Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91058 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Everyone is losing their minds over this song, bouncing and singing at the top of their lungs, and I find Hudson sitting over at a table by himself. He’s hunched over, his hands clasped between his knees. His brow is furrowed and his lips are pursed as he worries about something.
Dancers move around me, and I have to crane my neck to keep my view of him. I just get him in frame again when Nyles takes my hands and starts to spin me around.
I laugh and placate him, shimmying along with everyone else. It’s become clear that they are not going to let me off the hook with this song, and it’s easier to just give them what they want. But I still take any opportunity I can to look back at Hudson. I arch up on my toes in time to see him shoot to his feet and take two determined steps toward the dance floor then shake his head, turn on a dime, and head out the side door.
“Let’s do a conga line!” someone shouts.
There are audible protests.
“Already?”
“It’s never too early!”
Conga lines are to weddings as the “Cha Cha Slide” is to middle school dances. You’re simply not getting out of it. My shoulders are grabbed. I’m thrust forward and then Barrett and Nyles join in behind me.
“I never can resist a conga,” my brother comments.
“There is something so kitsch about them. I love it. Scarlett, you’re supposed to be kicking your feet out to the side,” Nyles admonishes, seemingly embarrassed by my lack of conga skills.
I’m ignoring them, looking at the door, hoping Hudson’s going to reappear any minute.
Surely he didn’t leave. They haven’t cut the cake. The night’s barely half over. We haven’t even YMCA’d.
I break off from the conga line and head for the side door before I can fully register what I’m doing or what I’ll say once I bump into Hudson. “Are you okay?” seems too serious, too invasive. It conveys the fact that I’ve been watching him all night, that I know something is wrong, but what else am I left with?
I push through the side door and let it bang shut behind me. The music stays in the ballroom. Out here, it’s almost deafeningly quiet. To the right, the hallway dead-ends. To the left, I loop back around and find the entrance to the ballroom. There are more guests out here than I’d planned for. I have to endure a five-minute catch-up with two of my cousins, then another forced conversation with a few of my mom’s friends. “I could just pinch your cheeks! Where are you working now? Oh, look at you go! I’m so impressed!”
Hudson isn’t out here. Just to be sure, I walk the length of the hall again, all the way from one end to the other.
A waiter from the wedding sees me and asks if I need help.
“Have you seen a guy out here?” I ask. “Black suit, black tie, pretty tall, brown hair.”
He shakes his head. “No. Sorry.”
I can only muster a dejected smile. “Right. Thanks anyway.”
Left with no other options, I’m forced to turn back toward the ballroom. I don’t want to feel like this, shoulders slumped, completely heartbroken over the idea that Hudson might have left the wedding without even talking to me.
Have we stooped so far from where we once were as friends?
I almost turn an about-face and head up to my hotel room. Face-planting onto my bed sounds like a welcome alternative to putting on a bright smile and reentering the fray, but I’d regret not being here for Hannah and Conrad, my parents, everyone.
I make it back to the reception in time to see Hannah belting out Beyoncé lyrics, and I almost succeed in forgetting all about Hudson. Beyoncé’s powerful in that way. I can’t just mope in a corner, so I dance myself back into happiness. My parents join me, along with Nyles and Barrett. Even Conrad gets out on the dance floor, though Wyatt continues to refuse. “No one dances like this in London” is his excuse. As if fun doesn’t exist in that part of the world.
“Oh my god, you can dance! Stop being so stubborn and get out here.” I take his hands and start to drag him toward the DJ.
He puts up a good fight. “I mean it, Scarlett. I’m horrible.”
“So am I!” I insist.
In hindsight, I should have believed him. Poor Wyatt is as bad as he promised he would be, and I can’t contain the laugh that bursts out of me once he starts to pair a side-to-side shuffle with a limp-armed shimmy. I throw a hand over my mouth, but it’s too late.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Barrett asks, coming up behind Wyatt.
“I’m dancing!” Wyatt says, tossing his arms up before walking off the dance floor entirely. “Screw you guys. I’m going to the bar.”