The Light Between Us

by Poppy Parkes

  Padme slid to the edge of her seat. “Who wants to dance?”

  “Yeah, let's,” said Cecilia, jumping to her feet. Maddie slid out of her chair, languid as a snake, taking a last swallow of her drink before setting it down on the table.

  “I'll watch our stuff,” said Ruth.

  “You sure?” Maddie asked, the other two women already a part of the crowd, moving with the beat under the blue and purple lights that lit the dance floor.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I'll catch up in a few songs.”

  “Okay. Call my cell if you want me to swap out.” Maddie moved to join the others.

  Ruth breathed deep as she watched her three best friends dance. Cecelia had been her first college roommate, a golden blonde with a perpetual natural tan who always seemed to shimmer with joy and was something of a mother hen. It struck most people who met her as odd that she was currently attending law school at Harvard, given her bubbly nature, but she was a skilled speaker and the champion of the undergrad Harvard debate team, not to mention a bookworm like Ruth, so what Cecelia called lawyering came naturally for her.

  Maddie's friendship had come as a surprise. A dance major at Boston College, she and Ruth had met during their junior year of college. Ruth had sat on the T three mornings a week staring across the train's aisle at this pale-skinned elfin creature with a tangled mop of black and red streaked hair hanging down over her eyes. Ruth had been equally mesmerized by and terrified of her, though she never would have said as much. But then one day, while Ruth had been pretending to read an Anne Lamott book while really stealing glances at this mysterious girl, Maddie scared the shit out of Ruth by moving across the aisle to sit next to her. “I really like that one,” she'd said, nodding to the Lamott. “We'll be friends.” And that had been that. Now Maddie was teaching dance at what she called a “prissy little tutu factory,” but they all knew she loved every second of it.

  Ruth nursed her neon-colored drink as she watched her friends groove with the crowd of dancers. She loved this, observing everyone in one of life's many gray areas, where they were half hyper-aware of the attention of others and half uncaring, caught in the rhythm of the music. She never seemed to quite be able to achieve enough of the uncaring to really enjoy the dancing herself, though.

  Except, maybe, for tonight. Maybe Ruth wouldn't stop at her customary last drink, a beer. Maybe she'd have a little more, some liquid courage, to get herself out on the dance floor and moving without too much of a care, like the sensual women in her romance novels. She was tired of feeling so stiff, so old. What if she didn't care so much about going deep with guys for a change and just let herself focus on some superficial, uncomplicated fun?

  Ruth sighed. She found the thought immensely depressing.

  * * *

  Derek had been at Czar's for hours. It was his weekend night ritual – hit up a bar, work the room, never come home alone. And it had always, always worked.

  Only tonight, it didn't feel like it was working. Not that his Mediterranean features and impeccable physique hadn't received some alluring, come-hither looks from more than a few women. It was just that he didn't really care. The idea of bedding any of them, or all of them, or all of them at once, didn't turn him on like it ordinarily did.

  Instead, he'd just sat at this table tucked back in a corner and watched the band do their thing, the crowd moving to their musical offerings. And he was rather enjoying himself, he'd discovered with a surprise. Maybe he was getting too old for the perpetual one night stands. He sighed, running a hand through his wavy chocolate brown hair.

  But he wasn't even thirty, for crying out loud. He pressed his hands to the table, feeling the slightly sticky surface unfurl beneath his palms. Time for another drink, he decided.

  Derek stood and began to weave his way through the crowd. A few of the ladies saw him coming and accidentally/on purpose bumped up against him, but this homage which would ordinarily have turned him on merely felt like an annoyance. He wanted to brush their touch away like he would an irritating fly, like he had brushed Lucy's – no, Leanne's – fingers away from his skin earlier that day after their tryst in his car.

  At the bar, he waved at the bartender, who nodded, knowing what Derek wanted – more of his usual, bourbon. There was something about the amber liquid sloshing languid in a glass tumbler, sometimes with a little ice, that he found so alluring. He hated the taste, but he loved the feeling it gave him – and it wasn't just the intoxication.

  The bartender slid him his drink and Derek took a sip, leaning back against the bar and surveying the room, cringing a little at the familiar burning sensation that ran down his throat as he swallowed. It had become such a comfort, that dull and acrid alcoholic fire. He wondered if that was a bad thing. He wondered if he cared.

  Three women were joining the dancing crowd, adding their own particular flavors to the cacophony of motion – a blonde, an Indian woman, and a dark little scrap of a thing that looked like she might knife him as well as fuck him. They were all attractive in their own way, and yet nothing beckoned him to look closer. He sighed – it felt like all he was doing these days was sighing – and took another swig of bourbon before heading back toward his table, populated with empty glasses whose contents had done nothing to allay his ennui.

  As he moved across the room, a woman sitting alone caught his attention. He couldn't imagine what about her had made him notice her, because there was nothing particularly exceptional or flashy about her. She looked as if she was hardly there, wandering through the field of her own thoughts as her eyes watched the dancers. Derek noted that she didn't seem to have come alone, because the other chairs at her table held coats that weren't hers, and there were far more bottles and drinks on the table than he could imagine her consuming.

