second dance ends.
A couple of heartbeats later, Clara and Dot, flushed and laughing, arrive back at the table and grab up their evening bags to pay for their drinks. Booker won’t hear of it, insisting the first round is on him. With an uncanny ability to read each other’s thoughts, as if they truly are the twins I first thought them to be, they simultaneously jump to their feet and round the table to lean down on either side of Booker and kiss his cheeks.
And I am not the least bit jealous. No, sir. Not. The. Least. Bit.
But I might frown at Clara and Dot a little when they resume their seats.
After drinking half my Bee’s Knees, the new to me drink of gin, honey, lemon juice and orange juice Booker selected for me, I get up the nerve to switch to the other side of the table when the girls leave once again to dance with new partners. Almost immediately, I’m invited to dance. Since it’s the Charleston, which I have more confidence I won’t muck up too badly, I accept.
And it’s fun! Danny, my partner, is as bad at dancing as I am, but he laughs at himself when he goes off track and just grins at me with high good nature when I fluff a step. His easy company and the utter fun of dancing settles my overachiever nerves right down.
We have been here perhaps an hour and Booker, who hasn’t danced since we got here—or even said much to anyone—is off buying us more drinks when I find myself out on the floor with an officer named Jeffry. We’re shuffling slowly to one of the dances not requiring much skill, since it’s mostly body-to-body, cheek-to-cheek swaying in place. Ordinarily I might have felt self-conscious being squeezed up against a man who is basically a stranger. Yet all the fellas I’ve danced with tonight have been quite gentlemanly. Everyone here just seems to want to dance and have a jolly time.
Jeffry is too tall to dance cheek-to-cheek with me, but we’re making it work as best we can when a man comes up and taps my partner’s shoulder. “Mind if I cut in?” he asks.
What in heaven’s name? I rise onto my toes to see over Jeffry’s shoulder. Because, I know that voice like I know my own face in a mirror.
And, yep. Sure enough. My heart beating like a kettle drum, I look directly into the light blue eyes of the last man I expected to cut in on my dance with another man.
20
susan andersen
A helluva lot more tortuous than I expected
BOOKER, a few minutes ago
I come back from placing a new order and tense when I see no one’s at the table. Okay, Lena’s the only one I’ve been keeping tabs on, and I’ve had to grit my teeth every time she’s danced with another man. I stayed steady, though, and didn’t lose my shit as we liked to say in the trenches, because the songs they danced to were all fast numbers. At the moment, however, the band is playing a sensuous torch song.
I knock back a big swallow of the bourbon I carried back from the bar. Tonight has been a helluva lot more tortuous than I expected when I decided to crash the girls’ night out. Because, damn, I want Lena bad! Sure as hell more than any of the saps she’s been dancing with tonight. She is mine, dammit! She just doesn’t know it yet.
I’ve barely planted my ass on the seat, when Will plops down on his. Glancing at him, I ask casually, “All the girls out on the dance floor?”
“Yep.” He looks in that direction and says, “Dot and Clara are always easy to pick out, although this particular dance doesn’t require a lot of skill. Oh, and look.” The amused don’t even try to kid a kidder look Will’s used to great effect since we were kids returns. “There’s Lena.”
I can’t stop myself from scanning the floor. Then I see another man holding Lena close and a red mist floods my vision. My first inclination is to stride out onto the floor and rip her from his arms.
But my mother didn’t raise an animal. I take a couple of deep breaths, get a grip on my irrational flash of temper and slap on a pleasant smile. “Excuse me,” I murmur, rising to my feet.
Will’s brows snap together. “Booker...”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid,” I assure him. I am even damn near certain I’m telling the truth. Without a backward glance, I make my way to the dance floor where I dodge through the crush of couples slow dancing. Finally, I reach out to gently tap the officer’s shoulder in the age-old signal to cut in. The son of a bitch is holding Lena far too closely, so good on me, as the British soldiers I met overseas use to say.
Hell, yes—just look at me behaving like the adult I quickly became in Europe. It’s amazing how fast you can mature when lives are at stake. I might not feel particularly civilized right this moment, but I sure as hell sound as if I am when I say, “Mind if I cut in?”
He shakes me off. “Yeah. I do.”
I can’t swear to what I would have done next. I like to think I would carry on handling the situation maturely.
But I can’t swear to it.
Luckily for me, Lena saves me from having to find out. She raised her head when I first spoke and peers up at me now over the asshole’s shoulder. She murmurs something in his ear.
The officer’s shoulders stiffen, but he loosens his hold from around Lena and steps back, clearly reluctant.
She gives him a warm smile. “Thank you for the dance, Jeffry.”
The other man’s face softens as he looks down at her. “The pleasure was all mine. Maybe you can give me a make-up dance later?”
“May be.”
He turns away and leaves, but not before shoulder-checking me on his way off the floor. I can live with that—hell, I’m kind of getting used to it when it comes to me and Lena and other men. I hold out my hand. “May I have this dance?”
And release the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding when she steps in, placing one hand in mine and sliding the other up my chest to curl over my shoulder. I tug her in, closing my eyes for a moment at the sweet feel of her body pressed to mine. Then tighten my arm around her waist to tug her closer yet.
Given the volume of the music, I can’t actually hear her sharply indrawn breath in reaction to our close-pressed bodies. Yet I sense she has done exactly that by the slight, but abrupt rise of her breasts against my chest before she slowly exhales. And I feel truly content for the first time in... hell, I’m not sure how long. But a whole lot lengthier period than I realized until just this moment.
