Adrienne has her head pressed into Trent’s chest, whispering gentle words I can’t hear.
“Let’s go.” Jasmine tugs harder, and I allow myself to follow her lead. She walks me back to my parents’ car, turning and leaning against the door. “I see your boy Trent just went after what he wanted.” Her gaze doesn’t leave my face as if trying to read my reaction.
I’m not that complicated, and I’m sure she can read the frustration on my face.
“Is that something they taught you two back east?” Jasmine lifts her upper lip in a shaky half-smile. Her finger twirls at the end of one of her curls, and I take a deep exhale.
“What am I doing?” I whisper more to myself. Jasmine has been nothing but a trouper all evening. She’s ridden every wave of my unpredictable emotions all night long and is still here. She deserves better. “I apologize, Jasmine. I’m an ass.”
Her eyes flutter with confusion, her body leaning toward me, begging for an explanation. She bats her lashes. “You don’t like me?”
I bite my lip, searching for the right words for a kind woman who is only seeking a soul mate. A struggle nearly everyone goes through. It’s an unfamiliar struggle for me because I’ve always known who my soul mate is.
“You like her?” The weak question leaves her lips and dies in the warmth of the evening air. She tips her head in Adrienne’s direction. “Even now?”
“I’m a fool,” I mutter. “She’s always been there for me, and I assumed she always would.”
Jasmine moves off the car and presses her hand to my chest. “I’m here.”
I lower my chin to my chest and take her hand into mine. A short scoff escapes my nostrils. “You deserve better than me. You deserve someone who is all in. Who wants all of you.”
My words fail to extinguish the hope in her eyes, my message clouded by the emotions swirling in the air.
“Life’s a journey, Lucas. I’m fine with taking it one step at a time with you.” Her voice fills with the familiar sound of confusion, compassion, and need, a sound I’ve elicited from far too many women in my life. Many of them wanted to take the plunge with me, yet my heart had always been walled off, taken by another.
“You are a prize, Jasmine. Never discount yourself for a man, any man.” I glance over my shoulder, my heart racing as I fail to spot either Adrienne or Trent. I pat my rear pocket, pulling out my phone.
“One last dance?” I pose it as a question but don’t wait for a response.
I march toward the brick wall, my fingers swiping across the screen. The song selection is not one found on Adrienne’s playlist or mine, a song neither one of us would ever select. It only takes two bars for Jasmine to get the message.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Lucas?” she says as she lays her hands on my hips. I place mine on the top of her shoulders, and we sway to the slow beat. We move as one, and when the song hits the chorus, we both sing the Pink Floyd classic, “I have become comfortably numb.”
Forty minutes later, I’m standing in front of Jasmine on the doorstep of her apartment complex. I glance back at the car, where Adrienne and Trent remain, pressed together in the back seat.
The pair had disappeared inside the Legendary Hall for about twenty minutes while Jasmine and I danced by ourselves. When they returned, Adrienne avoided eye contact and barely spoke a word on the drive to Jasmine’s house. But she didn’t need words to get her message across. She sat nearly on Trent’s lap in the back seat, his hand on her shoulder the entire time.
“Are you going to tell her how you feel about her?” Jasmine asks, pulling me from my dark thoughts.
I speak without thinking. “I always thought she knew.”
“Even if that was true, she still needs to hear it. It makes a difference.” Jasmine adjusts her glasses, and for the first time, I notice that the rose that had been in her hair all night is missing.
“I may be too late,” I scoff in defeat. I waited for years for the only girl who matters, and I lost her in two days.
“I doubt anything that happened in one night can outweigh the years the two of you have had together. Tell her tonight, or I will tomorrow. You don’t know this about me, but I suck at keeping secrets.” Jasmine presses her hand to her face but can’t hold back the laugh.
Her reaction causes me to snicker for the first time since Adrienne kissed Trent.
“There’s that swoony smile. She doesn’t stand a chance,” Jasmine says, stepping to me. “Despite how things turned out, I enjoyed our date slash non-date. I wish I had met you when I was eight years old.”
“You’re sweet.” I pull her into a hug. “Thanks for understanding.”
“I have no choice. I’m going to be Adrienne’s maid of honor.” She laughs again and then presses a soft kiss to my cheek. “Good night, Lucas.”
I step down the porch steps with heavy feet and a weight on my shoulder that I’m not sure how to unload. As I step to the car, I glance through the rear window of the passenger side of the car. Adrienne’s wide eyes stare back at me with a mixture of longing and hurt, something she’s only shown to me once before.
My feet lead me to the rear door. My instinct is to pull her out of the car and march her someplace private to talk, but before I reach the door, I spot Trent’s hand wrapping around her shoulder, pulling her toward him. She disappears from my view, and I march around to the driver’s side of the car, hop in, and start the car.