Don’t look at them. There’s nothing you need out there.

        --But they’re all staring at us.

        I look around, take it all in. They are, in fact, staring. At you, Isobel, the tall tomboyish basketball star in your beautiful blue dress. And me, little ol Britt, who you said looked like Marlene Dietrich in my tuxedo when I picked you up earlier tonight. I know they're all gawking at us, but to try to soothe you, I say, Maybe that's not what they're doing.

        --What else would they be doing?

        Without hesitation, because I’ve been waiting for this moment, because I set you up for it, in fact, I say, Wishing. I know for a fact they’re wishing. I say this as I pull you closer to me. You seem shocked, surprised, that we are this close, even though every time we greet one another we hug. And it isn’t with the “cousin-hug,” with a polite cushion of air between us. No, we throw our arms around one another, and that cushion of air, that room they always say is left for the Lord, is whoofed out from between us. You pull me a little closer, as if you’re thinking of that moment now, and when you speak there’s the slightest hitch in your breath, one I might not have been able to hear had we not been so close. You’re shaking.

        --Wishing what?

        With my cheek against yours, I breathe into your ear, say, They’re wishing they were me.

        You scoff, and I can feel you relax. Your jittering simmers down.

        --Self-centered much?

        But, oh, I wasn’t finished: So that they could be with you.

        You stop dancing when I say this, completely stop moving. I’ve taken you by surprise, but a part of me wonders why, wonders how, oh, Isobel, honey, how could you not have known this is what I really meant? You had to have known, as I’ve always known. You’ve fooled yourself into thinking it’s a surprise, even though I know you’ve noticed how I hug you, and only you, whenever I see you. I know you were very well aware of your own blush at the pre-game party, when our hands touched as we both reached for the whiskey. Why else would you have smiled and turned away, hid your face from me and only me? You must have thought—must have fooled yourself into thinking—I was just being drunk and playful when I sat on the couch next to you, threw my legs up and put them across your lap. But I knew, oh, I knew, by the way your hand graced down against my thigh. I knew when you said, even though you said it through a chuckle, that we should go to the dance together because neither of us had a date.

        --Be…with me?

        You echo me, confused, and I can see the synapses misfiring in your brain through the window of those beautiful green eyes. I pull you just a little bit closer, so that I can put my chin on your shoulder, our stomachs touching, our breasts against one another’s’, and I tell you to keep moving, silly, that you’re losing the rhythm. And, sure enough, you hold me closer too. I can tell from the way your arms tighten around my waist that it’s the way you’ve always wanted to hold me, even if you didn’t really know it until this moment.

        --Oh, you say. This is what you meant.

        Yes, I breathe. This is what I meant. And I kiss you. I have to get on my tiptoes just a little bit to do it. Just once. On the cheek. A quiet way of asking for permission. For just a bit more. And you, you acquiesce, leaning into me, into my lips, your own taking tiny, exploratory kisses across my own cheek until they reach my mouth.

        And then we both fall.

        Maybe it’s not physically, but damn if it isn’t literally. I melt in your arms and you, god, you catch me. You keep me from turning into a puddle on the floor and this is not how I expected things to go. I thought I was going to be the one wooing you, and here I am, putty in your hands, and you don’t even know it. Or maybe you can feel it.

        --Did you really mean it? You’re not just playing?You’re not just…being Britt?

        Yes, I say, feeling so entwined I wonder if we’re still two separate people. As we dance, as we’re swaying back and forth, we’re using our bodies to try and tell one another how exactly we’d make love, and I can tell it would be awkward and clumsy and, oh, so beautiful. So, yes, god, I meant it, and no, I would never play, Isobel, not about anything like this, not about anything so serious, the most serious thing I’ve ever felt in my whole fucking life. I make you hold me again, hold me still, and now I’m the one who’s forgotten we’re supposed to be dancing, and we stay that way, together, for hours, until the music stops and the lights have come up, and even though they tell us that the dance is over, that we have to leave, we both know we’ve already gone to someplace else entirely.