Swaying and barely moving in the simple, tightly limited pattern keeping us close, I slide my hand up her back to hold her even nearer yet, my fingers splayed wide to soak in as much of her plush heat as possible through the thin material of her dress. I tuck our entwined hands against my chest.
And my heart gives a great big thump when she rests her temple against my jaw in the same taller man/smaller woman cheek to cheek alternative she’d danced in with the officer I stole this dance from. The longer I hold her in my arms, in fact, the surer I am our heartbeats are beating in sync.
A wave of her hair not far from my lips is soft and fragrant. It slides against my jaw when random strands aren’t catching on the faint stubble that has grown since this morning. I have a kit at the club, but didn’t even think about re-shaving until it was too late to do anything about it.
Lena doesn’t appear to mind.
The dance ends far too soon. I wish it would segue into another slow number, but the band plays the opening bars to a Lindy Hop tune. Reluctantly releasing Lena, I place a light hand on the small of her back and steer her back to our table. When she refuses to meet my gaze, I bend my knees until I can look her in the eye. “Thank you for the dance.”
She flashes me a tiny smile. “You’re welcome. I... enjoyed it.” Then she steps back. “You’ll have to excuse me, though. I need to—” She jerks her head toward the hallway hosting the restrooms.
“Sure.” I step back, but keep an eye on her as she heads in that direction.
Which is how I see her veer off toward the club’s entrance. When she pushes through the door, I swear beneath my breath, grab her coat off the back of her chair and follow. Because, Jesus. She’s going out into the dark parking lot from which men have been coming and going all night?
Yeah, no. Not on her own, she isn’t.
Not while I have breath in my body.
21
susan andersen
You don’t get to say maybe, baby
LENA
I need time to get myself together, but it’s colder than a witch’s heart out here. Goose bumps keep piling atop goose bumps up my arms and down my thighs, and I so wish I’d grabbed my coat before I came outside. Of course, had I done so, it’s a pretty safe bet any one of my group not currently out on the dance floor would have been all over me. Demanding to know why I needed it. Where I planned to go with it. In other words, reaping me the precise level of attention that would stop me from grabbing these few brief minutes to myself. Moments I could really use to sort through my emotions. God knows they’re all over the place.
It isn’t just the past few minutes I need to get straight in my head. It’s everything that has been building and building between Booker and me since first discovering the identities of the owner and new singer at the Twilight Room. Every small moment and larger event between us seems to keep piling atop the ones that came before. Forming one great big hazardous and overwhelming ball-up.
Still. I can’t deny I was seriously overheated from that brief dance spent plastered against Booker’s—oh, my—extremely firm self. In that regard, the cold early morning air has quite efficiently cooled me down.
A little too efficiently, as it turns out. Shivering, I cross my arms across my breasts and briskly rub my hands against my shoulders and upper arms in an attempt to restore a hint of warmth. Being out here freezing my seat-cheeks off is baloney—I know that. But darn it all, it took me years not to feel abandoned every time someone came and went in my life. I had finally gotten rather good at avoiding situations that made me feel that way, until Booker blew my world apart. After he abandoned me—and, face it, there’re no two ways about that—it took me almost as long to rebuild all my walls the second time as it had the first.
Walls, which he just handily smashed down during one stupid dance. Heck, not even an entire dance, either, but rather—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” An irate male voice snarls from not too far away. “Are you looking to get assaulted?”
I flinch, yet am not exactly shocked when I look up to see Booker bearing down on me.
Then his words sink in, and I wrinkle my nose. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic, Douglas Fairbanks. I was just looking for a minute to myself.”
“Melodramatic, she says.” He strides right up to me until we’re standing toe to toe and swings my coat around my shoulders. Grasping the lapels, he tugs them together until the sides overlap, the knuckles of one of his warm hands lightly pressing into the inner curve of my left breast. Heat floods me once again and I wouldn’t bet all my hard-earned savings it’s entirely due to my coat.
He, on the other hand, isn’t feeling a likeminded warmth. Not if the way he lowers his head to scowl at me is anything to go by. “This place is crawling with fly boys,” he snaps and uses his grip on my coat to haul me a step closer, his knuckles pressing the tiniest bit deeper. “Men who have been goddamn drinking all night. No woman with half a brain in her head waltzes out into an unlighted parking lot without taking someone along as back up.”
My head snaps up. “Did you just call me stupid?”
“Hell, no, don’t be an idiot—” Booker cuts himself off with an abrupt crack of laughter. “Sorry. That’s clearly not the best way to make my point.” As suddenly as he laughs at himself, he sobers again. “But you have to admit, Lena, hanging around the dark lot of a juice joint full of fried servicemen—by yourself—probably doesn’t rank right up there as one of your better thought-out plans.”
I shrug sulkily. Still, put that way I have to admit—if only to myself—he has a point. I was so hot and bothered the possible hazards of coming out here on my own never once occurred to me. And I’m the kind of gal who usually factors in all the risks in order to avoid putting myself in the path of any of them. In this case, however, I hadn’t thought beyond getting a breath of fresh air and a moment alone to drag my composure back where the darn thing belongs. Front and center.
I should be able to simply admit as much to Booker, but I cannot. I have always had a lit-tle problem owning up to when I’m in the wrong. It is not one of my prettier traits. Yet even knowing this, I allow an old anger to resurface and take the place of…whatever it was I felt for him inside. All I say—in a voice even I recognize as much too peevish—is, “I hate all the cigarette smoke. It stinks to high heaven and it doesn’t do my voice the slightest favor.”
It Had to be You Page 12
