I’m just taking a sip of a vodka tonic when Anita appears at my elbow and asks the bartender for a martini.
“There you are, honey! I got here a little late so I didn’t get to say hi to you before the ceremony started.”
“Oh hello again, Ms. Marshall. It was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?”
Usually it’s just something you say at weddings but this time, I mean it. Watching two people that genuinely excited to be together was beautiful.
“It really was. It’s been a real joy to get to know Tank and Emma. They’re very fond of Luke.”
There’s something wistful in the way she says it that makes me think. It has to be hard for her to be here surrounded by all her son’s half-brothers. All the evidence that a man she once loved couldn’t be faithful.
Suddenly I don’t want to tell her all the bad things about me hoping to scare her off.
“Luke is very fond of you. As long as we’ve been friends, that’s the one thing I’ve always known.”
“How long is that?” she asks curiously.
“Um, more than ten years now.”
She smiles in delight. “Is that right? Well, then I have to thank you for being such a good friend to him. All this time he’s told me that his online friendships are real and true. I couldn’t really understand it before but now that I’ve met you, I do. I understand exactly why my son has treasured his friendship with you for so long. You have a good heart, honey. I can tell.”
“You can?”
I desperately want to believe her. I’m constantly conflicted about the choices I should make and I never feel like any of them are the right ones. I want to believe that she can see something in me that I can’t in myself.
She pats my hand. “Yes. Now let me tell you about what a good husband my son would make.”
Her switch into matchmaker mode comes so quickly and so smoothly that I have to acknowledge it with a little bow. “Luke warned me that you’d be measuring me for a wedding dress.”
She chuckles. “You can’t blame a mother for trying. Now tell me about yourself. What do you do? Is it the same thing Luke does or something else I won’t really be able to understand?”
Laughing, I pull out my phone. “I’m in cyber security but I also design video games. Let me show you one of my bestsellers. This is called Pig Punt.”
By the time Luke finds us a half hour later, Anita has downloaded the game on her own phone, is on level five and we’ve officially become friends. He looks over his mom’s shoulder and his brow crinkles in disbelief when he sees what she’s doing.
“Mom, are you playing a game? I didn’t know you even knew how to download games on your phone.”
Anita lets out a whoop. “Level Six baby! I didn’t know how. Seven showed me. Luke, why didn’t you tell me these games were so much fun? I kicked that little piggy right over the barn!”
Luke turns to me. “Who is this woman you’re trying to pass off as my mother?”
Anita gives him a smug smile. “You don’t know all my secrets yet, young man. Remember that, Seven. You have to keep them guessing.”
I laugh at the befuddled look on Luke’s face. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that.”
“Okay, I have no idea what just happened but I’ve been waiting for this all night. Dance with me.” He holds out his hand.
I glance over at Anita, hesitant to leave her alone. She shakes her head and waves us off. “Go. Go! Dance while you’re young and can do all those crazy moves.”
Laughing, I accept Luke’s hand. “I don’t know any crazy moves but I’ll just fake it ’til I make it, I guess.”
He pulls me closer until I fit right in the cradle of his arms. Then he bends his head until his lips are at my ear. “There won’t be any faking between us. Believe that.”
I bury my face against his shoulder, ignoring his chuckles. He seems to enjoy making me blush. The song is a fast number but we’re slow dancing for some reason. Luke doesn’t seem to care though and neither do I. Finally the music changes to a slow song and his arm slips lower on my back, holding me against him.
“Tell me something about you. Something I don’t know,” he murmurs in my ear.
This is a hard one. We’ve talked about so many things over the years. He knew I was in foster care and that I have a younger sister. I’ve told him about my social anxiety and how hard it is to make friends.
“I want to, I just don’t know where to start.”
He tilts his head. “What about your name? You use the number seven in your alias too so I assume it must have a special significance.”
My hand clenches against his shoulder. Of all the things he would ask me, this is the one question I should have expected. But thinking about it always takes me off guard.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just trying to figure out how to explain it.”
I watch the other dancers swirling around us. We’re surrounded by happy couples. This would usually make me feel my solitude even more acutely but for the first time, I feel like I’m one of them.
Being with Luke makes me feel like I belong.
“I was seven years old when my mother decided she couldn’t take care of us anymore. Grace was only a few months old. She told me we were going out for ice cream.”
Luke rests his head on top of mine. Even without seeing his eyes, I can feel his horror in the way his arm tightens around me.
“I didn’t know you were so young when it happened,” he says finally.
“All I remember of her is that she had dark hair like mine and she always smelled like apples. Even though I can’t see her face anymore, I remember clinging to her while she was trying to leave. I just kept saying I’ll be good. I’ll be a good girl, I promise.” My voice breaks and suddenly his other arm is around me too and he’s hugging me right there on the dance floor.
“It was nothing you did, baby. I hope you know that.”
Tucking my head, I wipe beneath my eyes, hoping no one has noticed that I’m crying in the middle of the dance floor.
“I do know that. It took a while but … yeah.”
After a few moments of swaying silently, I clear my throat. “Anyway, for months after that everyone I met would ask me two questions. What’s your name? And how old are you? It became an automatic thing to answer I’m Sarah. I’m seven. Over and over. Even at that young age I knew that all those people weren’t really interested in me. They were just doing their jobs. To them I was just a number.”
I pull back and look up at him. His eyes are shiny with unshed tears as he smiles gently down at me.
“That’s why it’s your personal number, isn’t it? Because that’s how old you were when your life changed.”
“No, it’s how old I was when I learned that I was on my own.”
A tear slides down his cheek. Moved, I reach up to wipe it away. Then right there in front of everyone, he kisses me again.
Unlike before, it’s not a frenzied rush of emotion with searching hands and tongues but a gentle kiss. A sweet kiss. Nothing he could have done would have made me feel more cherished.
And it completely freaks me out.
“Excuse me, I need to … I need to use the bathroom.”
I can feel Luke’s eyes on me as I push through the crowd looking for an exit. Any exit will do even if it leads to the parking lot. I just can’t stay in this room with Luke, his adorable mom and the promise of happiness any longer.
†
In a stroke of luck, the first door I find actually does lead to a bathroom. There’s only one person in there so I’m able to close myself into a stall until I catch my breath.
Even though I’ve had a crush on him for years, falling in love wasn’t part of my plan. Love is one of those things reserved for the lucky few, a privileged class I could only observe from a distance. This isn’t my life. Things like this don’t happen to me. I don’t belong here in his perfect, ordered world.