  That old sense of going on the hunt, the one that he seemed to be so sorely missing these days, rose in his gut, making his heart beat faster. He smiled to himself. So his mojo wasn't entirely gone. Not yet.

  Derek reclaimed his seat at his own table, but kept his eyes trained on the woman who had captured him. He'd thought at first glance that she was plain, but as he gazed at her, he saw that there was an undeniable beauty about her. She had curly brown hair that she probably hated – all the curly haired girls did – but was wild and deliciously unkempt. And it somehow matched the expression lingering in her large, dark eyes – wistful, sad, but with a spark of something he couldn't quite name. She had a Mediterranean complexion similar to his own, and a curvy body that he knew would feel delicious beneath his hands. Derek had a special love for the women whose bodies rose and fell like the ocean, with swells in all the right places, and this girl certainly had that kind of body. He felt that stirring deep in his core, the crimson electricity of attraction.

  He took a deep breath and another swallow of bourbon. Patience, he could tell, would be the key with this one. And it's not like he didn't have time, when all the other women he looked at made him feel like he'd stepped under a cold shower.

  And there was something about her, some magic that he couldn't source. Her clothes were more about comfort than about looks – denim jeans with slip-on flats and a colorful semi-sheer tunic-style top made of a fabric that wafted gently in every draft and breeze – and she'd kept her makeup light and natural, if she was wearing any at all. With dark, thick lashes like those, she didn't really need mascara. Her jewelry was pretty minimal, too – beaded bangle earrings and a single ring on her right hand. She was sexy, and looked like she didn't know it. A smile played at Derek's lips.

  But in spite of the primal hunger this woman had managed to resurrect in him, his eyes kept returning to the expression on her face. It tugged at him, made his heart twist in a way that was less familiar, that was about something other than sex and sweat and another notch on the figurative headboard. This made him swallow hard, and his veins pulse with something that took him a long moment to place. At last the word came to him – fear.

  He was nervous! Him, the epic bedder
of countless women! This woman, she made him nervous, of all things. Derek chuckled into his drink. How many years – no, decades – had it been since he last felt that? He couldn't even remember. But it tickled him that, after all this time, not to mention so many conquests, he could still feel that tickle of anxiety, the terror of “what if.” To his surprise, it actually felt more than a little scintillating, even while it remained equally unsettling.

  * * *

  “Dude, that guy is staring at you,” Padme said to Ruth as she, Maddie, and Cecelia returned to their table, breathless from dancing.

  Ruth sat up a little straighter, looking around without turning her head, feeling her blood dash faster through her veins. “A guy? Where?”

  “Oooh, he so is,” Cecelia squealed, following Padme's nod toward a table in the next closest corner to their own.

  Ruth followed both their gazes and with a quick look of her own took in a man who was the dictionary definition of tall, dark, and crazy handsome, sitting alone, eyes meeting hers fully and unabashed. Her palms felt suddenly clammy in a way that had nothing to do with the chilled beer she was holding. “Oh my gosh, he totally is, isn't he?” she said, finding speech suddenly extraordinarily difficult.

  “Want me to go kick him in the nuts?” Maddie offered.

  “No, she absolutely does not,” Padme said, slapping Maddie's arm. “At least, not yet. That guy is hot.”

  “Since when does hot equal 'not a douche bag'?” Maddie said, taking a swig of her own beer.

  “That's Ruth's decision,” Cecelia said. “But wow,” she sighed, glancing the man's way again, “he really is beautiful.”

  “Stop looking at him,” said Ruth, flapping her beer-less hand at her friends, the warmth of her flustered blush flooding up the back of her neck and across her cheeks.

  “Why not? He's the one looking at us,” countered Cecelia. “Or really, at you.”

  Ruth sucked in her breath. “Why the hell is he looking at me at all?”

  “Why the hell not?” countered Maddie. “You're hot, too.”

  “I'm not –” Ruth began, but Padme interrupted.

  “Don't look so petrified. He's just a guy. And remember what we talked about earlier? You know, about Rufus and you being lonely and h –”

  “Please do not call me horny again!” protested Ruth, feeling her flushed cheeks grow hotter.

  “Well, aren't you?” said Padme.

  “Who cares,” Maddie said, rolling her eyes. “Horny or not, the question is – what are you going to do about this guy giving you the hairy eyeball?”

  Cecelia gawked at Maddie. “Please tell me you did not just say 'hairy eyeball.'”

  Ignoring the blonde, Maddie wiggled her eyebrows at Ruth. “Come on, what do you say?”

  Trying to be nonchalant about it and sure that she totally failed, Ruth swept at her hair with trembling fingers and stole another look at the mysterious guy. Yep, still staring, and right at her – only at her. Without meaning to, she smiled. The man's eyebrows rose a bit, and then he winked one of his blue eyes back.

  She turned back around. “Ho-ly shit. He just winked at me.”

