Hard Beat

“You talk a good game. Too bad you can’t play one.” My laugh comes freely, our banter a reliable form of entertainment as we sit in limbo for the next story on the horizon.

We take our shots, and balls fall in the pockets while she hustles me like usual as we tease and walk that fine line of flirting without flirting: a brush of a hand on a lower back, a lean in with a comment in a lowered voice, eyes hungry for the next look from the other. All the while cautious of the eyes watching around us, ready to make assumptions that don’t need to be made.

“You’d better watch your back, rookie,” I tease as I glance at the table, well aware that there are a lot more of my solids on the table than her stripes. “I’m making a comeback.”

Her laugh rings out above the chatter, echoing off the cheap tile floor in the lobby. “You couldn’t beat me if you tried.” She sits with her hip on the edge of the table, distraction at its finest because who cares about aiming my cue at little solid balls when I could stare at her instead?

“I’m in complete control here,” I murmur as I line up my shot.

“Ha. I’ll let you keep thinking that,” she scoffs, knowing perfectly well that comment will rattle any man.

Our eyes lock, so many words exchanged without speaking as the sexual tension thickens between us. Want and need, desire and lust, reverberate through the air like our own private secret in this room full of people. I force myself to go through the motions, placing the chalked cue in the crease of my thumb and index finger as I prepare to strike the ball, except my eyes are on Beaux because, damn, how could I look away?

Her chuckle distracts me, her body calls to me, her defiance is a challenge. And I blame all three of those things when I completely miss the cue ball like some chump. She jumps off the table, a hiss of “Yes!” falling from her lips as she dances around me with a taunt in her eyes and an arrogance to her swagger from being victorious in her distraction.

Out of the blue, music blasts through the lobby. At first everyone freezes, then turns to where one of Pauly’s crew has plugged portable speakers into his laptop and is standing there looking back at all of us. Gus is his name, I think. I remember him because he always wears the most horrendous Hawaiian shirts that look like paradise got drunk and decided to throw up all over him.

“Let’s liven up this joint! We’re all bored stiff… so let’s loosen the fuck up!” Gus waves his arms out to the side for everyone to get on their feet, and the minute he stops talking, the room erupts in “Hell yeah” and whistling.

The lobby transforms instantly as the music is turned up louder so that the speaker crackles from the volume. The necessity to break up the doldrums takes hold of all of us – even the sticks-in-the-mud get to their feet and bob their heads to the rhythm. I glance over to see Beaux’s body sway to the beat as the familiar chords of a song by the popular band Bent begins to play.

Although I’m not normally one to dance, there’s no stopping me at the chance to feel her body against mine. The next thing I know, she’s walking toward me with her hips swaying and her body moving to the music. She sets down the cue and grabs my hand. We begin to move together in steps that don’t match the beat whatsoever. I spin her out and pull her back in like I used to watch my parents do across the kitchen floor when I was a little boy.

On another spin, we lose our grip on each other. Beaux’s shoulder hits the wall, and we double over in laughter at how horrible we are, but my God the laughter feels good. The smiles remain as we get back into the rhythm again, losing ourselves in the song as we dance in the space around the pool table. She raises her arms over her head and shimmies her hips as she lets the music take over, and hell if watching her body move like this doesn’t make me want to light the fuse to the powder keg.

I try to spin her out one last time as the final chords to the song hit our ears, and even though we are still laughing out of control – welcoming the stress relief from both the hours of waiting and the sexual tension that’s slowly building between us – we actually manage to keep our hands joined. When I pull her back into me, I do it with too much force because she lands against my chest, our bodies connected from shoulders to knees, breaths panting in unison as she looks up at me.

And something happens in the moment when the song fades and a new one starts, because neither of us moves. We remain motionless, but the way she looks at me changes somehow. It’s the craziest thing too, because as we stare at each other, chests heaving, the rest of the makeshift party going on all around us, my mom’s infinite wisdom chooses to flicker through my mind and take residence.

She used to always tell Rylee and me that she fell in love with my dad’s eyes first and foremost and that was how she knew he was going to be the one. According to her, eyes are the one thing on someone that never changes, so if you can look into someone’s eyes and see tomorrow, then you’ve found your forever.

Right here in this random moment with music fueled by spontaneity and the heat of her breath hitting my lips as she gazes into my eyes, I’m momentarily spooked by what I see there. And I think she feels it too, because even though we stay in the suspended state of inexplicable intimacy a beat longer, she pushes away from me seconds later, breaking the moment.

With enough distance between us, I can see the surprise I feel mirrored in her eyes. Right then there are so many things I want to tell her, and yet I have no clue where to start. It’s like we’ve both been stripped of that false bravado we had last week when she said she refused to touch me again and I told her I’d control the reins. It’s almost as if the moment were too raw, too real, and holding too much certainty that once we step over that edge, we won’t be coming back.