  “I saw,” Padme said, grinning. All three of her friends, in fact, were wearing the same gigantic grin, even Maddie.

  Ruth drew a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let the air flow out of her in a slow, steady stream. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I'm going to talk to him.”

  Padme and Cecelia squealed, and Maddie, thumped her hand on the table in admiration.

  “Oh, stop it,” Ruth muttered. “Before anything else happens, I need another drink.” She chugged the rest of her beer, then set the empty bottle on the table. She raised her eyebrows at her friends as she stood, leading with her hips, the alcohol making her feel more confident than usual. “Wish me luck, girls,” she said. The three women squealed as Ruth turned on her heel and marched through the crowd to the bar.

  She had no idea what to order, though, now that she was pushing out past routine. She could order any drink at all – the possibilities seemed endless. It was exciting. She could get used to this sort of feeling. Except for the man's gaze – that felt terrifying.

  The bartender nodded at her. “What can I get you?”

  Ruth's mouth hung open wordlessly for a moment of indecision, then the answer came to her. “Wine,” she said at last. “Red. Pinot noir, please.”

  The bartender nodded again and, retrieving a wine glass and a bottle, poured a languid stream of the nearly-black liquid.

  “Thanks,” she said, slipping her payment across the bar. Ruth took a deep swallow from her glass and deliberately turned to look at the man with the bold gaze.

  An electric shock jolted through her body as her eyes met his. She stifled a gasp at the sensation. This was really happening. Here was a man who seemed to have eyes for only her. It was like something out of one of her romance novels. Ruth took another sip of wine, not breaking their eye contact.

  She drew a deep shuddering breath, then moved across the room toward him. She hoped she was moving sexily, but felt more than satisfied with how she managed to walk across the room on her wobbly legs without stumbling and sloshing the crimson wine all down her front.

  Fun, she told herself firmly. Focus on the fun. But even as she thought the words, she knew she wouldn't be able to do it. She never was. Still, this guy was too intriguing to not at least strike up a conversation with. He was better for that than her cat, anyway. She hoped.

  “Hi,” she said, a little breathlessly, when she reached his table.

  The man smiled, and Ruth's stomach swooped. Damn, this guy really is gorgeous, she thought. “Hi,” he replied, blue eyes dancing.

  “I saw you looking at me.” She cringed a little at the words, feeling too blunt as they tripped off her tongue. But then, maybe this guy liked blunt. He certainly wasn't going for subtle.

  “I saw you see me looking.”

  Ruth's mouth hung open for a second, not quite sure what to make of the man's response. Was he mocking her? Or was this how the mating dance worked? She felt so clumsy, so out of practice. Which, of course, she was.

  All of a sudden, laughter churned in her belly and bubbled up and out of her before she could stop it. Ruth felt her cheeks grow red as she laughed.

  “I'm sorry,” she sputtered around her mirth. “Really. I'm not laughing at you.”

  The man didn't seem offended. More amused than anything else, those amazing blue eyes still filled with mirth. “Go right ahead and laugh,” he said.

  “It's just – I mean, really? What you said – I saw you see me looking?” Ruth snorted. “That is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”

  “Oh,” said the man, forehead crinkling and the laughter falling out of his eyes for the first time. “I'm sorry I offended you.”

  Ruth shook her head, sliding into a seat as she tried to compose herself. “No, I'm not offended. I love ridiculous things. Like, seriously. That was amazing. And ridiculous. And amazing.” She wiped tears of laughter from the corners of her eyes “Sorry, that's probably weird, huh?”

  The man looked at her appraisingly, then his frown gave way to a smile. “Don't call it weird. Call it quirky. That makes it sound cooler.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Because I am nothing if not the epitome of cool,” she said, words heavy with sarcasm, feeling her nervous energy ebb. “As I just so eloquently demonstrated.”

  The man shrugged. “I like quirky.” He extended a hand. “I'm Derek.”

  She took his hand and shook it. “Ruth.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ruth,” he said, smiling. Ruth felt glad she was sitting, because even perched on a chair that smile made her legs feel weak.

  She took a sip of her wine. “So, seriously. What's up with all the staring?”

  “Why wouldn't I stare at you?”

  Ruth cursed the flush rising on her cheeks. “I don't know. I guess . . . guys usually don't stare. At me, I mean.”

>   “Their loss.” Derek placed his hand over hers where it rested on the table. She stared at the sight of his hand on hers. Was this really happening? The hottest guy in the bar – no, the hottest guy in ever – was interested in her? Was touching her? She wasn't sure if she should be flattered or suspicious.

  To hell with should, she told herself firmly.

  Then he looked Ruth squarely in the eye and – her mouth fell open – drawing her hand to his mouth, placed a warm kiss on its back.

  She froze. She was probably meant to find the gesture alluring, she knew, but all she could think of was how her father used to kiss her mother's hand in just the same way when he wanted her to shut up, to quit nagging him or wanting him to take her out or put his dirty socks in the damn hamper already. And her mother would always, always fall silent, her voice somehow smothered by an act that should have been one of love, and instead had become one of dominance, of distance.